Family Values
val•ue: a person's principles or standards of behavior; one's judgment of what is important in life.
What’s important to you…to your family? What are you all about? Have you ever thought about it? Prayed about it? Talked about it? Written it down?
Years ago, a mentor-couple encouraged us to think prayerfully about what we want our kids and family to experience over our journey of parenthood. They challenged us to think intentionally about the values we wanted to instil in our kids that would be part of them by the time they left our home. We knew that in the midst of all life’s activity we needed to have values that we saw on a regular basis, talked about, and celebrated.
When we think of the importance of family values, we’re reminded of Proverbs 29:18. Family values help us see what God is doing, and who He is leading our family to become!
“If people can’t see what God is doing, they stumble all over themselves; But when they attend to what He reveals, they are most blessed.”
After gathering with some friends and dreaming up some ideas we came up with “The Herb Family Values.” We designated one value for each month of the year. We framed our values and put them on our mantle as a reminder and “due-north” of who we are and what’s important to us. We also assigned scripture to each value and framed them as a reminder on our dinner table.
By seeing the values daily, talking about them, and even creating experiences with our family to live-them-out we found ourselves becoming more and more in alignment with the values we say are important to us. Here are the family values we came up with for the Herbs and how we celebrate them throughout the month or year.
Our challenge to you:
Take our ideas, get together, and create your own family values! If you see them and talk about them, your values will find their way into the daily rhythm of your life and become a part of you and your family. Enjoy!
This is a large framed picture of our family values that sits on our mantle. We see the values every day as a reminder of who we feel God has called us to be as a family. As parents, we are always asking: Do we see this value in our family’s schedule or actions? How can we lift-up our value this month?
We have scriptures that go with each family value. This small frame sits on our dining room table as a way to tie God’s word to our value for the month. Our 12 different values sit in the frame and are changed-out each month to make it simple!
When we have dinner together we will ask one of these questions:
“Ok kids! Does anyone remember our value this month?” (This is always funny to watch them react and answer). Then we ask just one of the questions below…
Where have you lived-out this month’s family value this week?
Where have you seen someone in our family living out our value this week?
Read this month’s verse: What’s one thing from the verse for this month that stands out to you today? What does it say about our value?
What’s one thing we can do as a family this month to grow more in our family value?
The family value and scripture framed on your dining room table makes for a quick, easy, and intentional conversation that can lead to talking about the scripture, praying for one another, reflecting on family, planning fun adventures that reflect the value, etc! Enjoy making this idea your own and implementing it with your family!
