Mom 2 Mom Wrap Up and Giveaway Winner!

First of all, I want to thank everyone who participated in my Mom 2 Mom Carnival Encouraging Your Children's Relationship With Jesus - your participation is what made it so successful. I am so excited about all the ideas that were shared and I wanted to summarize something that impacted me about each contributor, or simply share a quote that particular inspired me. If you haven't already, please take the time to visit each post as there's some really great ideas out there. I will, of course, make it easy for you, by linking directly to each post right here.

Kristilea from In the Lord's Path - One thing that impacted me about this post was how her and her husband teach their children to pray. Each child needs to come up with one thing they are sorry for doing that day, and one thing they are thankful to God for that day. This helps them to get used to repenting to God when they do wrong, and to practice thankfulness for all the blessings we have. One parent always prays after they do, to give them the opportunity to learn by example as well.

Jessica does have a blog but she didn't have time to write up a full post, so this is a quote from her comment....

We pray before every meal and read and pray with them before bed, but I think it's important for kids to know they can talk to God ANYTIME, and so I try to make a point of stopping and praying with the boys throughout the day - whether it is to say Thank You for something He blessed us with or to ask for something we need or to pray about bad attitudes.

Nicole also has a blog, but it's private so that won't help you very much. She was kind enough to post her blog in the comments though, so you can still read it there. Here's a quote I liked...

we also talk about God in everything. We talk about how cool it is that God made the penguin babies have a call that their mother knows, we talk about how beautiful a rainbow is and why God made rainbows, we talk about some things we see on tv and how that pleases or displeases God. God is the focus in what we talk about and learn about.

My IRL friend Pam had some wonderful thoughts as well. Some highlights for me include participating in a pray for your neighbour challenge, serving in their church and encouraging their children to do the same, her husband taking one child out for breakfast each week (open lines of communication!) and a really neat idea of a 13th birthday book (check out her post for full details on that one).

Missy's post was the inspiration behind this carnival to begin with and then she added another post that I though applied so well - how she was hit with the fact that we are our children's bible study. Mull that over a bit!

Here is a quote from Kim's post....

I think the number one thing to do to encourage kids to have a relationship with God is walk with God yourself. Kids learn the most from what they see, and if all they ever see is a ‘Sunday Christian’, how can we ever expect them to move beyond that?

Here is a quote from Maggie's post....

Example: As human beings we tend to fail at this regularly, but Josiah and I believe that we are to intorduce our children to Christ by "being Jesus" to them. That means being consciencious about how we treat others, each other, and our children. It means demonstrating Christ-like love and a Christ-like attitude.

My cousin Jacquie participated by commenting - here is a quote from her...

One way that I believe we are making an important investment in our kid's futures and their walks with God is when Joe & I have our times of prayer together for our family. Sometimes Justice joins us for these prayer times when he wakes up early & even if he doesn't know what's going on, I think it's good that he's a part of it.

Sandy and her husband are both first generation Christians so this is a new frontier for them. But she's right on target with her ideas, including....

Live it out. Sounds simple but really is so hard. How can I teach my kids to love Jesus when I am not right with Him? How can I teach my kids that God values patience and kindness with one another when I am hot-tempered and unkind? Nothing is more convicting then hearing harsh words you've said repeated by your child. Really. Trust me on that. It's a daily battle to live in a Christ like manner, not just to please Him, but to teach my kids what that really means.

My cousin Tammi's post focused on feasting on the Word. She uses The One Year Bible for Children with her girls and is looking forward to getting Big Truths for Young Hearts to help teach her girls rock solid theology from the get go!

Sarah had one very unique idea that I think is just fabulous. She explains it here....

We want our kids to know the world that Jesus lived in...that David lived in...that Noah and Abraham and Isaiah lived in. So we try to bridge the cultural divide as much as we can. We try to teach them of the feasts and the meanings behind them. (We are integrating more and more into our lives each year in that regard). While we are Christians, our faith is based on a book written in a totally different culture then we live in here today in the U.S.We feel it is very important to show them the Bible through the eyes of it's culture, not just through how the culture we live in sees it.

Pam's post focuses on teaching through reading. She recently had a great experience when she went out on a limb and read Hinds Feet on High Places to her son...

It never occurred to me that, since it's an allegory, it actually HELPS a child to visualize and understand things that were hard to grasp before. Trying to explain craven fear, or pride, or bitterness and self pity to a child can be difficult; in this book, those things come to life and speak and act in ways that are recognizable.

Julia's opening paragraph sums this topic up so well I think...

When it comes to children, some things they absorb and some things they have to be taught. And some things, it's both. Christianity is one of those things.

And one of the ways to teach..

Practice What You Preach. If you want your kids to treat people with respect, you should. If you want kids that don't criticize, don't be critical. If you want kid who affirm their mate, don't dare trash your spouse. You get the idea.

I found June's blog "A Wise Woman Builds Her House" from Kristilea's blog and there happened to be a post on this exact topic. She's doing a series called The Christian Mother's Series and there's some good stuff there. One thing they strive to do is teach their children servanthood.

How do we teach servanthood? We teach by doing---this means volunteering at the food pantry, making bread to take over to an elderly neighbor or expecting mother, raking someones yard or shoveling their driveway.

There definitely seemed to be some recurring themes here - scripture, walking the talk, and prayer!

Thanks again to everyone who participated in the carnival. Make sure to read everyone's entries for the rest of their thoughts/ideas. The stuff I listed was just the tip of the iceberg, there's more where that came from, so dig in!

Now, on to the giveaway!

Since Nic already won the original giveaway for this carnival, she is not eligible for this 2nd one. Everyone who participated by July 27th got 2 entries, everyone else got one.

And the random number generator picked entry #2 which is.....

Jessica!!

I have Seeds of Courage, and The Power of Encouragement left. Let me know which CD you want and I'll get that mailed out to you as soon as we get back from our getaway this weekend. Congratulations!

Thanks again everyone, for making this carnival such a success. I've learned a lot and I really appreciate all your thoughts.