Although the set-aside HolyDay for giving thanks has ended, the giving of thanks should never end. We should live a constant life of ThanksLiving. An attitude of gratitude is something we should especially be discipling our children in - all the time, but especially as the next HolyDay approaches.

The Christmas season, like Thanksgiving Day has changed its focus in our secularized (focused on only the here and now - no history, no future means as much as NOW) and “me-first” society. Thanksgiving Day is many times called “Turkey Day” now, as there is no thanks given. (I won’t go there as I’ve already posted a bit on that.) Christmas is many times no longer about celebrating the incarnation of God with us, but about what I can get, and whether I’ll get what I want.

What better preparation can we give our children for this season than solid discipling in gratefulness, (besides teaching them the reason for the season, Jesus, of course.) I’ve given resource recommendations for Character Discipleship on our Growing in Christ’s Image page. Check them out today and, if you haven’t already, begin your study in Gratefulness and Journal your study with Growing in Christ’s Image.

For Me and My House ~ At Jesus’ feet,
Lisa @ Me and My House ~ Discipleship for Life!
1 Thessalonians 5:23
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Whoo-hoo! We’ve been working around the clock on this JUST FOR YOU -
JUST IN TIME for your Thanksgiving Studies!

Announcing the release of

A Freedom & Simplicity™ Thanksgiving Study!

No time to get a webpage for it up right now, but here’s what you get:

a biblically principled study guide of Thanksgiving - both the attitude of gratitude and the holiday. This e-resource covers:

• HisStory: His Word on Thankfulness
• HisStory: The Pilgrims
• HisStory: Thanksgiving Day
• HisStory: In Your Life

It is jam packed full of ideas of what to study (in reliable primary source documents and living books) and how to study it (by R Road to Biblical Wisdom) and how to document your study (into a Book of Remembrance Journal or MyMini Book of Remembrance lapbook.)

Leading questions will guide you as you reason through your study. Also included are lists and links for highly recommended resources for your studies - both physical books and audios to order and free online resources, and activities for you to complete.

You choose the resources and activities that suit your family and the amount of time and money you want to invest in the study. Reuse it year after year as you expand your wisdom, understanding and knowledge of Thankfulness to God and of the Pilgrims, using different resources and activities. This can be a one day study, a one week study, or longer up to a month to 6 weeks.

Well, more later. I’ve got to get to bed.

Get started your Thanksgiving Study TODAY. Introductory Price is $10.

You can also get a free Sampler of it (for a limited time).

Don’t forget to check out our Thanksgiving MEGA-Sale!

We are excited to announce our latest release, just in time for Thanksgiving and a study in Gratefulness -

Growing in Christ’s Image
A Character Book of Remembrance

Add to your faith virtue, … 2 Peter 1:5

Character is the second most important thing we disciple our children in. It is something we both teach and train in - day in and day out. It isn’t the easiest thing we can teach our children. Math, Reading, HisStory are all so much easier. But after the knowledge of God and Salvation by Jesus the Christ alone, Character is the most important thing we can train our children in. We must have the Character ourselves to be consistent and diligent in teaching them. We must realize that the trials we face, even in this, are for our own maturing and growth in the image of Christ.

These Journaling forms will assist you in recording the information, illustrations, and applications you learn, into a Book of Remembrance, as you study the Character Qualities necessary for self-government and growth in Christ.

Read more about it, download a sample, and order here.

Leave me a comment for a chance to WIN Growing in Christ’s Image!  I will draw a winner next weekend and announce them on this blog. (Comments must be left by Friday midnight, Central time. Be sure to leave your name and contact info.)

Don’t forget! Our Bounty of L.E.D. Thanksgiving SUPER Sale  starts Saturday!

For Me and My House ~ At Jesus’ feet,
Lisa @ Me and My House ~ Discipleship for Life!
1 Thessalonians 5:23
Order Christian & Home Ed Resources here

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Greetings from Me and My House,

Our Gratefulness study was completed - lapbooks and all. This was a fun study, especially our lapbooks. We had a lot of greaet discussions. Hopefully we are applying what we have learned and expressing Gratefulness better. I think all of us have become more aware, and are doing this.

We began this study by defining Gratefulness and it’s counter-character traits, Pride and Murmering.

We looked at Scriptures showing us what God says about Gratefulness and Pride, and noted who we should be grateful to and for.

We looked at examples in nature and the Bible.

And discovered the key to Gratefulness and ways we can express it.

We determined specific practical applications we can make in our own lives - who we will express Gratefulness to and how.

One of the projects we completed was writing Thank You notes for Christmas presents.
We utilized resources from IBLP to help us in this study - Character Sketches Vol. 3, Character Booklet #3 Gratefulness, and The Power for True Sucess.

For Me & My House ~ at Jesus’ feet,
Lisa @Me and My House ~ Discipleship for Life!
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Greetings from Me and My House,
As I’ve indicated before, the Mashal is a Hebrew way of teaching by parable, proverb, story - an analogy, metphor - relating what you are teaching to something the disciple already knows. Here’s an illustration of a recent Mashallic teaching I did for our children.

We were (are) studying Governments. I wanted to illustrate to them that the more they are self-governed under God, the less they need to be governed by others.

I took an empty glass and an empty balloon, and put the balloon in the glass. I explained that the balloon is them, the glass is like all the government over their life, and the space between the glass and balloon is external government - people that have to control them. The air inside the balloon is internal government, when there is very little or no air in the balloon, they have very little of the Holy Spirit controlling their life and need much external government - A LOT of control, represented by a lot of air in the glass.

Then I blew the balloon up into the glass. When we are filled with the Holy Spirit (the breath of God) we walk in self-control/ self-government under God, and do not need much external control. There is very little space in the glass around the balloon.

We memorized Galatians 5:22-23. Simple but effective. Better than the little circles drawn in the curriculum.

At Jesus’ feet,
Lisa

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Greetings from Me and My House,

Probably our top pick for character building books, right after the
Bible, would be the Lamplighter Rare Collectors series. These are
classic books reprinted from years gone by - centuries gone by. Books
of exciting stories, written in excellence of style, in a day when
authors weren’t afraid to show morality and the changing, saving grace
of God within people’s lives. These character building stories grab
your heart and change your life. These books would definitely be in our Top 10 best book buys. Of these books, “Basket of Flowers” still
ranks as our family favorite. Although these books don’t “teach” a
particular character trait, their lessons are more subtle - though no
less powerful. Stories can touch our hearts like nothing else, and by
grabbing our emotions can bring about great change of heart.
Liberally use great moral stories throughout all of your child’s
education for spirit, soul, and body. These are some of the best.

Other favorite character resources (listed in our order of preference)
include: “Character Sketches” from Institute for Basic Life Principles
(and other resources from IBLP). These books focus on a particular
character trait, showing God’s design from Scripture and nature.
Home Life produces an e-zine based on the character traits from the
Character Sketches. Each issue focuses on a particular character.

“Building Christian Character” by Blair Adams of Truth Forum is another great resource for older children and adults. It spells out just what a certain character trait is, and isn’t and give plenty of Scripture verses for each.

“Developing Character” is a great resource for pulling projects, memory work, and such into “unit-type studies” on the character traits. This book is more in-depth than the free e-zines from Home Life. It lists several resources (including Character Sketches), songs, definitions,
Scriptures, etc.

“For Instruction in Righteousness” by Doorposts remains a popular handbook for character training, giving Scripture for each trait; as does “Proverbs for Parenting“. There’s more ideas in the former, the latter is more of a no-frills index to the Proverbs.

Godly character is definitely one of those things that is better taught by hands-on discipleship than following a textbook curriculum. But all of these resources can be used by you, as you disciple your children in this important area of their Christian growth.

At Jesus’ feet,
Lisa Me and My House ministries

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Greetings from Me and My House,

Probably one of the top 10 misunderstandings of the “Better Late than Early” philosophy is that if you aren’t “doing school” (i.e. traditional academics) with your young children then you aren’t teaching them anything. We all know that nothing is further from the truth.

One aspect that we highly focus on during these years (anywhere from toddler to preteen) is character development. One excellent tool we can use as part of our “character curriculum” that also covers “doing school” is the reading aloud of biographies of those of great Christian character. We have and use several resources for this.

One of our favorites for the younger crowd is the 3 book series of Hero Tales. In these books are short stories from the lives of several “famous” Christians - 3 stories per person. These are by Dave and Neta Jackson, the authors of the Trailblazers series - which are also excellent stories of missionaries’ lives, though told through a fictional story. For the little bit older children (and adults :-), the new Then and Now series of Christian biographies by Janet and Geoff Benge is excellent.

The stories in Hero Tales are short enough that you can finish them in one setting with little ones. After reading and narrating a story, we discuss what godly character was in the life of the person and how we can be like them. This is just one tool we can to help our children develop godly character in their lives.

At Jesus’ feet,
Lisa

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Greetings from Me and My House,

Our L.E.D. elist began in Oct. 2000, after we discontinued our general Me and My House (snail mail) newsletter. This was our first post, answering 2 questions that were asked.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Q - Where do I begin?

A - In renewing *your* mind! In order to educate our children in the
Spirit, we must first be transformed from our old humanistic thoughts of
education that we grew up with and have become part of our thought
processes. We must seek God and His Word to know where our thinking is not just the wrong thoughts, but know that the wrong thought comes from wrong thinking processes. God says there is a way that seems right to a man, but the end thereof is death. There is a big difference between the Biblical (Hebrew) way of thinking of education and Greek (humanistic/pagan) way of thinking. Obviously, the world’s educational system is built upon the Greek thinking pattern.

If we try to make changes in what we do with our kids, before/without
renewing our thought processes, we will always feel like what we’re doing is inadequate - because the goals, methods, focus, everything is different. It will be dead legalism - we’re doing it because we know inside that it’s the right thing, but we never think it’s adequate and never have peace with it, because it doesn’t line up with our Greek/humanistic
presuppositions/worldview/way of thinking. It is not of the Spirit so it
only brings a different kind of bondage and not freedom.

For more info see “Renewing Your Mind”
http://me-and-my-house.org/cv-renew1.htm
We will have more to say about Hebrew vs. Greek thinking in future posts.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Q - What do you use for your character definitions?

A - Most of our definitions come from the Character books put out by IBLP (Bill Gothard). _Character Clues_ is a game based on the character definitions; so they can all be found there. Some also we have adapted, written our own, or taken from _Developing Character_ by Beverly Caruso (who also recommends the IBLP books, so some definitions are the same.) Check http://iblp.org for their books/game. You will find the _Character Clues_ game, as well as a couple of our favorite resources _Character Sketches_ and _Character Booklets_.

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