Family Ministry

Pastor Scott Kedersha has worked with more than 5,000 premarital couples to prepare them for the biggest decision of their lives. In Ready or Knot?, he offers practical and Christ-centered guidance for couples for all of the days after the wedding day.

Your personality is a gift, not a liability. This book helps you uncover and embrace the hope, laughter, and joy of using your unique gifts to parent your children. Life as a mom is loud, but you long for quiet. When the volume of family life clashes with your personality, frustration, guilt, and overwhelm naturally result. In Introverted Mom, author Jamie C. Martin lifts these burdens from your shoulders, reminding you that your steady strength is exactly what your family needs in this chaotic world.

If your emotional pain feels physical and your physical pain feels emotional, your marriage may be making you sick - literally. Join Dr. David Hawkins and his sons, an internist and a surgeon, as they explore the effects relational stress and trauma can have on our bodies.

Mom and dad, your kids are created in God's image, not your own. Jill Savage and Kathy Koch will guide you in truly appreciating your kids. They will teach you how to study and become an expert on your children, because you cannot fully embrace them until you truly know them.

From the moment you discovered you were going to be a mom, you envisioned spending each day with your kids, guiding, teaching, and loving them. But diapers, wipes, shoes, and braces are expensive. Though it may feel impossible to manage on one income, author Erin Odom of The Humbled Homemakerblog is here to tell you that, through God's grace, staying at home with your kids isn't just doable; it's doable while living the good life. Erin shares 100 tips, tricks, and simple ways that she has provided the good life on a budget for her family, and you can do the same.

While parents long to better influence and express love to their children, they often have no clear plan of action. As a result, daily hopes turn into years of missed opportunities. The Love Dare for Parents helps busy moms and dads more fully cherish, enjoy, and impact each of their children during each season of their lives. From the writers of the original Love Dare (over five million copies sold), this new 40-day journey will help you to daily demonstrate love to your sons and daughters and keep your relationships respectful and close...long-term.

In this updated and expanded edition of The Silence of Adam, Crabb and his colleagues, biblical scholar Don Hudson and counselor Al Andrews, offer a fresh look at how God designed men. The book deals thoughtfully and honestly with men's ongoing struggles and exposes the difficulties they have in relationships. It presents the rich calling men have to reveal God in ways uniquely masculine. And it summons them beyond their paralyzing fear of failure to bold risk-taking, courageous action, deep spirituality, and full-hearted living.

Conflict is inevitable, but peace, especially among Christians, is essential. When conflict turns into peace, frustration becomes clarity and turmoil becomes unity. When conflict turns into peace, God is glorified. But how do we find peace without ignoring our problems? How do we pursue unity without compromising on our principles? The Path of a Peacemaker offers a simple, proven path to a lifestyle of peace. It guides you through an examination of your own personal story, identifying the origins of your hopes and fears.

The transition from "married" to "married with children" can be tough. Before they know it, a once youthful and energetic married couple finds themselves in a minivan loaded with noisy kids and littered with Cheerios, crusty Sippy cups, banana peels, and missing library books. As much as you love your children and work hard to nurture and train them for the future, the challenges that come with parenthood can make the "for better or for worse" promise a hard one to honor.

Quite a few dads spend time with their kids. However, many have no clue what their kids really need. Enter author Jay Payleitner, veteran dad of five. His book combines straightforward features with step-up-to-the-mark challenges men will appreciate: NO exhaustive (and exhausting) lists of things you should do. NO criticism of dads for being men and acting like men. Dads will feel respected and empowered, and gain confidence to initiate activities that build lifelong positives into their kids.

What your marriage will become is determined by how you pray. Bold prayers honor God. God honors bold prayers. Praying Circles Around Your Marriage will empower you and your spouse to identify your greatest dreams for the most important relationship in your life and pray the kind of audacious prayers in which God finds delight.

What do you do when your inner world is crumbling in the aftershock of this devastating betrayal? Listen to this book! From the seven steps for self-care and learning how to deal with the emotions that follow this unwelcome news to considering the “why” of his behavior and deciding on a plan of action, this book gives women a process to follow once they find themselves in “aftershock.” Based on biblical principles and sound advice, Aftershock is designed to help women heal, grow, and receive restoration for themselves, their husbands, and their marriages.

Jim Daly, president and CEO of Focus on the Family, is an expert in fatherhood - in part because his own 'fathers' failed him so badly. His biological dad was an alcoholic. His stepfather deserted him. His foster father accused Jim of trying to kill him. All were out of Jim's life by the time he turned 13. Isn't it odd - and reminiscent of the hand of God - that the director of the leading organization on family turned out to be a guy whose own background as a kid and son were pretty messed up?

There are literally thousands of books available on how to live various aspects of the Christian life. Of these, at least a couple of dozen pertaining to family life and child training are well worth reading. This is not one of those books. This book is designed to help you take those other books, as well as all the sermons, teachings, and exhortations you have received on child training and leadership in the home, and make sense of it all. Pastor Tad Thompson has assembled a biblical approach to effective family discipleship.

We all need more energy, the vitality that helps us stay motivated, focused and productive in life. We know we receive energy from good nutrition, along with working out, adequate sleep and maintaining positivity. But there is another major source for the energy we need: having the right kinds of relationships with others. Not the ones that drain us, but the ones that refuel us.

Your children will either live forever with Jesus or apart from him. Too many growing up in Christian homes will not follow Christ as adults. Do you have a strategy for parenting in today's hostile culture?

Children today live in an unpredictable, disruptive, and often violent world. Many of them live in two different homes with different sets of expectations. They face bullying at school and online. They hear news of school shootings, and racially or religiously motivated violence. They may have lost a friend or a loved one. As parents, the impulse to protect our children is strong, but that very protection can end up handicapping them for life. Rather than seek to save them from the hard things, parents must teach their kids how to cope with and rise above their problems.

Alongside offers practical application and biblical truths to highlight the complexities of relational youth ministry, address the needs real teenagers encounter in their daily lives, and engage their hearts rather than just their behavior. Hill explores what it looks like to not only share the love of Jesus with our teenage friends but to share our very lives with them, as well.

Dinah Taylor has an orderly life that is just how she likes it. A perfectly furnished luxury apartment, a satisfying career as a scientist and CEO of her own company, and an uncomplicated personal life. But all of that changes when she meets seven-year-old Jonah. The boy shows up one day, a scruffy dog by his side, in front of her office building. Dinah knows nothing about kids and even less about animals, but after she buys him breakfast, he shows up the next day...and the next. She tries to learn more about him, to help him, but he's remarkably skilled at evading her questions.

What do you do when someone you love leaves? And how do you pursue someone who has hurt you, who has sinned against you? In Letting Go, pastors Dave Harvey and Paul Gilbert share stories of pain and stories of hope as they reveal how to care for the prodigal who has strayed. Whether you are dealing with an unfaithful marriage partner, a rebellious child, or a wayward friend, the counsel they offer will help you to pursue a gospel-rooted approach, grounded in truth and practiced in the midst of Christian community.