Overwhelmed? Tired? Stressed? Not enough hours in the day?

Every parent feels this at times, if not most.

Once you have kids, you’re effectively living another life, a baby’s, a toddler’s, a teenager’s. I remember when my kids were very little, you had to do everything three or four times. You see, it’s not just your shoes you put on each day but your kids. And that applies to so many other things. Urggh.

In all the demands, it’s easy to lose sight of the most important and then feel guilty about it.

We need things that lighten our load, simplify life and make it easier for us to be effective with the things that matter most.

In this post I’m going to kick the year off by reminding ourselves of the most significant ministry we have as parents and let you in on a secret that is going to lighten the burden.

Our greatest goal as parents

Last weekend our minister pointed out from Philippians, how it’s easy for our prayers to get stuck on our kid’s happiness, security, health, balance and good friendships. Every parent wants what is best for their kids. Now the above things are good things but not the greatest thing.

Here’s the verse that shows us the greatest thing for our kids:

“And this is my prayer: that your love abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ- to the glory and praise of God” Philippians 1:9-11

The greatest service and job if you like, we have as parents is to our spouse and kids. Our mission is to see them wise in Christ, with a faith that leads to loving obedience.

But we feel guilty. Why?

Life overwhelms us.

We also feel guilty at times because we leave it to others. Church ministries or schools (if our kids are not home-schooled) become surrogate parents as we hand our kids spiritual development into their care.

If our kids are home-schooled then we certainly have more exposure to them, but judging when to do what, and wondering if we are doing enough is often an issue. We’re looking for things that kill 2 or 3 birds so we can drop something and fulfil that better life we hoped to achieve out of the system.

Often our hopes for our kids can easily get drowned in overwhelm. Then other less important things, take its place.

We feel guilty we don’t do enough.

We may feel insecure and at a loss to know how to do it

We likely feel overwhelmed with so many things that putting effort into deepening our kid’s faith is a bridge too far. Surely, we can just pray for them, right?

Many of us know that modelling right behaviour, discussing Christian principles in the face of secular challenges, handling conflict in godly ways in our homes are all part of this parental role to raise our kids to follow Christ. It can’t just be about head knowledge. Getting our kid to memorise bible verses is a good idea, but if we are hypocrites and consistently flaunt God’s word, then really, what kid is not going to see through that tripe?

Overcoming guilt and overwhelm

I’ve struggled over the years to find resources that help me as a parent regularly engage my kids in the Bible at home. We’ve tried kid’s bibles, stories, devotional work books but often those felt like school work.

The thing is, without a plan, without something that made it easy, without something the kids looked forward to…its always uphill. Of course, over time the kids do see the value but day to day, week to week it can seem like we’re wasting our time. I wish I had something better, something that made my job easier, that the kids looked forward to.

So, I decided to solve the problem and make my own.

Say what?

That’s right I thought…Anton’s shows are loved everywhere by kids…why can’t Anton come to every family in every home and lighten the load of all these families so they can kick some big goals?

Over the past 7 years or so I’ve been performing live shows for Anton’s Antics. But over the 6 months I’ve been thinking about how we could share those incredibly powerful, entertaining shows with more people. I remembered how much I wanted my kids to know and follow Jesus and how I wanted that for every other family…if only I could bring Anton to everyone.

So now we are doing it. That’s right we are experimenting with a few different formats and writing and filming videos for distribution online.

One of the video formats we are experimenting with is a snappy, 3-4 minute ‘verse of the week’ kind of video. I call them devotional videos as I made them to suit my family, something I could pull up, get the kids to watch, ask a question and pray. Short. Sweet. Simple.

Imagine if you could as a parent pull up something like that every week?

Imagine as a ministry leader, being able to use that in church every week?

It’s going to save your bacon, right? (translated …. save you time and stress).

We’re also looking at longer videos that teach a Bible lesson and capture the magic from one of the lives shows in around 10 minutes.

Imagine the difference that could make if you could have access to one of these regularly?

Every parent wants what is best for their kids...So help is on its way folks!

Well, that’s enough teasing for now.

Stay tuned and I’ll update you with how it’s shaping up.

We do need your input though.

Let us know what would really save your bacon every week? TELL ME.

Let Anton solve it for you!