Balancing Your Work and Family

Ten Tips for Balancing Your Work and Family

Welcome to the new weekly Local Church Outreach newsletter, and a warm welcome to all the Local Church newsletter subscribers who are joining us.

I'd like to kick off our journey together with an important reminder that your work for the Lord starts in your home with your family. Too many times our families are expected to bear the burden of our priorities being out of order. They get the scraps of time that are left over once everyone else has had their share.

This week's first featured article 10 Tips for Balancing Your Ministry and Family has some great practical advice for making the most of the time you spend with your spouse and your kids.

Your family is one of the greatest gifts and stewardships that God has given you. Make sure that you are showing them Christ by valuing your time with them, loving them, and helping them grow into the people God wants them to be.

Keep reaching out,

Jonathan Sprowl Editor, Leading Outreach

CT's Christmas Gift Buying Guide Meaningful gifts for your family and friends.

Work & Vocation 10 Tips for Balancing Your Ministry and Family Help for the tug-of-war. Greg Leith I slipped into his room late one evening as I arrived home from work only to find him wide awake, snuggled under the covers. Click to continue

Welcoming Visitors Where Are the Women? How a guest's observation inspired me to develop more women leaders. Steve Norman I think it was spring of 1999. As the young adults director of our church, I had recruited a small team of volunteers to serve on a short-term mission trip. We would work for the Minneapolis-to-Chicago AIDS Ride, assisting 1,000 riders on their five-day, 500-mile trek to raise money for AIDS research. This wasn't our church's standard mission trip, so there was certainly some skepticism about it from the rest of the church. Click to continue

Global Mission Surviving Mission Emergencies Planning for unexpected events on short-term missions here and abroad. Laura Leonard There's plenty to excite your imagination when you're planning a short-term missions trip: The ministry of your work in the field, the spiritual growth of your group, the opportunity to support a missionary, and to share the love of Christ with people around the world. And there are many details to nail down, including flights, transportation, and accommodations, among others. Click to continue

Practical Training For God So Loves the City God's message of comfort and hope speaks into the city's soul.   More from CT Pastors The Gift of the Son: Wonderful Counselor Finding encouragement in what God has already done for us. Todd Wilson 30 Leadership Lessons from 30 Years at the Same Church My own '30 for 30.' Ronnie Floyd Heresy Hunter or Heresy Healer? It's better to use truth to restore than merely to divide. Josh Kelley Related Free eNewsletters Each weekly issue equips you with the best wisdom and practical tools for church ministry. Sign Up Now Inspire life-changing community innovative training resources, Bible-based curriculum, and practical articles. Sign Up Now

Justice & Compassion

Ministering in the Shadow of America's 'Prison City' What does it mean to 'be the church' when a quarter of your town's population lives behind bars? Linda W Perkins It's almost noon on a Tuesday afternoon, and the sun is beating down on the pavement in front of the massive red brick walls of the Huntsville "Walls" Unit state penitentiary in Huntsville, Texas. It's a place familiar to the media—the original home to "Old Sparky," and the place where the state with the highest execution rate in the nation still carries out its death penalty by lethal injection. Click to continue

Culture & Politics

Have Coffee With a Radical: The Value of Listening to People We Disagree With

If we're only hearing from people who think like us, we're missing out on a lot. Politically, theologically and relationally.

by Karl Vaters

I have friends I'm not supposed to have.

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