The Frantic Family

When you think of the word frantic, you come up with some really not so pleasant images.  Hurried, stressed, impatient, at the end of your rope!  When you pair that with your family, it becomes downright scary.

For those of you who know Jason, you know he is a strong leader and extremely strategic.  He likes things to have a purpose and objectives that help meet that purpose.  Obviously, that is one of his roles at church.  If you don’t want him to ask the Why? question, don’t invite him to the conversation!  This also manifests itself in our family.  Don’t get me wrong, we don’t outline everything we do and identify what our goal is and 5 subsequent objectives to meet that goal!  But, we are very future minded, in terms of our parenting, our finances and our faith.  We look at the end result, I guess you could say and work backwards.

Enter this book….

The author of this book is a business leadership guru and Jason had read all of his other books.  Then, this one came out geared toward the family.  The basis of the book is restoring sanity to your family.  Not really something that is gushy, lovey and warm fuzzy.  During our addition, we let a lot of things slide, so we were ready to restore some organization, time management and routine to our home.  One aspect that is seen in all of Lencioni books are that he tells a fictional story about a company or in this case, a family.  He also gives a lot of examples on how to apply the techniques to your family.  The book instructs you to ask your family 3 BIG QUESTIONS:

1. What makes our family unique?

Basically, this is a combination of a mission statement and description of your family.  When we started answering this question, I looked at him and said, “The fact that we are doing this, makes us unique.” (insert somewhat cynical voice.) We did end up having quite a lengthy discussion, though. We had to determine the distinction between who we ARE and who we WANT to be!  This is 3-4 sentences.  One of our lines is : We believe in strategic decisions that impact our family’s future, living out our strengths for God’s Glory, to display the joy of Christ, and join God’s heart for the nations.

The cool thing is there is no wrong answer.  Each family is wired differently and has different things that are important for them.  It could be being outdoors, sports, serving others…anything goes.

2. What is our top priority- rallying cry- right now?

This can be anything you are dealing with as a family that you want to address and intentionally focus on for the next few months.  It can be finances, a project, a child’s behavior, or planning for college.  Our rallying cry was to Re-Establish our Family Routine and Daily Strategy.  Next, you define your objectives to address your rallying cry.  One of ours was Family Nights two times a month and date nights two times a month.  So far, we are doing a decent job at this.  Then, you look at your standard objectives.  These are just the things you want to be addressing as a family in general.  For example, finances, exercise and faith were three of ours.

3.  How will we talk about and use the answers to these questions?

The book suggests meeting at least once a week to check in.  Jason and I check in on Sunday nights and give ourselves a “color” to grade how we are doing.  We also look at our budget. Red means needs a lot of work and green means doing well.  We also check in daily about the next day.  These are things that most couples probably do in some form or fashion.  This just gives structure and accountablity on seeing it through.

We have all of our quesitons answered and hanging on our fridge to remind us what we are rallying around right now.  For a girl who has struggled with being disciplined my whole life, this is really helpful.  This is really just a jumping off point for conversations that we need to be having as a couple and as parents.  In my times with the Lord and in the Word lately I keep coming back to living the abundant life.  I think great marriages and strong families don’t just happen.  We have to be intentional in creating those relationships. As a wife of one and the mom to three there are a lot of things that can fall through the cracks.  This is just helping us minimize those crack fallers!