As You Go with Jonathan & Emily Martin

In today's episode We're share a ton of things that we do for fun as a family but as we do, we talk about why planning is so helpful in creating a culture of having fun with our family,  and we talk about how we plan for our fun and at the end of this episode....and we bring on an extra special guest at the end. 

Somewhere along the way, we may have picked up the idea that to be a mature Christian means that we must be stoically serious all the time. Even if we don't believe that this is true, it might be the impression we give when we are discipling our kids if we forget to help them see that even our fun together is a part of our worship to God! Mature Christianity comes with a smile. As we've seen and will continue to see on today's podcast, the Bible teaches us that mature Christians enjoy life, they rejoice, and they are wonderfully happy in Jesus. In fact, Christians should be the happiest people on earth. We Christians take life seriously, but our deepest reality is joy. In fact, our ability to enjoy life and our happiness in Christ is a big part of our worship of God. We're going to deep dive into all of this together today on the podcast as we continue in our series on the importance of having fun together as a family.

Having fun together is simply a blast  - but another reason why we should diligently have some fun with our kids is so that we can teach them HOW to have fun. We all desire happiness, fun, enjoyment, and pleasure, and there are a LOT of good things that God has given to us to enjoy. But, because of sin, there are dangers and pitfalls to having fun. There is a way to enjoy the good gifts of God in a way that honors, glorifies, and pleases him and that same way actually maximizes our enjoyment in both the gifts and the Giver. But there are also ways for us to pursue fun and enjoyment that dishonor God and lead to heartache, pain, and even death. Having fun with our kids gives us the opportunity to lead our kids in how to have truly have fun and enjoy their lives. Training them how to have fun through a mixture of experiences and conversations can help save our kids a lot of heartache and hard lessons down the road.

Is fun a "lesser" thing to pursue? Among Christians, sometimes it seems like this is true! But today on the podcast we're going consider a higher view of fun. And what higher thing is there to consider than God Himself. So we're going to talk about 3 ways we're like God when we're having fun. One of my favorite things to discover about God several years ago was that He is the happiest being in the universe. And if you stick with us throughout this episode I think you'll be convinced, as I am, that God has a lot of fun.

How important is it to have fun together as a family? Maybe that's a question you're asking because sometimes having fun can seem frivolous and trivial. Surely we should be doing much more important things like reading the Word, praying, or worshipping God. And isn't having fun kinda dangerous? I mean, we need to be careful not to have too much fun, right? We don't want to idolize the things that bring us joy. These are good questions, but we believe that having fun is a crucial part of our family worship. That's why it's one of our six pillars of family worship. A pillar holds things up. Without a supporting pillar, the building falls and is unable to stand. If we aren't having fun together, we believe that our family worship isn't fully supported and will have a hard time standing. We believe we won't be as successful in disciplining our kids and one another if we neglect to have fun together. So today, we're launching into a new series that's all about fun. Over the next several weeks and episodes, we're going to talk about the important role of fun in our individual lives and our family lives. 

We are unlocking the podcast vault and letting you in on an exclusive podcast episode that has never before been released to the public! In March 2019, we recorded 10 podcast episodes, each featuring one of the songs from our "God of Generations" album, and we shared the inspiration, scripture, story, and process behind the song. In the coming weeks, we're going to be talking about one of our six pillars of family worship: Having Fun! To kick off this new series (and give us a little more time adjusting to 3 kiddos!), we wanted to share our thoughts behind our song "Praise God." This is a perfect song to kick us off because everything about "Praise God" was/is fun! We had so much fun writing this song, recording this song, singing this song live...and as you'll be able to tell, we probably had WAY too much fun talking about this song on the podcast. We hope you enjoy it, and we're excited to jump into a brand new episode with you next week!

Relationships require intentional time and energy. But, if we're honest, we struggle with this. Especially when it comes to long-term relationships. Relationships with God, our spouse, our kids - we can start to neglect the intentional energy needed to maintain healthy intimacy and closeness that we long for. In our final episode in this series on marriage, we're going to focus on 5 ways we can be intentional in our marriage. These are 5 small tips that can have a big payoff in our marriages.

Marriage is given to us so that we may enjoy it. God loves giving us good gifts. But He also gave us the gift of marriage for a greater purpose. Our non flashy marriages have the ability to change the world around us. There is something heroic about two people sacrificially loving each other to the end in a committed and exclusive relationship. How do our marriages change the world around us?

Though marriage is wonderful, it's also incredibly difficult - and it's often difficult in ways many of us didn't see coming. The difficulty comes with the fact that having a great marriage eventually requires adjustments and change in both of us. Today we are going to be talking about why the need for change that happens and why the change in us, though difficult, is actually a good thing. 

Last week we saw in the Word the call to prioritize our marriage relationship above all others. This week we're going to consider why this beneficial. The truth is that there is a nefarious enemy to love, and that enemy is not hate. It's an enemy that can sneak up on any relationship, and it is typically the true failure behind every relational failure.

We all want to be known. We want meaningful relationships that run deep. We want people we are safe with, people we belong to. Our marriages are a gift from God that is meant to be the deepest, most meaningful relationship we have. Our marriages are meant to be the one place where we are safe to be the most vulnerable. A place where we are safe to be naked physically, emotionally, mentally. A place where the fullness of who we are, the beautiful, the ugly, and everything in-between is exposed..and yet, because of the commitment, the covenant of love between us, we are still cherished, honored, and loved. If we are married, our relationship with our spouse is the most important relationship we will ever have. But just because we have this gift from God called marriage, that doesn't mean that we are taking full advantage of all that the gift has to offer. Today, we're going to be talking about prioritizing our marriage relationship above every other human relationship we have - because when we do that, we are obeying God, and we will reap enormous benefits.

Many couples spend time planning for the wedding, planning for kids, planning for all kinds of things, but rarely do we plan for how we are going to win in our marriages. The truth is for, struggles and conflicts are a part of marriage. In today's podcast we are going to talk about how planning for struggles and conflict can actually help us through the harder seasons.

All of us have hopes and expectations when we think about being married. To start this six week series on marriage, we're going to take some time to think deeply about our longings and desire for marriage. Is it good to want to be married? What are we hoping to get out of marriage? And how is God involved in our desires for marriage?

Isn't it fascinating that when we are hurt by someone our tendency isn't just to be skeptical of that person's love, but often we find ourselves skeptical of God's love. No one is going to be able to practice perfect love every moment of every day. Even still, we should take seriously the fact that, as Christ-followers, we are representatives of who God is. We are meant to be ambassadors and image-bearers. This is true as we live our lives out in the public square, but even more true in our homes. What makes our marriages profound and meaningful is the fact that they are meant to bear witness to Christ's love for His Church. The hard question we need to ask ourselves often is, do our kids experientially know Christ's love for his bride in how mom and dad love each other each day?

We live in a culture that believes that loving another person is something that comes to us naturally. And yet all around us, we see that truly loving one another, especially the closest people around us is incredibly difficult. If we want to be intentional about loving one another well in our families, what are some key steps we should take? That's what we're talking about today on the podcast. 

Last week we started our deep dive into the pillar of family worship that we call: Loving Each Other Well. Our love for one another is linked to our ability to worship God - especially our ability to worship God together. This week we are looking at 5 key things to consider that can help us continue to grow in love for one another. 

If we want to worship God as families we have to be intentional about loving each other. In today's podcast, we're going to look at four reasons why loving each other is essential to worshipping God together. 

In this episode, we talk about the writing and recording of our song "The Lord's Prayer." We're so thankful that Jesus gave us the templated prayer to help us in our praying! He knows that we struggle with prayer and that we need help. On the podcast, we'll talk about how you can use this song to help your family learn and pray through the Lord's Prayer

If you're like us, then you need help praying. Even when I give my best to prayer, I often find that my words feel weak, powerless, and just not fully expressing what my heart is wanting to say. As Donald Whitney says, I find myself "praying the same old things about the same old things." Today we're going to talk about our journey of learning how to pray the Word and why it's been so powerfully effective in our lives. 

What should we pray for our kids? If you're anything like me, you toggle back and forth between feeling overwhelmed about how much there is to pray for and then drawing a blank on what to pray. In this episode, we're going to take a look at Paul's prayers in Ephesians and how they can help us pray the most important things for our children.

We need kids as much as they need us. Our children are a vital part of the Church - Jesus wants to reveal Himself to us, spur us on, and encourage our faith through our children. We have much to learn from them. Jesus said so Himself when He invited us to become more like children in our efforts to be a relationship with Him. For example, Jesus invites us to "come as we are." Kids are great at this, but we tend to try and clean ourselves up a bit before coming to the Lord. 

In the last few episodes, we've moaned and sympathized with one another over the challenges of prayer and how adding kids to the mix amplifies those challenges. But this week on the podcast, we want to take a look at why we should press on in prayer even in the midst of the challenges. There are some deep and lasting benefits that come from building a habit and culture of prayer in our homes. 

"I can think of nothing great that is also easy...prayer must be, then, one of the hardest things in the world." - Tim KellerPrayer is difficult. I don't know many people who feel that they are very good at it. We already struggle with prayer on our own and now we are supposed to lead our kids in this thing that we struggle with ourselves? For the next two episodes, we're talking about the struggles, challenges, and obstacles of prayer and how they are amplified when we try and pray together as a family. 

"I can think of nothing great that is also easy...prayer must be, then, one of the hardest things in the world." - Tim KellerPrayer is difficult. I don't know many people who feel that they are very good at it. We already struggle with prayer on our own and now we are supposed to lead our kids in this thing that we struggle with ourselves? For the next two episodes, we're talking about the struggles, challenges, and obstacles of prayer and how they are amplified when we try and pray together as a family. 

We all want to protect our kids. And we all want to see them have victory and success in life. A big part of our job as parents is to prepare our kids to live well in a broken world full of danger. On today's podcast, we are going to talk about how building a culture of learning helps us protect our kids and prepare them for victory as they grow into young adults. 

We are big fans of memory work and discovery in learning together as a family, especially when it comes to learning God's Word together. But the truth is that memory work and accumulating knowledge isn't enough! It's a great place to start, but our kids need someone to help them go deeper as they get older and start to process the things that they've learned. On today's podcast, we're going to talk about the things your kids simply won't learn on their own. 

Do you like to hear writers talking about how their songs? Then this episode is for you!We're off-roading this week! :) Before we released our most recent family worship album called "God of Generations," Emily and I recorded an (at the time) exclusive podcast for some of our most faithful online families to help introduce the songs and share a little bit of our hearts and the scriptures behind the new songs. We've decided that we want to release these old podcast recordings to all of you as we walk through our Six Pillars of Family Worship. The song we are featuring today and talking on the podcast is called "Day and Night" and it fits perfectly in our current theme of "Learning Together." This song comes from Psalm 1 in which David writes about delighting and meditating on the Word of God. Emily wrote this song with some friends and this episode is packed with some tasty behind the scenes insights into this song and the verses that inspired it. You're not going to want to miss it!

What if you have kids in the house that don't understand. Infants? Toddlers? Maybe it's best to wait to start family worship until after the kids get a little bit older? Or what if you don't even have kids? Today, we want to give you four good reasons for why we think you should totally go ahead and read the Word to your infant/toddler. We'll dive deep into some long term fruit that comes from being intentional about family worship time no matter what your family looks like today. 

We don't want to overcomplicate things, simply reading the Bible together is a wonderful thing to do. However, if the goal is to really help gain understanding, to share our joy, and to spur interest in God's Word then it might help to think about HOW we read the Word out loud. Stale reading often leads to bored listeners. There is no need to put on a show or overly entertaining, but the reading of God's Word together CAN be engaging and interesting. And the way we read the Word out loud can assist us and help make our times together more fruitful and beneficial for all. 

As we continue to talk about the importance of developing a culture of learning in our homes, we wanted to touch on some of the benefits of reading to our kids. Reading the Word to our kids is the priority, but we think it's awesome that God has revealed Himself largely through the written Word because there are so many advantages and benefits to reading together in general. As parents, we get the chance to help our kids not only discover themselves, God, and the world around them but reading together also gives our kids the opportunity to process with us. Providing us some of the best moments to shepherd our kids. 

Embracing a love for learning together as a family is one of our 6 pillars of family worship. Over the next several weeks we are going to discover the reasons why we think developing a culture of learning in our homes helps our times of worship together. In this episode, we start with the goals of learning as a family. What exactly are we trying to accomplish? What are the wins of learning together? Why should we be motivated to build a culture of learning in our home? 

I am the kind of person where I can totally get behind an idea, but if I don't have some kind of a recipe or a rubric or just somewhere to get started, I usually don't end up starting things. And so if you are like me, I do not claim to be the expert on scripture memory, systems, or songs. But we have a lot of things that have worked really well for our family. And we've been just gathering resources from other families that we know and love. And so I just wanted to share all the things with y'all today, so that you can have a place to begin. But I'm going to cover just four or so different questions that you might have, or potential roadblocks and getting started memorizing scriptures with your family.When should you do scripture memory? Should this be a part of your family worship time?Should you try to do it later in the day? How long does this scripture memory time last?What are some resources and tools to help get us started? 

#015 - Scripture memory songs are incredibly effective in not only helping us learn and memorize the Word but also in helping those scripture stick with us. For years educators have known that songs are powerful in helping us remember. After all, how did you learn your ABCs? I'm guessing a little tune just went through your head. Memorizing scripture with our kids is a wonderful thing to do, but in our attempts to learn scripture together with our families, why not also harness the power of song? There are so many wonderful writers of scripture memory songs, but we want to introduce you today to one of our absolute FAVORITES. Molly Lockwood is a long time friend of ours and one of the best songwriters in the world. In college, we were entranced with her words and melodies and then we were fortunate enough to get to become friends with her and even traveled in a music ministry with her and her husband, Patrick, for several years out of college. We hope you enjoy our first official interview on the podcast!

#014 - What does it mean to "exalt Christ?" As Christ-followers, I feel safe in assuming that most of us want to exalt Christ in our homes every day but we aren't sure how to do that. And if we're really honest, we're already so exhausted, and making sure to "exalt Christ" in our homes sounds just like another heavy burden to have to attempt each day. We get it. And we have felt that way too! However, our hope is that by the end of this episode you will feel as light as a feather as we discover together what it actually looks like to exalt Christ each day in our homes and with our families.

#013 - For the last 10 years we've been a part of ministries that specialize in writing songs full of the Word. Writing scripture saturated songs is a huge passion for both of us and in this week's episode, we want to share with you a few reasons why we believe that singing the Word in your home is one of the most important and valuable things you could do. Songs are powerful and so is singing and so we want to take some time to sit down with you and think deeply about them both. 

From Old Testament to New Testament we can see that God is calling us to make disciples   "as we go." This means that our most important role as parents is to disciple our kids by sharing our faith, our love for Christ, and God's Word. We changed the name of our podcast because we believe this new title better encapsulates what we are trying to achieve here on the podcast - which is to encourage one another to make discipleship in our homes intentional as we go throughout our days. 

Isn't it enough to sing on Sunday mornings? What if we aren't "good singers?" In today's episode Emily gives us a lot of good food for thought on why it's important for us to sing in our homes with our families. ( especially if you have kids!)

What do you do when your feelings are out of control? Or what about those rogue thoughts that float through your head that feel hostile to what you know to be true? Martyn Lloyd Jones helped us to learn the importance of talking to ourselves and in today's episode we talk about how singing helps us to do just that.  

My moods are one of the most unreliable things in my life. Even though I know that God's greatness doesn't change, I find that I don't always feel like praising Him. If you feel that way sometimes, I want to encourage you with this story in the Bible where King David pretended to be crazy.

#008 - Part B of our "worship is a cake" episode takes us into our last 3 ingredients which include the "icing" of our worship, praise! Many of us love to sing and praise God with our voices and that's why I call it the icing. It's the part of our worship that often tastes so good to our hearts and souls. But why is that? Why do we love to praise? And I'm not just talking about praising God...I noticed that I even have the tendency to praise the awesomeness of a milkshake! Why do we do that? In this episode, I share with you what C.S. Lewis helped me understand about praise.

#007: If you had to bake a cake for the President or maybe a celebrity you admire, would you leave out a key ingredient? Surely it's not that big of a deal if I don't add in the eggs, or maybe the icing, or what about the flour? No way! I'm pretty sure most of us would want to give the best cake that we have to offer! Like a cake, our worship has many ingredients. We wanted to explore these ingredients with you because they will help take a deeper dive into why we decided to embrace 6 pillars of family worship. 

#006: Why don't we do the things we WANT to do? My guess is that if you're listening to this podcast, then it means that there is a part of you that WANTS to start, restart, or grow in you leading your family to worship God in your home. If we're not careful, shame can derail all of our good desires and leave us stuck in inaction on so many good things in our lives. We've already mentioned so many obstacles that we face to initiating family worship in our homes - but today we are going to specifically look at 5 big ways that shame can keep you for starting family worship.

#005: When is the perfect time to start family worship? Is it when my kids are at a certain age? What if I don't have kids? What if some of my kids are really young and others are older? What if I'm single? What if my kids are already grown and/or out of the house? These are all great questions that we address in today's podast to help us figure out when is right time to start family worship in our homes. 

#004: I don't know about you, but sometimes I struggle with waiting for permission to be a parent. Or even a grown-up! At 33, I just thought I would feel more qualified, you know? I often feel the same thing when it comes to family worship. Who am I to lead this? Shouldn't I wait for the professionals? I don't have a degree! I'm not a master in theology or the Bible. I struggle to make reading, praying, and singing a habit in my OWN life! My family members are that see my sin, screw-up, and fail all the time. Who am I to lead family worship? If this is something you struggle with as well - and if it's keeping you from embracing the call to lead your family to the Lord on a regular basis - we just want to take 30 minutes to encourage you by sharing our story and some helpful things to remember when these doubts and questions creep in. 

#003 - Look, we can talk for hours and hours about the importance of family worship (and we likely will in future episodes), but I'm a practical girl and I often just need some help in knowing HOW to get started. So that is what we're talking about today on the podcast. We just want to help you get started! I've got three helpful tips for you today. 

#002 - Singing Together, Praying Together, Learning Together, Having Fun Together, Serving Together, and Loving One Another Well - these are the six pillars of family worship that we are wanting to grow in as a family. These are also the topics we will be taking a deep dive into together on future episodes of this podcast. Today we give you a brief overview of these six pillars, how they play a role in our family worship, and how they work together. 

#001 If you're like us, then everything about family worship is new. Even the term "family worship" was not something we'd heard until a couple of years ago. In this introductory episode, we wanted to take a second to introduce ourselves and to let you know just a little bit of what we're talking about when we say "family worship."