Quote of the Week
“The great Christian revolutions came not by the discovery of something that was not known before. They happen when someone takes radically something that was always there.”
—H. Richard Niebuhr
FAMILY INSIGHT
Integration over Balance
One of the most unnatural elements of modern life is the disintegration of work and family.
Many kids grow up having no idea how their parents make money.
They grow up in their kid world and parents live in a grown-up world.
This feels normal to us but this is strange both historically and practically.
Historically because in the past the majority of families lived and worked together whether on farms or in trades.
But there’s a practical cost to making work a child-free zone that most are unaware of.
Families end up living a disintegrated life.
This is how it works.
When adults are forced to work in entirely child-free environments then governments are forced to create kid-zones that are parent-free.
We assume this is normal.
But consider this thought experiment: If all you had was the Bible to determine what a kid should do with his or her time during their childhood, what would they spend most of their time doing?
The best place I’ve found to go in the Bible to answer this question is Deuteronomy 6:7-8:
“And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.”
It seems clear from this passage that children were with their parents asking questions all…day…long. Now this may seem impossible today but I find it helpful to ask: are there creative ways we can recapture some of this experience in our day?
Despite having directives like Deuteronomy 6 Christian parents seem to follow the secular world in making the target a new idea we call work/life balance. We seek to negotiate with our employers to build a firewall between our work life and our family life in order to provide maximum presence with our family.
Now if you have an employer, work/life balance may be the best you can do. Employers expect you to be 100% focused when you’re at work. They are paying for your time and they own all of your attention during that time.
But let’s consider another possibility. What if you could have one well-trained child with you while you work and it made your work time 5-10% less efficient? Would this trade-off be worth it?
When I transitioned from employment to business ownership I started to experiment with the goal of integration over work/life balance. I took one of my kids to work with me for part or a full day.
Here were some of the results:
My productivity decreased by about 5%
One-on-one time with each of my kids increased by over 200%
My work became demystified for my kids
The dynamic at home for my wife improved
I felt like a father even while at work
During intense work seasons, I still spent lots of time with my family.
My kids got to watch me do hard things.
Since I was the owner of the business the decrease in productivity was something I could choose to let the business absorb since the other results for my family were so positive. We also extended this option to the rest of our employees. They could run what we called, “an experiment in integration” to see if integrating family and work could result in only a small productivity decrease while greatly increasing the quality of family life.
This reason alone can make the transition to things like business ownership or homeschooling worth it for many families. Imagine getting to spend that much more time with your kids during their childhood!
Maybe God intended families to live an integrated life.
Today it takes intentionality and out-of-the-box thinking to pull it off.
So we need to encourage family teams who are giving an integrated lifestyle a try.
Jeremy
Checkout out this conversation with Ian and Bianca Bishop
By the way Ian is one of our business coaches for Family Inc. Click here to join the Family Inc wait list: https://familyteams.com/inc
ONE IMPROVEMENT
Child Labor in a Family Team
One of the greatest costs when we live a disintegrated life is how it robs children of the opportunity to do meaningful work to serve the family.
We’ve created these unnatural child-only realms and then think that “letting kids be kids” means they don’t contribute in any way to the family through their labor.
But what if we believed that child labor was an essential part of “letting kids be kids”?
Somehow our culture went from sending kids to slave in factories for a ruthless company all the way to believing productive work of any kind is abusive to children.
As part of the drive toward integration, find ways for kids to contribute to the family that really matter.
Can your 4-year old unload the kid dishes?
Can your 6-year old make scrambled eggs?
Can your 8-year old do laundry?
Can your 10-year old teach math to your younger children?
Can your 12-year old use a spreadsheet?
Can your 14-year old design a logo?
Can your 16-year old design a marketing campaign?
On a weekly basis assign your kids tasks, train them step-by-step how you want the task done, work alongside them as they learn, and eventually rely on them to repeat these tasks so they bless your whole family team.
CONTENT CORNER
I was a recent guest on this fantastic podcast: The Faith Driven Entrepreneur.
Loved the deep questions about work and family we were able to explore together
One of my favorite atheists just gave her life to Christ!!! Here’s her story:
Almost every word these two brilliant intellectuals said about George Flloyd shocked me.
Sounds like it’s time to revisit this traject event and its aftermath:
BIBLICAL REFLECTION
Should church planting be the focus of our efforts of disciple-making?
I’ve increasingly believed that churches were meant to by the natural byproduct of disciple-making movements.
Jesus said “Go and make disciples” and “I will build my church”.
But we went out to plant churches and expected discipleship to somehow happen as a result.
This has been one of the most costly misunderstandings in recent Christian history.
I often dream of what would happen if the church would get back on mission as a disciple-making movement.
PERSONAL REFLECTION
What does progress look like in your family in the generation of your stewardship?
Who cares where other families are at?
Level up your own family.
Jeremy
PS. Did you know the Pryors and the Bethkes are heading to Orlando for a Family Teams Weekend, January 26-27, 2024?
For Christmas, we're offering a huge deal: buy one ticket, get one FREE!
Now you AND another couple can join us in Orlando for only $399!