Welcome to the online home of Tim Challies, blogger, author, and book reviewer.
Trending Topics
#death
#homosexuality
#school
Parents often feel guilty about how much time their kids spend playing video games and they sometimes have questions about whether their kids should play them at all. When I speak on issues related to families and technology I’m always asked to addresses kids and their games. I take a shot at doing that here. You can purchase the Circle device mentioned in the video here. Transcript Over the last few weeks, I’ve had a bunch of opportunities to speak …
You’ve probably heard it said that it takes a village to raise a child. Parenting is so difficult, so complex, so relentless, that it is more than any two people can successfully handle. Children thrive under the responsibility of loving parents but also under the watchful eye of a caring community. I have always believed in the wisdom of this proverb, but I’ve come to appreciate it even more as my kids grow older. And as I’ve come to appreciate …
As Christian parents it is our great desire that our children come to know the Lord. For them to know the Lord, they need to learn how to encounter him in his word and to speak to him in prayer. From a young age we are trying to instill in them this habit of reading the Bible and praying. Over time we want them to pick up this habit on their own. Today I want to tell you about a …
Welcome to another edition of 3 Minute Thursdays, where, in three minutes or less, I try to say something useful, maybe even helpful, about a subject that’s of interest to people like you and me. Today I want to talk about our kids and their cellphones. Really, I want to talk about when should we as parents get our children their first smartphone. (Here’s the Circle device I reference.) Transcript Welcome to another edition of 3 Minute Thursdays, where, in …
Many years ago Aileen and I made a decision for our family, little knowing how that decision would end up reverberating around the world. We decided not to have our kids participate in sleepovers. Here’s why, many years later, my family still doesn’t do sleepovers. It’s available in YouTube and Facebook formats and, as always, there’s a transcript for the readers. Note that the videos also now feature captioning. Rush Transcript A few years ago Aileen and I made a …
With a new year dawning, many Christian families will resolve to approach family devotions with greater faithfulness in the year ahead, or perhaps even to begin family devotions for the first time. These are great resolutions! Here are 10 ideas and 10 tips that may help. Ten Ideas for Family Devotions Read the Narratives. Read through the big picture of the Bible by focusing on the narrative (story) parts. In the Old Testament, read Genesis, parts of Exodus (you might …
Last week I told you why I believe the fifth commandment—honor your father and mother—is The Commandment We Forgot. The response was overwhelming and proves to me what I suspected—many people have serious questions and concerns about this commandment. We are comfortable with its implications for children, but perplexed when it comes to the implications for adults. How do we, as adults, show honor to our parents? What are our continuing obligations? What about parents who are difficult, absent, abusive, …
My family doesn’t do sleepovers. Before our children were even old enough to ask, Aileen and I talked it through and determined that we would not allow them. We would simply take sleepovers off the table altogether. A couple of years ago I wrote about this in an article titled Why My Family Doesn’t Do Sleepovers and something crazy happened. To date, nearly 8,000,000 people have read it. Every few months something happens within Facebook and it goes viral all …
It does me good to consider what I am thankful for, especially since today is Thanksgiving up here in Canada. There are so many things for which I owe gratitude to God, but near the top of the list, and on my mind today, is my children. I’m thankful to be a dad for these reasons and many more: Cuddles I am thankful to be a dad for the cuddles. My sixteen-year-old son doesn’t cuddle me anymore, but my girls …
Daddy, how do I look?” Eyes sparkling. Cheeks glowing. Is that a touch of makeup, a little something to accentuate the green of her eyes? Since when has she been wearing makeup? She twirls daintily on silver shoes, hair streaming, dress floating. “Daddy, how do I look?” She looks thirteen or twenty-three. She’s so big and so tiny, so old and so young, so wise and so innocent. When did she grow up? Wasn’t it just yesterday that she was …