There is no right or wrong way to do a family book club. We recommend focusing on the 3 R’s: Read aloud, Relate, and Remember. Keep reading, and we’ll show you how to make a family book club a memorable experience for your whole family.
Want kids who read on their own? Read together.
No one is born a reader.
It might seem like some kids come out of the womb with a book in their hands, but any child can grow up into a lifelong reader.
A kid becomes a reader when he/she is formed by the stories and characters and knowledge discovered in books. Reading isn’t just another task to complete—it’s a way of life. It’s at the heart of their insatiable curiosity and boundless creativity.
Often, kids who want to read on their own are kids whose families read together (and probably still do!).
“Older kids and teenagers who describe themselves as committed readers tend to have families that read to them since they were young, kept books around as their interests changed and made reading together a genuine priority.â€
— William Dee Nichols and Michelle Kearney, University of Maine
So how do we nurture a love of reading and make reading a way of life for our kids… especially when there are so many other things vying for their attention?
Well, one way we’re quite fond of around here is through a family book club.
What is a family book club?
The family book club is a close cousin of the family movie night. In the same way you’d choose a movie and sit down together with popcorn or pizza, you choose a book, prepare some snacks, and read aloud together.
Bonus: depending on the book you choose, a family book club takes considerably less time than a movie night!
At its simplest, a family book club is a chance to share a story with the people we love most. What you choose to do beyond that (if you choose to do anything beyond that) is totally up to you!
Leilani Curtis told me that she’ll always remember the family book club she did for The Man with the Violin. It’s a picture book based on the free concert that violin virtuoso Joshua Bell did in the Washington, DC subway. She read this book with her kids and husband. Then, they sat down to a spaghetti dinner (a key detail at the end of the story) and listened to a Joshua Bell playlist.
“It was that simple, and that memorable, and I just loved it,†Leilani told me. She also shared that she grew up in a family where reading was present and valued, but viewed more as an individual activity. She appreciates how family book clubs have helped her make reading a thing the whole family can enjoy together.
A family book club also helps you strengthen your family culture. By reading together, you and your family gain valuable reference points. And those reference points turn into inside jokes, shared vocabulary, and even moral frameworks.
Who is a family book club for?
All families can benefit from a family book club! Whether your kids are 2, 8, 12, 16, or all of the above, everyone gets something out of reading together.
One of the great things about a good book is that it can draw us all in together.
It may be difficult for your 12 year old and 16 year old to see eye-to-eye over the after-dinner chores. But they are on the same team rooting for Meg, Charles Wallace, and Calvin as they fight The Black Thing in A Wrinkle in Time. Various elements of the story will strike us in different ways; we’ll learn to see the world through not only the lens of the characters, but through one another.
A family book club offers more benefits depending on age or stage of life. Younger kids get to enjoy the routine of reading together. Older kids get to take a break from tweenage and teenage pressures. Parents get to slow down and savor focused time with the whole family.
We can easily over-complicate enjoying stories. Just as Pixar movies or classic Disney cartoons have something for everyone, so do many picture books and middle-grade novels. It might surprise you just how much fun kids of any age (not to mention parents) can have when reading a great story together.
Leilani also pointed out that reading together as a family has helped her to get to know her kids even better than she did before. She told me that through the conversations that family book clubs catalyze she’s “actually gotten to know my girls better, and they’ve gotten to know me better. I’ll ask them a question thinking that I already know the answer only for them to completely surprise me!†That’s just one way books help us make meaningful and lasting connections our kids.
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What should your family book club read?
Pretty much anything you’ll enjoy reading aloud is fair game.
Picture books are our go-to (yes, even with older kids) because they are contained yet immersive experiences for everyone. They’re written with the intention of being read-aloud and shared, so they often contain more complex vocabulary and language patterns than titles written with the developing reader in mind.
In a column for The Guardian, Joel Snape noted, “Picture books are a great leveller: anyone can jump into them, anywhere they like, with no need to trudge through the boring early bits to get to the juicy stuff.†Snape himself is now swapping time he spent scrolling social media for time spent flipping through picture books.
There is no right or wrong way to do a family book club. But here’s a suggested structure to help you get started and find what works for you.
First, choose your date and time.
How many times have you said you wanted to do something with your family but never got around to it? If you’re like me, it’s more times than I care to admit in public.
That’s why when you commit to starting a family book club, you’re going to be specific about the day and time that it’s happening, and you’re going to put it on the calendar where everyone can see it.
Like any new habit, your family book club experience benefits from repetition. I recommend putting at two meetings on your calendar to start so that you can establish a pattern before you make any big changes. Try monthly to start and then adjust frequency as necessary.
Second, choose your book(s).
Again, anything you’ll enjoy reading aloud is fair game.
Once you know when you’re meeting and what you’re reading, focus on the 3 Rs: read aloud, relate, and remember.
1. Read Aloud
When you’ve got everyone gathered, read and enjoy the story. This is the foundation for everything else. We make reading a way of life when we make enjoying stories the core of the experience.
Even for kids who read independently, being read to has significant academic, communication, and psychological benefits.
If you do nothing else, reading a book aloud as a family is incredibly valuable all on its own.
2. Relate
Once you’ve read through the story (or, say, a chapter in a longer book), invite your kids to take a closer look.
If it’s a picture book, spend some time with the illustrations and look for hidden clues or details you didn’t notice the first time through. You can also read through the book a second time to fully take in the story.
If it’s a longer book, choose a few details or sentences that stood out to you and ask your kids to do the same. Discuss why those caught your attention.
Use open-ended questions with no right or wrong answers to help your kids feel seen and heard. It’s not a quiz—it’s an opportunity to wonder, get curious, and connect ideas with you. If discussing books with your kids is a bit overwhelming, check out our free guide to talking with your kids about books, including three conversation starters you can use with any book.
3. Remember
Reading aloud is already an immersive experience, but you can make your family book club even more memorable by creating incorporating more of your senses. Share a cozy treat around the table, listen to some music that complements the story, or do an easy craft or or quick writing project.
The more senses you include in the book club, the more they’ll remember the time spent together.
Give it a try!
First things first, put your first family book club on the calendar. Visit the library, your local bookstore, or simply a bookshelf at home and select your book.
Sharing books helps us know and love each other better, and a family book club gives us the gentle structure and time set aside to make reading a way of life for our families.
If you love the idea of a family book club but getting started with one feels overwhelming, we’ve got you covered. Get two of our favorite family book club guides and take the guesswork out of the whole thing. Enter your email address below, and we’ll send them straight to your inbox!
・Jumpstart a lifelong reading habit・
Get 2 Free Family Book Club Guides
We’ve done all the planning for you.
Enter your email address below for access to 2 family book club guides—one picture book and one novel—that you can use to jumpstart your family reading journey.
At synagogue on Simchat Torah, every adult who wants to do so is called up for an aliyah, to say a blessing over the Torah. Once every adult gets their aliyah, adult congregants take out some tallitot, or prayer shawls, and unfurl them over the bimah, the synagogue’s central podium.All the children gather underneath the canopy created by the prayer shawls, and the adults recite a communal blessing over them and sing a beautiful song for their protection.
This ritual always makes me cry. Though the words are ancient, their meaning is contemporary: I got you and your kids. If I see your child fall, I will catch them. I will care for them when they are at my house. If they are in need, I am a safe person they can come to. The canopy of protection is both literal and metaphorical, and I sense that almost everyone holding the canopy is feeling that sense of mutual support for the children underneath. It is a beautiful ritual, the type of moment that makes me fully understand why I invest so much time in building Jewish community.
But a strange thing happened this year. The week after Simchat Torah, we celebrated my daughter’s bat mitzvah. The following week, she turned 12. But because the Hebrew calendar does not precisely align with the Gregorian calendar, her twelfth Hebrew birthday had taken place without our noticing, over Sukkot, before Simchat Torah. It was only when I arrived at shul that I realized that she was no longer eligible to stand under the canopy of the tallit. In the eyes of Jewish law, she was no longer a child.
Historically and traditionally, the age of bar or bat mitzvah is an instantaneous transition — in one day you become a Jewish adult. Moving Traditions, the nonprofit where I work, has taught me to think about that shift very differently. We know that adolescence isn’t a single leap. It is a bridge from childhood to adulthood, sometimes short and sweet, sometimes winding and more challenging. As an organization, we have tried to help synagogues see the ways that they can accompany and steward young people over that bridge from childhood to independence, to rethink how the bar or bat mitzvah ritual can serve as an opportunity to give them support along that difficult bridge.
It felt at odds with everything I had learned about that rambling transition for my daughter to suddenly be left out from under the canopy. My favorite Jewish ritual suddenly felt wrong.
And then something beautiful happened. Although most adults have already been called to the Torah at this point in the services, one adult is always chosen to say one of the final blessings of the Torah right before this blessing over the children. That person stands on the bimah along with the children, and it is considered a special honor.
Without any planning, the synagogue granted my diminutive 11-year-old-but-Jewishly-12-year-old daughter that honor.
So that is where my daughter had her first aliyah, her first symbolic act of Jewish adulthood: still underneath the canopy of the prayer shawls. And with that one change, the ritual felt right again. The metaphor was explicit: My daughter was being granted the chance to hold her new identity as a Jewish adult, with all its requisite responsibilities and expectations, while still standing under the protective canopy of our community. She is beginning to walk down that winding bridge from childhood to adolescence, but the journey is not instantaneous, and she is not alone. This ritual helped me imagine that we were all, literally and metaphorically, still holding a protective canopy over her for just a bit longer.
Making Room for More Jewish Voices. Kveller is where funny, thoughtful, and unexpected Jewish stories find readers. A few dollars helps us keep telling them.
Shuli Karkowsky
Shuli Karkowsky is CEO of Moving Traditions, an organization that emboldens Jewish youth to thrive. She lives in Westchester with her husband, delicious three kids, and beloved minivan.
Shortly after my daughter Mia died in October 2018, I created a dish garden with succulents from an arrangement a relative sent for her memorial service. Since I intended the garden to be a memorial to Mia, I searched for the perfect accessories.
I already had a large terracotta dish-style planter left over from an earlier project. I found everything else at a local succulent store that also sold all the accouterments for creating a dish garden. I came home with a miniature gray bench inscribed with the words In Loving Memory, a beautiful angel, an angel dog, and an angel cat. I also found Mia’s favorite animal, a horse. Tiny bits of glass in various shades of blue formed a river that balanced out all the gray in the decorations. It also looked lovely against the gray-green of the succulents.
Later, as some of the succulents either died or outgrew the dish, I replaced them with different varieties. A Bishop’s Mitre and a succulent shaped like a rosebud were two favorites.
For almost eight years, this tribute to Mia occupied a special place in the center of a potting bench on our patio. The terracotta bowl aged beautifully into a shade darker than its bright original color, while the accessories looked as new as when I brought them home.
Until—
In April 2026, I moved Mia’s garden to a small table in a different spot on the patio so the rose-shaped succulent could get more light. When I turned around to water the other plants, I bumped the table. The dish garden fell onto the concrete and shattered into several pieces. Plants, accessories, and potting soil were strewn across the patio and yard.
The air around me was colored by the rosary of obscenities that flew from my mouth. I couldn’t believe I had done something so dumb. Yes, it was an accident, but to me it was more than that. I had symbolically killed my daughter, too. Not only could I not hold her together during her all-too-short life, but I evidently now could not be trusted to preserve her memory either.
I felt the presence of my late husband, Oliver. It was not exactly reassuring. I felt his German-Scottish version of the Sicilian evil eye boring through me like a laser.
I had to find a way to recreate what I had just broken, quickly and in a way that would draw no attention to the fact that the garden was a replica of the original. The fact that no one else would likely have noticed the difference unless I pointed it out meant nothing to me. Oliver’s disapproval was enough.
I eventually found a new terracotta dish at a local garden store. It wasn’t an exact match, but it was the closest I could find to the original. I was far from happy with it because it lacked many of the original’s details. I also couldn’t see how something so new and perfect could replicate the love and memory that went into creating the original garden. While looking at the new dish again, and being even more unhappy with it than before, I devised a different solution.
Almost a year earlier, while participating in a bereavement group, I learned about the art of kintsugi. Kintsugi is an ancient Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with lacquer covered with metallic dust, most commonly gold.
Our facilitator brought a kintsugi kit to our meeting. It contained gold and silver dust and a small tube of epoxy instead of lacquer. She also brought broken mugs so we could see what trying kintsugi would feel like.
The photos of completed pieces shown in the instructions resembled museum-quality high art. Our pieces looked nothing like that. My finished project was a gloppy, globby mess of mangled, gold-covered epoxy. But the group’s consensus was that life itself is messy and that our creations didn’t have to be perfect to have meaning.
The more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that kintsugi would be how I would recreate Mia’s garden. I often think in lines from favorite movies, and this time it was Love Actually. The voice in my head was Liam Neeson’s Daniel, reminding his stepson Sam that there was just one hiccup in his plan to get Joanna to notice him via his superb drumming skills: he didn’t play the drums. My tiny, not-so-insignificant detail was that I had no discernible artistic ability.
Not that I hadn’t tried. An earlier attempt at ceramics resulted in little misshapen figurines the instructor derisively called “Kiln Gods.†He had no other words for my misadventures in clay. My experience in a basic drawing class left me creating only abstractions and intricate geometric patterns.
But like Sam, I had a goal, and for once I didn’t let my past attempts at creating art interfere with my desire to recreate Mia’s garden.
Thankfully, most of the pieces were large enough to fit back together like parts of a jigsaw puzzle. I used epoxy to rejoin the fragments with smaller gaps between them. Some pieces had wide gaps that I determined I could join with epoxy sculpting clay. While I worked, the audiobook version of Ozzy Osbourne’s Last Rites kept me company.
The more I worked, the more the project turned into a metaphor not only for my daughter’s beauty and self-destruction, but also for the various ways so many people who loved her tried in vain to keep her from falling apart yet another time.
But this didn’t mean that everything went as I had planned. Nothing went as planned.
The gold from the kintsugi kit looked awful against the deep orange-red of the terracotta dish. It was so dull, it didn’t even look like gold. It looked like brass in need of intensive polishing. The sections I joined together looked like a case study in what not to do. Most of the side pieces didn’t align perfectly. Some seams were thick, like surgical scars left by hasty suturing. My repairs resulted in two large halves that refused to meet neatly at the bottom.
But solutions emerged with every challenge. The epoxy-clay combination not only smoothed over the most awkward-looking seams but also filled the largest holes and bridged gaps that couldn’t be glued. I stitched the largest gaps, including the catastrophe that was the container’s bottom, with copper wire. A YouTube video taught me how to drill the necessary holes into the two halves without shattering them. I painted over the dull, brass-like seams with a shade of gold paint so bright it bordered on garish.
The idea of painting gravestone symbols on the sides of the dish sounded appealing, but my large imagination outweighed my ability to paint the symbols freehand. But again, a solution appeared: stencils. Not perfect, but heartfelt.
It took me nearly a month to reconstruct the shattered terracotta container. I had long finished listening to Ozzy’s book. I regained the dignity and self-respect I thought I lost when the original garden lay in pieces in my backyard. More importantly, I found what I never realized I had: artistic ability after all, along with plenty of persistence and ingenuity. I reconstructed Mia’s succulent garden with almost no outside help. I also learned to grant myself the perfect grace I so easily grant to others, yet deny myself.
My dear Oliver would have been proud of me for that. So would Mia. Her garden is back on the patio, in a safer location. Its imperfect beauty more closely resembles who Mia really was than the original, unbroken container did.
The new container is still in the back seat of my car. I’ll get around to using it someday. Today, I’m basking in this moment of imperfect beauty and perfect grace. Young Sam had his happy ending, and so did I. Thankfully, unlike Sam’s, mine didn’t involve evading airport security. At least not this time.
Alix Wright lives in California’s Inland Empire. In October 2018, she and her family lost their 22-year-old daughter, Mia, to addiction and trauma surrounding a failed adoption reunion.
If you want to remember saints throughout the month of September, I have the perfect printable for you and your family!
As part of the Catholic Icing Monthly Membership, Angie and I love designing printables that are both beautiful and useful in order to help you and your family live the liturgical year at home or in the classroom. Each month, I create a new themed set of printables for your home altar, prayer table, or for placement around your home or classroom. (If you’re not sure what a home altar or prayer table is, you can read more about them here!)
While the materials in the Catholic Icing Monthly Membership change every month (and each month is different from year to year), I thought it would be fun to pick one of the Decorative Printable Saint of the Day Calendars for each month and share it with you for free! Since it’s September 1st, this seems like the perfect time to give you a free Saint of the Day Calendar for September.
I love coming up with fun and creative ways to celebrate the church year with kids, and September is full of fun Saint feast days to celebrate! Some of these feast days include Michaelmas (the feast of the archangels), the Nativity of Mary, and the feast day of St. Mother Teresa! September is also dedicated to Our Lady of Sorrows. You can also check out highlights of fun September Saint feast days to celebrate with links to crafts, food, and activities!
If you’re planning a Saint feast day celebration with kids, you will want to check out my post on how to celebrate any Saint feast day. It takes you through my process of looking at their lives to choose an activity for kids, and it links to generic resources that will help you to celebrate any Saint.
Free Printable Saint of the Day Calendar for September
This Free Printable Saint of the Day Calendar Set for September includes two pages that match the design theme for the Catholic Icing Monthly Membership in September 2023.
You can request this free download just below the section about the Catholic Icing Monthly Membership, which is just after this section.
This set includes two 8.5 x 11 (U.S. Letter-size) Litany of Saints in September pages, with one saint listed for each day of September. There are two different font choices included, so pick the one that works best for you and your family or classroom.
To display your Litany of Saints page for September, you can frame the page in an 8.5 x 11 frame, post it on your refrigerator, or do whatever works best for you! This is a great way to keep the saints front and center in your home or classroom.
Extended activity idea: Each day in September, you could look up more about the saint or blessed listed to further incorporate liturgical living into your home or classroom.
More about the Catholic Icing Monthly Membership
Have you always wanted to celebrate the saints and live the liturgical year more fully in your home or classroom, but feel overwhelmed by it?
Maybe you don’t have the time to pull it all together.
Maybe you feel like you aren’t even sure where to start.
Post continues after this brief information about the Catholic Icing Monthly Membership
Monthly Liturgical Membership
Perfect for families! Each month you gain access to printable activity pages, crafts, home altar pieces, and more.
Never has living the liturgical year been so easy and affordable!
Or you might have tried to do it before, but then life got in the way, and you still had your March decorations up in June.
We’ve been there, and we understand!
When you join the Catholic Icing Monthly Membership, you’ll get access to new printables before the start of each month that are perfect for your home, family, and children. These include home altar or prayer table printables, a liturgical-themed recipe and matching printables, activity pages for children, coloring pages, saint-themed crafts and activities, and so much more!
A Sample of Some of the September 2023 Printables from the Catholic Icing Monthly Membership
Grab Your Free Printable Saint of the Day Calendar for September
This printable saint of the day calendar page is free exclusively for subscribers to our free weekly newsletter. You will be able to unsubscribe from the weekly newsletter at any time. You can even do it right away, if you want. However, we hope that you’ll stick around and get feast day and liturgical living ideas sent right to your inbox each week for free!
Even if you already receive our free weekly newsletter, you’ll need to request to have this printable set sent to you. Don’t worry, you won’t start receiving the weekly newsletter multiple times. This is just the way the system works for sending out newsletter subscriber freebies.
Printable Liturgical Planning Book
I have a liturgical living ebook/binder that will help you plan out this entire process and customize the liturgical year for your own family. This is the perfect resource for families that are living the liturgical year at home. You can use this book year after year to organize your liturgical resources and build your library as you go! This is an absolute wealth of printables for Catholic families to organize everything from feast day celebrations, to Sacrament anniversaries, to your home altar. Read more about my Weaving The Faith ebook here.
September Monthly Catholic Dedication: Our Lady of Sorrows
Each month has a special Catholic dedication, and September is dedicated to Our Lady of Sorrows! There are so many good crafts, activities, and snack ideas for kids that go along with this monthly devotion. You can find my full round-up of ideas for Our Lady of Sorrows here.
Several months ago I asked Simple Homeschool readers to tell me their main homeschooling concern. I received hundreds of replies, but was stunned to find that over 75% of them were more or less the same:
Prefer to listen instead?
All of us have different families and different children, but the same insecurities. I know, because they sometimes keep me up at night, too.
And so I thought that at the beginning of a new homeschool year, we should take a peek at this word, how it haunts us, and what we can do to break free.
Here are a few things to keep in mind:
Think about the other area in which we use this word: MONEY. Most people never feel as though they have quite enough of this commodity. Whatever our income, we tend to hope for just a bit more.
But studies have found that increased money only leads to increased happiness up to a threshold of around $75,000 (basic needs/desires met). Beyond that, MORE cash does not equal MORE joy. What does this teach us?
Enough has a set point. If you’re below it, you feel the lack. However, if you just continue to add more (whether money or, in our case, tasks/assignments) it doesn’t do much for you. It’s this magical set point we’re after for our homeschool.
Remember this the next time you have planners or spreadsheets open on your desk. The perfect schedule will never be enough if you don’t believe that you already are.
No magic checklist will ever make us feel more worthy. Our homeschool plans and achievements don’t define us or determine our value.
A dear friend of mine teaches in our local public schools. One day I asked her, “Do you ever feel like you’re not doing enough?â€
“All the time, yes!†she replied. She went on to say that if there’s a child who is struggling in some way, she does her best but always wonders if she could have done more.
Teachers who care, whether at home or school, wrestle with this. I find that a comfort.
Also remember that the system isn’t some efficient machine that runs nonstop from 9am-3pm each day. I was recently reminded of this when my niece came home from her first day of 11th grade. Looking through her paperwork, I came to her AP Psychology syllabus. It explained what they’d be learning, and on the back? Was a list of over a dozen movies they’d be watching, in class, as part of their curriculum.
You guys? This is High School AP Psychology! A dozen movies, in one semester, including Groundhog Day and What About Bob! And here you were berating yourself for watching that history documentary this week.
My point isn’t to heckle, but to point out that we often hold ourselves to a crazy ideal of productivity that doesn’t exist anywhere.
Instead of trying to duplicate a struggling system, let’s capitalize on the huge advantage we have that schools never can: HOME.
Don’t turn yours into an institution! Just set “enough†based on what your unique kids need in this unique moment – whatever their age. If you feel fairly confident that you’ll be homeschooling long-term or for several years, release those artificially-made grade levels and live outside the box. You’re free! Embrace whatever methods suit you and yours.
If there’s a chance you might need to put your kids back into school, however, then use slow and steady, incremental progress to ease your “enough†fears.
To do so, just incorporate a tiny bit of the 3R’s (reading instruction, writing, & arithmetic) into your homeschool days.
Here’s one way this could look in the early years: Order a Brain Quest workbook for your child’s current level. Have them do one language arts page, one handwriting page, and one math page each homeschool day. These workbooks have around 300 pages, which means that in 100 days you’ll have finished. So do two a day, MWF, or skip bad days!
If your child can read and write already, ask them when they want to do their pages. Independently upon waking? With you at the table? My kids like it when I rip pages out of a workbook—that way they are not seeing ALL the empty ones still to come. They see a few and think: “Oh, I can do this.â€
After everyone’s pages are done for the day, celebrate with hot chocolate, a high five, the bean jar, a video everyone likes, etc. Do not turn this into a dreaded chore (if it becomes one, make a change). And do not worry about this “reward†spoiling them.
I used to give my kids a cookie each time they used the toilet, but guess what? They never ask for one now! All you’re doing is setting a positive habit, and quelling those fears/voices that scream at you, asking if you’re doing enough.
I’m not saying to do the above and ignore your kids for the rest of the day. I’m suggesting you do a bare minimum, then fill the rest of your day with the power of home:
Read-alouds and discussions, cozy blankets, baking and cooking, dealing with squabbles (this is real life, after all), chores, Lego villages, documentaries and educational videos, board games, copywork, snap circuits, ice cream and audiobooks, passion-driven classes and co-ops, online learning and fun apps – whatever helps you and yours love learning and each other.
Welcome to enough. Welcome to life. WELCOME HOME.
Do your best to enjoy yours! And let your kids enjoy theirs, too.
What have you learned about “enough†during your years of homeschooling?
Jamie is the author of four books, including Give Your Child the World (reached #9 on Amazon’s Top 100 Best Sellers list), and her latest release, Introverted Mom (an ECPA bestseller). Her work has been featured by LeVar Burton of Reading Rainbow, the Washington Post, Parents, Today Parenting, and Psychology Today.
Greetings from everyone here at Focus on the Family! As we think about all God has done through our ministry thus far in 2026 and look forward to the ways He will continue transforming lives in the coming months and years, we’re filled with gratitude for your partnership. Our efforts would not be possible without the generosity of those who have chosen to stand with us.
I hope you understand that your support doesn’t “just†help marriages thrive, empower parents to raise thriving children, and defend the sanctity of life — as vitally important as those things are. At an even deeper level, your partnership with us brings the Gospel itself to those who desperately need to hear the Good News. Think of it this way: through your sacrificial giving to FOTF, you are supporting missionary work!
Friends like you are committed to building strong families, but it is evangelism that bolsters everything you help accomplish here at FOTF. Our organizational Mission Statement makes this clear: To be led by the Holy Spirit in sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as possible by nurturing and affirming the God-ordained institution of the family and proclaiming biblical truths worldwide.
This evangelism mindset is also reflected in our ministry’s Core Operational Values, the first of which is “Be there!†We believe there is nothing more important than encouraging people to respond to the Gospel, ensuring they will “be there†in heaven, beginning first in our families and reaching beyond to the rest of the world. [1]
And not surprisingly, family challenges are often a gateway for the Good News. When you help reach people at their point of need concerning marriage and parenting challenges, you’re also able to point them to the deeper spiritual realities upon which families are built. Consider this testimonial from a longtime broadcast listener:
“After going through a painful divorce, I found myself wondering how I ever ended up where I was in life. I began listening to Focus on the family on my way to work back around 1995.I could hardly get out of my car….I wanted to hear every testimony. After some period of time, I gave my heart to Christ thanks to those testimonies by Focus on the Family… my life changed forever. Thank you.â€â€”Mary, North Carolina
The love of Christ is the foundation upon which healthy families are built, and the power by which broken families are healed! Because of your support, listeners like Mary, along with thousands of others, will “be there.†What could possibly be more important than that?
This is why all of FOTF’s family strengthening initiatives are infused with Gospel truth. We want families to be healthy, of course, but more than that, we want them to know Christ and then share His love with other families. The beauty of this objective is that those who benefit from the ministry you make possible are, in turn, empowered to introduce others to Jesus. When a family is thriving, people see the Lord reflected in marriage and parenting in a tangible way, and it opens doors to communicate the Gospel.
Did you know that in the past year:
This is the power that is unleashed when you partner with FOTF in family ministry. Behind every marriage saved, every parent equipped, and every family strengthened, there are individual souls in search of purpose, meaning, and a relationship with their Creator. Because of your generosity, thousands of men, women, and children every year will “be there!â€
Sharing the love of Christ isn’t just about pastors or missionaries or even parents. We especially love seeing children share their faith with their peers! With that in mind, and with the help of generous donors like you, our ministry launched Bring Your Bible to School Day back in 2014. Since then, on the first Thursday of every October, children across the country have been carrying their Bibles to school in order to “let their light shine†(Matthew 5:16) in the gymnasiums, hallways, and classrooms they inhabit.
This event has been growing year over year. Last year alone, more than 1.3 million students took part across over 10,000 schools! What a powerful showing — and just imagine the many kids, teachers, and school staff who were able to witness these courageous participants living out their faith through the simple act of carrying God’s Word with them to school.
This year’s theme verse for Bring Your Bible to School Day is found in Psalm 119:9: “How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word.â€
In this day and age, I can’t think of a more fitting passage for young believers to bear in mind as they confront the challenges our culture is throwing their way. And as our kids venture into their schools equipped with God’s Word, there’s no telling how the Lord will work through them!
This year’s Bring Your Bible to School Day observance takes place on October 1. For more information, visit www.focusonthefamily.com/live-it/bring-your-bible/. I hope you’ll encourage the children and teens in your life to get involved!
Thank you for supporting and multiplying our efforts to bring the light of the Gospel to hurting families through initiatives like Bring Your Bible to School Day. We are deeply grateful to all those who have joined hands with us, and I hope you’re encouraged to know that your investment is paying eternal dividends. Please let us know if there’s anything we can do to serve you and your loved ones. Have a terrific fall!
Choosing an adoption agency is one of the most important decisions you’ll make on your adoption journey. While some families will choose to pursue adoption through an attorney or consultant, most prospective adoptive parents will work directly through a licensed, child-placing agency. As you research, you’ll weigh licensing and accreditation, costs and financial transparency, and the services and support each agency offers. It can become overwhelming quickly.
Knowing what to avoid can make the decision clearer. The following are eight adoption agency red flags to watch for along with what a trustworthy agency looks like and questions you can ask along the way.
1. The Agency Isn’t Licensed to Place Children
An agency that is unable to show you a current state license to place children for adoption is a serious warning sign. Our friends at the National Council for Adoption (NCFA) recommend verifying an agency’s licensure with your state’s department of health and human services and reviewing any complaints on file. Be specific when you ask as some agencies are licensed only for foster care placements, not adoption.
Licensure and nonprofit status also matter if you apply for a Show Hope Adoption Aid grant. To be eligible, you must be working with a licensed, child-placing agency that is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. A home study provider alone does not meet this requirement, and if you are working with an adoption consultant or waiting with multiple agencies, wait to apply until you’re matched through a placing agency. Our Adoption Aid FAQ covers the details.
2. No Hague Accreditation for International Adoption
If you’re adopting internationally, your agency should be accredited under the standards set by the Hague Adoption Convention. Accreditation guarantees that the agency meets international and federal standards for ethical practice. An international program without it is a red flag. Domestic-only agencies do not need Hague accreditation, though some choose to pursue it.
Every adoption journey is different, but a reputable agency should be able to clearly explain each step of the process before you ever begin. Be cautious if answers are vague, change from one conversation to the next, or if staff members are hard to reach and slow to return emails and calls. This timeline from Christian Adoption Services is a great example of what a detailed, step-by-step process looks like.
4. Unclear or Front-Loaded Costs
A trustworthy agency provides a complete, written breakdown of costs up front, including home study fees, agency fees, and in-country travel. Watch out for fees that are only explained verbally, costs that keep appearing after you sign, or an agency that asks for the bulk of your payment before services are provided. Payments should generally follow the progress of your adoption. An agency that is hesitant to share its financial statements deserves a closer look as well.
5. Pressure Tactics or Promises That Sound Too Good to Be True
Be mindful of an agency that pushes you to decide today or tomorrow, offers to “hold†a child while you finish your paperwork, or guarantees a short wait or low cost that other agencies cannot match. (Remember this is a child, not a car.) Adoption timelines are dependent on many factors and vary greatly, and a reputable agency will be honest about that.
6. Minimizing a Child’s Needs
A credible agency shares all of the information it has about a child’s history and health and will encourage you to have that information reviewed by an independent medical professional. If an agency discourages that or brushes off concerns, consider that a red flag. Understanding your child’s needs ahead of time will help your family prepare well.
7. Weak Education and Post-Adoption Support
Education is an integral part of adoption, especially before your child comes home. An agency that offers little to no pre-adoption educational opportunities—or ends its involvement after your child comes home—may leave your family without the support you need. Look for an agency that offers training and support for you, your child, and your child’s birth parents.
NCFA also warns parents about potential scams in adoption, including unsolicited calls, emails, or direct messages. Agencies are not typically the ones reaching out to hopeful adoptive parents. It usually works the other way around in most cases. If someone contacts you first, call the agency to confirm the individual works there before sharing any personal information.
How to Choose an Adoption Agency You Can Trust
Now that we have outlined red flags to watch for, these steps can help you narrow down your search with confidence. For more information, be sure to check out our guide on how to choose an adoption agency.
1. Verify licensure.
Confirm the agency’s licensure with your state, and check for complaints online.
2. Confirm accreditation.
If you’re adopting internationally, make sure the agency is Hague-accredited.
3. Request a written fee schedule.
Know every cost and when each payment is due before you sign.
4. Attend an information session.
Schedule a free consultation, or join an informational meeting to ask about programs, timelines, and resources.
5. Ask about education and support.
Find out what training is required before placement and what support is available after finalization.
6. Talk with other adoptive parents.
Read online reviews, and ask for recommendations from trusted friends who have adopted.
Choosing an adoption agency is one of the first steps you’ll take on your family’s adoption journey—and Show Hope is here to walk with you every step of the way. Visit our free online resource HowToAdopt.org for all of your adoption questions, and learn more about Show Hope Adoption Aid grants.
Are you ready to turn your home into a haven of treasured memories?
Printing out your favourite family photos and displaying them can turn your house into a home. But beyond just framing your photos and hanging them up randomly, there are more creative and unique ways to exhibit your treasured memories. If you’re looking for some inspiration, here are five inventive ways to showcase your photos.
#1 Create a photo gallery wall
A gallery wall is a great way to display a collection of family photos. You can arrange them in a grid or a more organic arrangement.
Create a grid. A classic way to feature family photos on a wall. You can use identical frames to create a clean and uniform look, or a collection of different frames for a more unique arrangement.
Use a picture ledge. This way you can display photographs without committing to a permanent arrangement. Pictures can easily be swapped, allowing you to update as often as you wish.
Make a statement with a large photo. If you have a favourite family photo that you want to showcase, consider printing it in a large size and making it the focal point of your wall.
Mix and match frame sizes and styles. Use various frames to add visual interest to your display. Stick to a specific colour palette or theme for a more cohesive look.
#2 Hang your photos with pegs
Peg your photos to a wire, string, or metal grid to create a fun display.
Embrace colour: Switch things up by using pegs and string in various colours.
Incorporate other elements: Try hanging artwork, postcards, or handwritten notes to create a dynamic display.
Create a theme: For example, you could create a travel-themed exhibit with photos from your family trips, or a seasonal collection with pictures from your favourite holiday traditions.
#3 Make a photo book
Compile your family photos into a cohesive album that makes a perfect personalised coffee table book. You can customise the layout, add captions, and include mementos like tickets or postcards.
Select a layout: Many photo book services offer a range of pre-designed layouts, or you can create your own. Consider the number of photos you want to include on each page and whether you want to add text or captions.
Pick a cover design: The cover of your photo book is the first thing people will see, so choosing a design that reflects the content inside is essential. You can choose from various cover templates or create your own using your favourite photo.
Experiment with different photo treatments: Many photo book services offer a range of editing tools to enhance your photos. You can experiment with filters, cropping, and brightness adjustments to make your photos look their best.
#4 Use shadow boxes
Create 3-D displays using shadow boxes to showcase keepsakes like seashells or ticket stubs alongside family photos.
Layered look: Create depth and interest by layering your photos and mementos within the shadow box. Use different textures, colours, and materials to add visual appeal.
Theme-based: Photos and souvenirs based on a common theme, such as a family vacation, holiday, or special event, to create a cohesive and unified look.
Contrast colours: Use an assortment of colours to make your photos pop. For example, if your photos are mostly black and white, use a brightly coloured background.
Lighting: Incorporate lighting into your shadow box display to for an eye-catching effect. You can use LED or string lights to highlight particular aspects.
#5 Create a photo mural
Turn your family photos into a unique work of art with a photo mural. One large image or a collage of smaller images make for a stunning statement piece.
Black and white murals are a classic, timeless look. You can choose a mix of candid and posed shots to create a sense of intimacy and nostalgia.
A collage mural is a creative way to showcase your family’s personality and style.
A generations mural is a beautiful way honour your family’s history. You can include photos of grandparents, parents, and children to create a sense of continuity and connection.
IN PARTNERSHIP WITH TED’S CAMERAS
With Ted’s printing service, the process of printing your photos has never been easier. Ted’s high-quality and affordable printing options, including canvas prints, metal prints, and framed prints, are perfect for showcasing your photos.
So why wait? Bring your family memories to life with Ted’s printing service today and create a stunning display that will warm your heart and inspire you daily.
A few years ago I stepped away from the world of startups, 10-15 phone calls a day, endless hours in front of a computer, and bone-deep burnout. I took a leap and decided to do a 9 month adult Immersion program at the Wilderness Awareness School in Duvall, WA. There, tucked in unassumingly at the end of the program, I encountered wilderness rites of passage for the first time.
It wasn’t a “sexy†encounter. It was gritty, strange and uncomfortable, though also woven through with moments of grace. Being immersed in the wild with little in the way of creature comforts for days and nights on end, I forgot about plans and schedules and schemes. I moved when I was cold, curled up in the moss when I was tired, ate when I was hungry, and paused to listen when I was scared. My body led the way, telling me what was next in the language of belly grumbles, shivers, tension and release.
I remember laying my head down on the ground one night after a long wander in the dark. As I was hovering at the edge of dreams, I heard a family of mice somewhere in the grass nearby quietly chattering and cooing to each other. Afraid to move lest I scare them away, I lay completely still listening for what felt like hours, mysteriously linked to those unseen beings by a tiny universe of sound.
In other moments my psyche felt like it was free-falling through empty space. Old stories and assumptions cracked and crumbled. Fear grabbed me in her jaws and gave me a good shake. I was swallowed, literally and figuratively, by the dark. But in allowing myself to be swallowed, in letting go of the struggle for control and comfort and head-level understanding, space appeared for something else.
That something isn’t easy to talk about. I might call it presence, or resonance, or the vulnerability of belonging. But it would be just as accurate to call it oak tree, owl, water and wind. It’s more a remembering than anything, a long-awaited return to one’s “place in the family of thingsâ€, as Mary Oliver so memorably put it.
A rite of passage in the truest sense isn’t a test of endurance or skill, it’s a test of one’s willingness to be pierced-by beauty, by grief, by fear, by how much we need the world and how much it needs us in return. It’s here that we discover something far more precious than individual ambition or recognition: a sense of kinship and devotion to life that arises not out of some heady notion of “doing goodâ€, but one grounded in the dirt under our fingernails, the moss beneath our cheeks, and the call of the saw-whet owl at midnight.
This kind of remembrance isn’t a notch for your belt or a credential or a marketable skill. It likely won’t lead to riches and it certainly won’t lead to fame. It may not make you happier, and in fact it will probably connect you with grief you didn’t even know you had. It is a trust fall that offers no guarantees, no sureties, and no easy path.
But what it will do is crack the illusion that says you are meant to do it on your own (you’re not), that claims your personal scramble for comfort and control is the center of the universe (it isn’t), and that has you thinking you could ever be anything other than desperately needed (we all need you).
When these truths land, they come as both a great relief and a new call to devotion. Our first and last responsibility as humans is to the web of relationality and wholeness that contains and depends on us. Rites of passage are how we tend to the web and repair the fraying edges of culture. They are not “for†the individual so much as they are for the village. Because, it turns out, what the village needs most is people who can live in the paradox of being small drops in a big ocean while still doing the work life is calling them to do, knowing all the while they are irrevocably woven into to the whole.
Shadowcraft is my ode to rites of passage, an offering to the Wild God waiting to meet each of us in the forest. True thresholds are rare. In the span of a lifetime we might consider ourselves lucky to encounter a small handful. In a culture that rarely sees or acknowledges the moments of real import and transformation in our lives, Shadowcraft is an opportunity for something different-a chance to traverse threshold in, and with, and in service to, community and the more-than-human world.
