I am so pleased to be a part of the Launch Team for Lead Your Family Like Jesus: Powerful Parenting Principles from the Creator of Families by Ken Blanchard, Phil Hodges, and Tricia Goyer.

This is a family leadership book.

This is a child-training book. A book on parenting.

And I love how those two things are meshed together and help me to analyze and express how I want my family to look in the future.

It’s all about goals, vision, values, priorities.

You need to see that future picture of success for your family to know what you must do now to get there.

An important question for family leader to ask is, “What do we want to influence?”

The key is specifying what carrying out your priorities looks like.

~Lead Your Family Like Jesus p. 67

By examining your future picture, you can make a plan to implement for success. Jesus must be the foundation for your goals.

A wise man noted that it was only in the past century that the word priority went plural. Jesus had one priority: glorify God.

Everything Jesus did was about…Exalting God Only. It was an act of worship…He pointed those around Him to God.

~Lead Your Family Like Jesus p. 63, 33, 34

My husband, Aaron, and I have been using this book to teach our Sunday school class for a while now and we’re enjoying it and learning so much about leadership from Jesus! We’ve all had some lively discussions. We’re convicted to “put our egos on the altar” and align our attitudes. I adore having some older couples agree with the book’s teachings and describe how they raised their children.

A parent’s attitude, I realized, is the foundation for how every day is lived out. And those days are the building blocks of childhood memories.

~Lead Your Family Like Jesus p. 93

What memories will your children have? Do you need to make some changes in your attitude to reflect your family goals?

We’ve all heard “Do what I say, not as I do.” But we are the examples to our children and actions speak so much louder than words. Does what you do and say match what you believe?

Life, family, and leadership are all about choices. What do you stand for? How have you chosen family activities to match?

~Lead Your Family Like Jesus p. 65

The book has four parts – The Four Leadership Domains – that all interact like a flowchart {Indeed, I made one for my Sunday school class}:

1. The Heart: The character and the values
2. The Head: Your viewpoint and beliefs
3. The Hands: What you actually do
4. The Habits: How you continually refocus your desire

Throughout the chapters, there are Pause & Reflect sections that invite discussion and real deep down thinking of your motives as a parent.

For example, in the first chapter, we’re asked:

What is Temporary Stuff? What is Important Forever? It encourages us to keep everything in eternal perspective.

Great quotes from other Christian books help drive points home. The authors tell stories of how they dealt with difficult circumstances, how they trained their children, how they modeled Jesus’ upside-down Kingdom values.

At the end of each section are reviews over the Leadership Domain – Points to Ponder. Great summaries!

I believe this book especially appeals to men, to dads. It’s a leadership book. I know my husband’s only reading material is online…or leadership books. This book really targets dads in ways they can understand, especially if they’re not regular readers – with bullets, flow charts, pyramids, headings…all this makes it easier to read and comprehend the material.

It’s a call to action for men to step up and lead. But we wives need to learn to let them and support them, even if we may have a different (not necessarily better!) way. We need to clamp our mouths and listen respectfully to our husbands’ points of view. See Tricia’s video clip below!

Do you help your husband feel comfortable leading your family? Tricia has lots of edifying videos! Subscribe to her YouTube channel so you don’t miss a one.

What’s your family’s vision? It must say who you are (your purpose), where you’re going (your picture of the future), and what will guide your journey (your values). {paraphrased from p.48}

Write it down in your dining room or family room. Get it pretty-fied and frame it!

Rank-ordered values alone won’t accomplish your family’s purpose or turn your picture of the future into reality. You need to translate those values into behaviors.

~Lead Your Family Jesus p.61