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Welcome to the ‘Five Minute Family’ brought to you by Clear View Retreat, a family retreat ministry enlightening God’s relationship principles to families in both the ‘norms’ and ‘storms’ of life. Join us as we explore various aspects of family life. Today, we would like to introduce our concept of the ‘Five Minute Family.’

Do you sometimes feel your family is a chaotic mess? We all mess up, often and every day, but a “Five Minute Family” can commit to intentionally investing five minutes a day to change their family patterns and pour love, life, and affirmation into each other. New patterns of relating will lead to more sweet interactions and a loving, Godly family unit.

What five minutes will you give to your family?

Here are our recommendations for the big three and why:

1) the first minute of the day. Taking 60 seconds to give a hug and ask, “how’d ya sleep?” means that you are willing to invest in that person for the moment, letting them know that you value their being in your life. And, yes, that may mean stopping on a hectic school morning to take a minute to express your love

2) the first minute you reunite. When we come back together, we are often ready to unload all the emotional baggage we have been accumulating throughout the day. Stop. Take the first minute to acknowledge that your loved one has also had emotional, intellectual, and physical experiences that are affecting how he or she feels right now, too.

3) the last minute of the day. No matter how bad the day might have been, science shows that proper, adequate sleep is vital to physical AND emotional intelligence. By giving your loved one that final minute in peace and security in love, you offer them the ability to face each and every day.

Other ideas for your next two minutes:

• the last minute before you separate for the day. Take a moment to calm your hearts (even if you have been bickering, rushing, or fussing). Pray a quick prayer: “God, please stay with him/her.” You can add in a specific need for that day. Keep it short.

• the first minute of dinner. Many families pray at the beginning of their meals. That’s great. Before or after that prayer, take a minute (per family member preferably) to ask open-ended questions and listen to what is on one another’s minds.

• the first minute of errands or chores. Now, admit it. When tasks must be completed, we often get frustrated much more easily, especially if we are working with our children. Take the first minute to lovingly reaffirm why you are doing this (no lectures please!) or listen to why your children may be upset about doing so, etc. Being intentional to show love and acceptance is the point for the first minute.

• the first minute together after a ball game or event… build up your son or daughter or spouse. Don’t mention the missed shots, dropped balls, and the like. Do mention something you like about watching them play or something they did well (even if it was how they listened to the coach, even if they didn’t hit the ball)

Choose your five minutes and begin today making an impact that will last a lifetime!

Thank you for joining us today. Please visit us online at clearviewretreat.org for more information. We pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, will give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of His calling, the richness of His glory, and the infinite greatness of His power toward us who believe.

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Are you ready to transform your family? Please join us today for Clear View Retreat’s family radio devotion that we call the ‘Five Minute Family.’ Families need to invest time, thought, and initiative into one another, and we spend five minutes here each week looking at different topics and how a ‘Five Minute Family’ can maximize time throughout their day to live out God’s relating principles.

Thank you for joining us again. We are Jim and Kim Nestle, founders and directors of Clear View Retreat. Please remember that though the suggestions we talk about are five-minute time frames; these are just the starters. We are not striving to check off our five minutes of intentional relating and then drawing back into ourselves. As we intentionally choose nuggets of time scattered throughout the day to invest in one another, we honor our loving and intentional God.

You are absolutely right, Jim. So, Five Minute Family, if you heard us last week, how did you do choosing your five one-minute moments to invest in each other? Have you been intentional to complete those five minutes (and possibly more)?

We would love to hear how your week went, connect with us at: clearviewretreat.org and email us your thoughts and questions. Today, we will be discussing digital connections.

The biggest elephant in any room today is either the smallest computer (our phones) or the largest wall ‘decoration’ (our TVs). Let’s explore how a ‘Five Minute Family’ can traverse this digital age. We parents and spouses cannot simply demonize screens and expect our loved ones to follow suit, especially our children. For example, my fifteen-year-old son has asked me multiple times to play a new video game with him. I keep saying no. One, I am awful at video games, and, two, I really can’t stand them. However, it hit me that he is not asking me to play a game; he is inviting me into his world. If I continue to push him away, I will deal with those consequences for many years to come. At some point, he will believe that I do not value him because I do not value what is important to him. That is NOT the message I want to send. So, I am going to find five minutes (or, more likely, five one-minute segments because I am not sure I can handle the video games for a full five-minute chunk), and I am going to intentionally engage with my son. Hopefully, as I learn more about his world small amounts of time will snowball into more.

You see, we need to choose connection WITHIN our kids’ worlds, including the digital part. We can ask open-ended questions such as ‘how does this game make you feel?’ Cheesy? Maybe, but, still, we need our children (and ourselves) thinking about the impact of the screen time we have. Other questions you can ask include: how does this help you connect to others? how will these skills help you in the future? and what do you think the creators were trying to accomplish with [this] aspect of the game?

Mom, dad? Husband, wife? Do you need to stop vilifying your loved one’s screen time and not wondering about your own (don’t worry, we’ll get into the more in a few weeks)? Is there a minute that you can take to share your digital world with your spouse or your child so that they know that they matter in all areas of your life? Researchers share that this is the only time in history when those who had no digital exposure as children and those who have had digital exposure before birth will live together. Digital is here to stay, so what do we do?

When we enter into our loved one’s digital world, we have more influence and understanding of who they are. As we expose them to other aspects of life, we can hook into what is happening in their digital world because we have had glimpses of it. Make the digital world your ally instead of your enemy, and you will better reach your children’s hearts.

For further reading, we recommend a few good books out there: Every Parent’s Guide to Navigating...

TRANSCRIPT:

Welcome to the ‘Five Minute Family’ brought to you by Clear View Retreat, a Christ-centered family retreat ministry. Please join us as we explore various facets of family life during this family-sized radio devotion. You can check out more information about CVR at clearviewretreat.org.

Alright, let’s dive in.

Ah, hello Five Minute Families! How are you doing today? This week is Valentine’s Day. Now, many of you are probably thinking, “oh, great, another ‘spend your money’ made-up greed day. History shows us that February has long been celebrated as the month of romance. The legend of St Valentine isn’t clear, but the truth of our Lord is. Never forget that Jesus made the ultimate sacrifice of love for us, and when we step up for those He has placed in our lives, we honor our very relational and loving God.

Here we would like to offer five five-minute ideas for your Valentine’s Day celebration.

1. Turn on your wedding song and dance in the living room. Yes, embarrass those teens. Yes, let the littles wait a few minutes for their treat. The goal here is to give each other undivided attention. Maybe you are not a dancer. You can sit and hold his or her hand for the length of the song. Take this time to think back on your wedding day or the first time you saw your spouse and share a great memory and how they made you feel. It’s okay to get a little cheesy here, get a little romantic – it’s about building up that other person, so speak to their heart.

2. Ya gotta eat breakfast, right? Take two minutes to write your favorite thing about your spouse on a blank sheet of paper, draw a flower, and take a tray – a cookie tray if you have to – and put breakfast on the tray and carry it upstairs. Simply say, “I love you.” Five minutes of time on your part and hours of warmth in your spouse’s heart. If you are including the kids, make sure you take time to intentionally reach out to your spouse, express your love and appreciation for him or her, not as a parent but as a unique and wonderful individual in your life.

3. Valentine’s is a Friday this year. Take an extra five minutes at the end of dinner, even if it has to be at home with all the kids around because money is tight. Take out a dessert of any type that you already have on hand (extra points if you stop by the store on the way home and grab her favorite candy bar – hint hint) Basically, anything that your spouse loves, and as you present it to him or her share five things that you are thankful for that he or she does.

4. Maybe you guys are in the thick of the younger years which can be so physically exhausting. Or, maybe you are busy trying to keep up with the grandkids. Whatever stage of life and despite whatever routine patterns you have developed… Take five minutes to do a chore that your spouse typically does. A word of caution here, please do not choose the chore you argue the most about or do a chore that you think he or she doesn’t do fast enough to prove how little time it takes. In the overall scheme of life, five minutes does not seem like that much time. But, at different ages and stages in life, five minutes can be overwhelming. Have you ever left a toddler alone for five minutes? Well, then, you know that you may have just bought yourself 5 hours of clean up and repair work if you have done so. Five minutes is relative, and we know that five minutes of intentional relating is the difference between striving and thriving. So, prayerfully and LOVINGLY choose a chore that will bless your spouse, not make him or her feel belittled or inadequate.

5. One final idea … maybe give your spouse a five-minute pass to use this weekend (it could be a five-hour or five-day pass – depending where you are in life). Give them the ability to invest in self-care so that he or she is better able to meet the needs of the family at times when they must.

Remember, we love because God first loved us. We love because...