www.clearviewretreat.org

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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...

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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...

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Each family is unique and made for a purpose. At Clear View Retreat, we celebrate those distinct purposes and hope to illuminate God’s relationship principles to deepen family discipleship and biblical community. Thank you for joining us this week for our radio devotion the ‘Five Minute Family.’

How has your week progressed as you have been intentional with your loved ones? Please jump onto our website clearviewretreat.org and share your thoughts with us in the comments.

Two weeks ago we touched on making a digital connection with your family members. Still thinking along the lines of digital, this week we want to inspire you to think about the biblical concept of fasting… yes, that’s right, fasting from your digital devices. Now, why would we encourage digital connection one week and digital fasting so soon after? Simple… Balance.

But, first, a quick glimpse at biblical fasting. As David Mathis at DesiringGod.org states, “Fasting is voluntarily going without food — or any other regularly enjoyed, good gift from God — for the sake of some spiritual purpose.” That is why, in this age of ‘all things digital’ we need to make sure that we are keeping our focus on God at all times. So, we balance digital connection with digital fasting in order to make sure that God is preeminent in our lives.

At one point in our family’s past, we would fast from all things electronic for the whole month of February, with one family movie a week. One of our sons was so resistant to the concept one year that he sat on our big recliner chair every free moment. I would suggest he go play or work on a fun project or create a song or read a book or, well, you get the picture. No matter what I said, he would just sit there and say, “I want to play xbox.” For 28 days he sat on that chair.

Now, it might seem like our digital fast failed because one of our children was so resistant to it, but it didn’t. As parents and spouses, setting the example for our loved ones and following God’s example is never a failure, even if we don’t see fruit for years or we learn lessons on how to do it better the next time. In the years prior, it had been easier to guide them away from the screens in the house. While many of us had spent more time in God’s Word and enjoyed games we hadn’t played in a while, we learned that we should have planned some strategic and intentional events that would have brought our family better focus on the Lord and His purpose of fasting rather than just ‘not being on screens.’

In different examples of fasting in Scripture, we see different purposes for fasting. Acts 14:23 illustrates fasting to seek God’s wisdom. In Ezra, God’s people are seeking deliverance or protection. In Jonah, the people of Nineveh fasted to repent and ask God to save them. When the Israelites in Judges 20 needed help to gain victory over their enemies, they fasted first. Being devoted to God means putting into practice those disciplines He expects of us.

Often, if fasting is not already a practice of ours, it can seem overwhelming at first. So, just as experts suggest folks start small with a food fast, we suggest you start small with a digital fast, especially if your family has a large digital footprint. Twenty-eight days at that time in our lives wasn’t a big deal because our children were younger, and we were not tied to things like smart phones. Now, twenty-eight days would seem isolating for our kids who keep in contact with some good friends via their online games and, honestly, quite difficult for us.

So, how do we break down the concept of a digital fast for a ‘Five Minute Family’? Obviously, you will need to invest more than five minutes for the fast to actually be a fast. Maybe you can take five hours of your typically “prime time” digital footprint. The next time, maybe, you take five hours of prime digital time for five straight days. Perhaps, for your family’s...

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Take a moment to think about your biggest regret yesterday? Most likely, it involves a close relationship. Stick with us for the next five minutes for Clear View Retreat’s ‘Five Minute Family’ broadcast, and we will help you find new ways to make today, tomorrow, and everyday one without regrets.

Good morning, five minute families! How did your digital fasting go? As we seek to find balance in this digital age, we must address social media. I heard recently about a “social media influencer” who had photographed and posted about her children for years. Her now-teenage daughter was upset and bought a number of clothing items that said things like, “No permission to use my image,” “Don’t take my picture.” Etc. The mom was angered because she had built her platform around sharing her family with the world. We could brush off the teen as being overly dramatic or rebellious, or further scorn her among family and friends, as we have all witnessed someone lambasting another friend or family member. We could also point fingers at the influencer mom and scorn her over her choices and lifestyle. But, let’s move beyond pointing fingers.

Before the days of social media, our oldest son had bell’s palsy. He looked like Buddy Hackett, the old comedian, when Buddy would make his sideways ‘o’ face. Our son looked adorable to us, no matter what was happening with his face. We took family pictures for our upcoming Christmas cards, but our son quite sadly asked us to please not send out a picture of him that year. We respected his request, though somewhat disappointed ourselves. He was embarrassed and was going through a difficult trial for his young life. As parents, we must take pause and realize that our children are not here as our possessions to do so with however we see fit. They are individuals entrusted to us by a loving God with whom we get to navigate this time of life. Mutual respect and responsibility are important.

Here are five suggestions to allow your family to lovingly and respectfully engage with social media:

1. Take time to get the person’s permission before posting.
2. Allow an extra five minutes if necessary to grab a picture your child will feel positive about.
3. Before you post ANYTHING on social media, take five minutes to think and pray about what you are about to share.
4. If your children have social media, be sure to take five minutes to review your child’s social media posts. Allow those to be teaching points or talking points in your relationship. The goal being helping them grown and learn, not feel defeated or shamed.
5. Set limits on what can be posted about. Putting our worst moments onto social media or engaging in “bashing” text messages do not allow family members the space to realize their own mistakes or allow for hurts to be fully forgiven. How often have we heard of celebrities who get frustrated that folks keep bringing up their past when they have changed and grown? We all might not be celebrities, but what is put on social media is there for everyone to repeatedly bring up. If we do not set safe, loving, and proper boundaries for ourselves and our children, we are allowing the enemy a stronghold into replaying those hurts over and over again.

Ok, so, let’s explore for a moment having already made a social media mistake…

How many times have we “aired our dirty laundry” out with others instead of turning to Christ for direction? Way too often those posts, online conversations, and in-person conversations are not glorifying or edifying to anyone.

If you have hurt someone with a social media post, take 5 minutes and pray about how to you will approach them. As a parent and friend, I have found that giving a genuine apology can be a great first step in reconciling a relationship, and a genuine apology shows that you are not afraid to be real and open to further conversation.

When having...

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Clear View Retreat brings you this ‘Five Minute Family’ radio devotion to help in both the norms and storms of life. A Five Minute Family is one who is trying to choose God and His relationship principles, no matter what chaos is raging around them.

We consider all family compositions when we write our devotions because we know that families come in all shapes and sizes – kids in the home, no kids, single parent families, blended families, and more. This particular ‘Five Minute Family’ is primarily for families with kids still in the home, although God’s relating principles are true for all of us and can be applied in many ways.

With kids in the home, life has its own unique level of stress. Is the baby needing constant holding making you wish you hadn’t become a mom? Is the toddler damaging something else making you wish you could spend more time at the office – AWAY from home? How about that teenager whose hormones are making the teenager in you come out?

Parents, we all need a timeout sometimes. Don’t feel guilty if you need to evaluate how you are handling family life and take a step back briefly.

As a young mom, I loved spending time with my son. I had friends who within weeks of their kiddos’ births wanted a weekend away or a night to themselves. But, I truly did not understand their feelings. I enjoyed waking up with him in the night, playing games throughout the day, tending to all his needs, holding him all day long if needed. I didn’t doubt my love for him, and I didn’t doubt my willingness to do anything and everything he needed. Until… our second baby came along. Napping while the baby napped was no longer an option. Being pulled in two different directions for two different sets of needs developmentally became a challenge for me. I kept feeling that I needed desperately to get away. As an exclusively nursing mom, getting away for long was not an option. Once I was going to go to a movie so I could have some “not mommy” time, but Jim was concerned that our younger son (and possibly the older one, too) would cry for the hours I would be away. I had always responded to every cry, to every call, and that was taking me away.

I could see that Kim needed a break, but as young parents living away from family without any help on a daily basis, I wasn’t sure what to do. So, after realizing that Kim was running on empty and giving less and less of herself without being refueled, one day, I took our sons into a separate area of the house. I got her her favorite snacks, set her up with a movie and a book, and finally realized that I needed to give her the space to refuel.

After that afternoon, Jim and I both learned a lot. We learned that he could take care of the boys without my hovering over everything, and I learned that I could not continue to give 100% of myself 100% of the time. By truly entering a state of rest and relaxation, I was able to begin the parenting process again – and in a much healthier way.

Here are five suggestions for DAILY refreshment in the world of childhood chaos, so that you can continue to give of yourself WHILE ALSO TAKING CARE OF YOURSELF.

1. Five minutes of Bible reading… google for verses for the topic that is most pressing in on you or just search for verses of encouragement. God has a message for you; you just have to be reading it to hear it.
2. Five minutes of Christian music… Research shows that music is an amazing stress reliever. We personally love the MercyMe Lifer album, but any music style that you like that will bring your focus onto God and His purpose for you is what matters.
3. Five minutes of extra shower time… now, environmentalists please don’t complain… we all need therapy at times, and if you can’t get into talk with a counselor or mentor, then taking a few minutes in a steamy bath or shower allowing your muscles to relax can bring you refreshment.
4. A...

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Good morning, Five Minute Families. Join us for the next five minutes as we explore God’s grace in the midst of our pain and hurts. And, for more information about our grieving family retreats, please click on the “Grieving Families” link under the “retreats” tab at our website: clearviewretreat.org

A week ago many fellow Tennesseans suffered countless hurts and losses when tornados tore through numerous counties. The volunteer response has been astounding. From individuals who donated their time to clean up debris to companies giving their employees paid time off to help in the relief effort to the regional hospital not sending out bills from their ER work, so many folks are lovingly overwhelmed with hope and help in the midst of suffering. In some cases, they have had to turn volunteers away because there were so many who showed up.

As the days, weeks, and months pass, the new reality of those affected will be vastly different than anything they could have planned for. Grief and loss will do that. We think that we prepare well and do all we can to mitigate the damage – both physical and emotional – but we were created to be relational beings, and when those relationships are impacted by death and destruction, we can never fully understand until we are in the midst of the pain.

Here are five suggestions on how you can help others during their grief, which, by the way, may last much longer than you expect:

1. Let them share… even if you have heard their story before. In times of crisis, we often forget who we have talked to, what we have said, or what we have even done. You may even have a friend or family member who wasn’t directly affected, but he or she is responding to this tragedy as if it is their own. Be sure to ask open-ended questions and allow them to work through their fears and concerns.

2. Use their loved one’s name. A common misunderstanding for many folks is that if they use the name, then they will bring up sadness. Your friend or neighbor is already thinking of their loved one. By using his or her name, you open the doors to allow memories, thoughts, and emotions to be expressed in a healthy manner.

3. Offer specific, practical help, not just a blanket statement such as “please let me know if you need anything.” It can be hard in loss to put yourself in the other person’s shoes and anticipate the needs. For the tornado victims, many others thought of practical needs such as basic hygiene products or doing laundry. If you are helping someone deal with the death of a loved one outside of a natural disaster, one idea, if you are willing to do so, is to offer to clean a part of their home such as the bathroom or kitchen. When our son Jedidiah died, one of the men of our small group who had lost a child of his own years earlier, went into the kitchen and cleaned it completely without our knowing. It was the next morning before we realized what he had done. That tangible service was a blessing we will never forget.

4. Please be praying for them. If you don’t know their specific needs, a general prayer is fine, but if you have the chance to ask them specifically what you can be praying for, you may be surprised at what they need most in that moment. The ask will bring the two of you closer while allowing your prayers to be more practical for your friend.

5. Lovingly normalize receiving counseling or therapy. Since some folks are sensitive about the subject and feel like the suggestion of quote “maybe you should get some counseling” unquote means there is something wrong with them, you can start by saying instead, “When I went to counseling…” or if you have never had counseling but had a great pastor, mentor, or confidante, “Talking through our losses is so important…”

Here at Clear View Retreat, we offer families a place of respite and refreshment whether in the norms and storms of life. But, God offers respite and peace anywhere. Be His...

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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 each week as we explore various aspects of family life. Today, we are tackling the quarantine blues.

For the quarantines to be truly protective of vulnerable populations, we must limit our public event interactions. That’s going to translate to A LOT of time to fill at home. Five Minute Families will possibly be better titled ‘five week families’ for the time being.

While we need to be intentional about the added time that we will spend together, please remember that we do not need to fill every moment for our children or for ourselves. One of the reasons we promote the concept of ‘disconnect to reconnect‘ here at CVR is so that conversations can be “organic,” meaning that the conversations we have with one another are characterized by continuous or natural development, not forced attentions and exchanges. Likewise, we know that children who engage in unstructured play and make-believe are developing essential psychological and emotional capacities as well as learning to solve problems and create new possibilities.

If you are a crafty person who feels thwarted during regular schedules, this should allow more flexibility for those creative ideas to flow. If you are a highly structured person who feels that you or your children will be missing out on quality academic options, then you will want to take advantage of the many educational opportunities online that are being opened for free, if only temporarily. Scholastic has a program opened to affected students, and there is a growing list of opportunities at the website amazingeducationalresources.com. If you do an internet search for ‘ideas during the quarantine,’ lots of great ideas will pop up.

The best way to introduce whatever ideas you may have would be through structure and an expected routine. Now, please do not try to recreate school at home. While some families may be able to pull that off, usually it causes more frustration than it helps. Five areas we suggest a Five Minute Family builds into their daily routine are:

1. Quiet time/Me time: Don’t neglect your Bible time and be sure to find segments of the day in which everyone is expected to do something quietly on their own for a specific period of time.

2. Contact time: Use this age of technology to your advantage. Please video chat with your older family members who are more susceptible to the worst symptoms and outcomes of this virus. Call and text. Keep in touch with folks outside of your home on a daily basis to keep connections going despite the level of quarantine you or your loved ones may be experiencing.

3. Intentional computer time: Again, those online resources come into play here, but also, actual video play time. Kids aren’t going to want to schedule their video game time, but encourage your child to be proactive to chat with online friends to set specific game times so that no one will feel left out and they get to have some fun together.

4. Project time: Do you have projects around the house that have been waiting for a bigger chunk of time to complete? Well, here is a gift in disguise. Use your time wisely. Non-house projects may include starting new hobbies such as drawing, painting, cooking, playing a musical instrument, or practicing magic tricks.

5. Outside or Physical time: Do not forget to include physical movement EVERY SINGLE DAY of your isolation. If it is raining or too cold, please make sure you have a fifteen to twenty minute “Inside Moves” plan. You can print off some stretches, pull up youtube videos of exercise sequences, or just make up your own.

No matter how well you plan, being shut-in is difficult. Be mindful of each family member’s emotional health needs, and keep lines of communication open to...