Training Hearts Teaching Minds

Over the summer this book, Training Hearts Teaching Minds by Starr Meade, was recommended to us from a couple of different sources. We decided to do it this year as family devotions along with our thank yous before bed starting when the school year started so we have used it for 2 weeks. Every week one of the questions and answers from the shorter catechism is taught and there is a short devotional with related Bible readings  There are 6 devotions every week with related Bible readings to help us to understand the question and answer that we are memorizing. So far we have done the first two questions:
Q1. What is man's primary purpose?
A1. Man's primary purpose is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.
Q2. What authority from God directs us how to glorify and enjoy Him?
A2. The only authority for glorifying and enjoying Him is the Bible which is the Word of God and is made up of the Old and New Testaments.

It has been neat to interact with the kids, both during the devotional time as well as "when we sit in our house and walk by the way and when we lie down and when we rise up." There is so much of a focus on "fun" in our culture. It seems that the first question is always, "Did you have fun?" The kids pray "Please help us to have fun today." What is that? Is that truly our purpose? Glenn and I were talking on our trip to PA about how we wanted to change the focus of our family from "fun" to something that honors God more. It was funny because the preacher there talked about how our culture sees the world as a playground with the goal of fun - you have to have more stuff, better stuff, new stuff. If it is not fun it is not fair. God didn't put us on earth to have fun - our primary purpose is to glorify and enjoy God.

I think that God is going to help us define our vision statement and the focus of our family through His Word and this book. I am very thankful for what He has already done in our hearts and lives and look forward to what else He is going to teach us.

Note: If you want to check out this book the first 2 weeks are actually available in the preview on amazon that I linked to above.