Let's just say that Veronica and I have a bit more experience raising children than most parents do! When we tell people that we have twelve children, they typically ask, "Twins? Adoptions? Foster kids?" Nope. All ours, one at a time, same mom, same dad, still married. 

For years people have told us, "you need to write a book." One fellow pastor went so far as to tell us, "You guys owe the body of Christ a book." We've resisted the idea of writing a book for a long time, because we didn't want to presume that all of our kids would turn out as well as the first few did. For the most part, we didn't feel like we were doing anything differently than other parents were. 

For years now, I've watched other families fairly closely to see if I could understand what made the difference--the difference between families where the kids served God, and the ones where they didn't. Was it the way they were treated? Was it the time that mom and dad spent with them? Was it family devotions? 

It turns out that there are seven principles that God reveals in the book of Genesis, that lay out the pattern for how parents need to establish the environment in their home. Very little of it has to do with the way that you spend time with your kids, the rules that you enforce in your home, or the kinds of discipline that you choose to enforce. Rather, the principles have to do with the character of the relationships that you establish, and the example that you set as parents.

Our book, "Train them up" lays out those seven principles, and explains how you can establish them in your home. If you're new parents that want to get things off on the right foundation, the book will help you to figure out how to do that. If you're heading into the teenage years, and you're wondering how to survive, the book will help you figure out if you need to make some adjustments, or whether you've got the right environment already. If your kids have grown, and they're not serving God the way you wished and hoped they would, the book will help you to understand how to go about changing your approach to maximize the likelihood that your family will experience revival.

Stay tuned as we upload a set of 4-minute family moments over the next months! Those family moments will help you get a handle on the basics. To buy the book, go to Amazon's website and search for "Train them up" and download it to your Kindle. If you'd like a real old-style paper book, drop us a note and we'll pop one in the mail.