We had been living in Centralia, a small town in southwest Washington for nearly seventeen years. Life was very comfortable; eight kids, directing a growing Young Life area, a church family that we had known for seventeen years, coaching football at the high school, coaching my kids in little league – we had a sense that God would have us grow old and die in Centralia. Somehow God forgot to check with our “senses” when he directed Ky Griffin, my boss and friend, to call and ask us to consider taking the Metro Director role in Tacoma. My first reaction and answer to Ky was, “of course not”. After all we were comfortable – life was good. But then we made the fatal promise – we’ll pray about it! At first it was just Kelli and I praying together. Of course our prayers were along the lines of, “God you wouldn’t want us to leave the work you’ve called us to here, would you?” Eventually Kelli and I had a gnawing sense that He might really ask us to go. Alyse celebrated her first birthday in Centralia. She was a junior in high school. Would He really ask us to move her senior year? What would they think of all this. It was still pretty farfetched that we would actually go, but what if?

We decided it was time for a family meeting. The possibility had grown large enough that we needed to invite the kids into the process. So after a pretty routine family meeting we dismissed the younger kids and kept our four oldest for an “executive council meeting”. We shared all that had transpired to that point and exactly what we were praying about. Then we asked Alyse, Krista, Tavita, and Jordan to begin praying for the Lord to speak to them about the move. There were tears shed at that meeting at even the thought of a move. The kids had lots of questions which we happily answered as best we could. Later, our number two daughter Krista would come up to me and announce with tears in her eyes, “I know we are going”. I quickly corrected her and said, “no honey, we still don’t know that.” To which she replied, “yes I do, God told me we were going and I know he told me first because I’d have the hardest time.” Which of course we all knew was true – Krista had an incredibly tight group of friends that she had competed in sports with for years. She had just made first team all league as a freshman in soccer and basketball and was getting ready to start on a fastpitch team that, the year before, had played in the state championship game. So we worried about how we would tell her, if indeed the decision was ever made. And now God had taken care of that for us – somehow to a young fifteen year old girl, God had given her the message first – you’re moving to Tacoma.

That is one example of how family meetings have served us. Whenever we had news to share or changes to make we’d start with a family meeting. It brings a smile to my face just thinking about some of our gatherings. It’s fun to watch the faces of others as we order ten or eleven and sometimes more (my sister Becca usually joins us and it depended on who was living with us) drinks at Starbucks and then sit in the corner laughing and giggling. We’ve loved all the reminiscing and storytelling that happens at our family meetings. But they don’t always start out that way. Often I can hear the collective groan when they get my text message announcing our next get together as they contemplate squeezing another thing into their busy schedules. That’s why we’ve tried to be good about mixing it up a little. That’s why we don’t just correct – in fact we try hard to start the meeting off with any apologies that we have for them and then move into a general check up. It’s amazing how much they appreciate it when mom and dad genuinely want to hear from the kids how it’s going. We get the chance to affirm the good things they bring up. If they bring up something that we had on our list to correct, it’s that much easier to address it – after all they agree with us that it is a problem. We also get to hear some reports about school and friends and sports – and so do the siblings. Make your family meetings fun – if you do that, you’ll have plenty of opportunity to fix a few things along the way. The dynamics if you have two kids is clearly different, but it’s also easier to get creative. Pray for God’s help; he’s in this with you.

No matter what actually gets accomplished at your family meeting, I would argue it’s worth it. After all it’s a tangible way to send the message to your kids –  family is important.