The FINK Five

I'm almost half way through my 8 weekends of speaking on the Bible Song tour. Enjoyed Edina this weekend - the coldest in five years in Minnesota. Why didn't I schedule this weekend in Florida or LA? My son turned 14 and I didn't want to be gone. (Now that I think of it, why didn't I take him someplace warm for the weekend and write it off? Oh well, next time.)

I've been speaking mostly to frustrated educators who can't get enough volunteers, who have "drop off" kids with little to no parental participation, and who know the answer isn't simply in a new curriculum... but in a new way of thinking of faith education/incubation with a HUGE parental component. I show them now to pull parents into and onto the faith journeys with their own kids in a simple five minute, five step process we at FINK call the Home Huddle or the FINK Five. In a nutshell, it goes like this:

Whomever is going to bed first in the house calls, "Huddle Up!" or (at my house) "Highs and Lows! Five minutes!"

Everyone must drop what they're doing, turn off the tv, put down the newspaper, sign off of the internet and gather. (In my house the kids come and sit on mom and dad's bed).

We share the following simple five-step routine:

1. Share - Highs and Lows (what's good and not-so-good today)

2. Read - a Bible verse (or other sacred scripture in other faith traditions)

3. Talk - about your day and how the highs and lows may relate to the scripture

4. Pray - for one another's highs and lows

5. Bless - one another before turning out the lights on the day

According the American Family Research Council, the average teen is getting 37 1/2 minutes of one-on-one conversation with a parent a week. Do this in five minutes a night, and you're roughly doubling the amount of conversation that goes on in the home. You're also making it a caring conversation, active listening, and adding God to the mix in half of the talk with your teen.

That's the little message I'm slowly spreading across the church and across the land.

"How to Change the World (in five minutes a night)" or "How to Keep Your Family Together (in a world that can tear it apart) In Five Minutes a Night" will be the trade book someday... if I ever get around to taking another sabbatical and writing it.

Want to help spread a little health, nightly caring conversations, and communication in your family and sphere of influence? Try it tonight and then let me know how it goes.

If five minutes a night could change your world, maybe it could change THE world.