Five Minute Family

Gooood morning, Five Minute Families. We are getting excited here at Clear View Retreat as we prepare for new family camps, marriage retreats, and more as 2022 begins to book up. Each family’s unique purposes and identities are causes for celebration and encouragement, and through discussing and applying God’s relationship principles, we can deepen our family discipleship and biblical community. P...

Good morning, Five Minute Families. We are finishing our ‘Begin with the End in Mind’ series. As we have journeyed backward through milestones, we reach the milestone every parent anticipates… the end of childhood. Of course, our children think that end comes sooner than it does, and some of us parents who are ready for the kiddos to fly the coop will still miss them as terribly as the parents who...

Good morning, Five Minute Families! As we work backwards through life in our Begin with the End in Mind series, we come to the end of working years. Many people refer to this time as retirement. Retirement is defined as “the action or fact of leaving one's job and ceasing to work” or “withdrawal from one’s active working life.” The reality is that if you retired or plan to retire at age 62, which...

Good morning, Five Minute Families! We are continuing our “Begin with the End in Mind” series. Last week we discussed staying focused as Christ followers on the fact that heaven is our ultimate home, and we need to live as citizens of heaven now. Today, as we begin this year with the end of mind we are discussing our earthly end - our dying days. Psalm 71:9 cautions us, “Do not cast me off in the...

Good morning, Five Minute Families! Let’s begin this year with the end in mind. We aren’t talking about the end of 2022. We are going to do a series for the month of January looking at different life events, but we are going to begin with the end in mind. Why? Well, for starters, John 6:27 emphasizes, “Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the...

Good morning, Five Minute Families. This is an interesting week in the US. For many, it is the down time between Christmas and the New Year. For some, it is the time of intensity as they work to wrap up many of the end-of-year tasks that absolutely must be completed. Christmas is barely over, and we may have already lost sight of the baby Jesus in the change of rhythm from holiday mode to new year...

Good morning, Five Minute Families! It’s Christmas week. Lights are strung in trees and on homes. Some loosely and haphazardly; some straight and timed blinking to music. The typical Christmas plays and nativity scenes abound. Just as someone pointed out in our Bible class this Sunday, the plays and scenes aren’t quite as accurate we would like to think, however. Mary and Joseph traveled to a crow...

Good morning, Five Minute Families. We are glad to be back with you today. Life is short, and there are often reminders around us that we should take the risks that are holding us back, demonstrate our love as big as we feel inside, and forgive ourselves and others - all to live the abundant life Christ calls us into. Our lives are often marked by festivities and ceremonies - birthdays, graduation...

Good morning, Five Minute Families. Do you ever cringe when you see a video of a parent shaming his or her child? Like one of those where the child is standing on the street corner with sign stating what they did wrong. Ephesians 6:4 admonishes us parents, “Fathers, don’t stir up anger in your children, but bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.” Public shaming seems to fit in...

Good morning, Five Minute Families. Many families in America just enjoyed a long weekend with extended family. As families reunite, conversations abound about work, church, medical needs, social happenings, and more. The participants change a bit each year as we gather with new significant others, new children, and close personal friends. Each family is different but many of us want to show our be...

Good morning, Five Minute Families. This is a week of thankfulness in America. Everywhere we turn, we see fall colors, culinary treats, and the words grateful, thankful, and blessed. Our and our sons’ Bible studies, the call to worship, and the sermon itself this past Sunday were all about thankfulness. Psalm 100:4 says, “Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise. Give thanks to...

Good morning, Five Minute Families. In Luke 15 we read the parable of the lost sheep. If a sheep has wandered, which they are prone to do, the shepherd leaves the rest of the flock in a safe space and searches until he finds the one lost sheep. I was taken back to when our two oldest sons decided to walk from Maryland to Tennessee. Mind you, they were six and four years old. They gathered their ge...

Good morning, Five Minute Families. ‘tis the season when many high schoolers are thinking more and more about their college applications. Some parents begin planning their children’s college years during pregnancy. For some families, they have been discussing details and needs every fall since 9th grade. For others, they are just now trying to figure it all out before deadlines hit. Articles aboun...

Good morning, Five Minute Families. This morning’s devotion is focused on the husband and wife of the family, and we will be speaking around certain words to remain kid friendly, but the concept discussed is not for kids, so please note that you may want to listen to this next five minutes privately if your kiddos are extremely curious or they are beginning to understand certain words but are not...

Good morning, Five Minute Families. Today we continue our love series studying the Greek words used or indicated in the Bible; those four are agape, phileo, storge, and eros. We have discussed agape - God’s unconditional love - and phileo - brotherly love. Many people will try to compare and rank the types of love. However, aside from agape, the other three loves are not meant to be comparative. E...

Good morning, Five Minute Families. Have you ever taken a moment to evaluate the depth and commitment of your friendships? What about the people you are around each week? Examining your relationships to those around you and ultimately how you relate to Jesus is what we encourage at Clear View Retreat as we minister to families going through the norms and storms of life. As we step into week 2 of o...

Good morning, Five Minute Families. Many years ago, Kim and I had the opportunity to listen to a Bible study about the loves of the Bible, no not marriages of the Bible, though we are working through preparing a study on those. We were studying the different original Greek words that were translated into the English word for love. I love apple pie. I love my children. I love my husband. I love my...

Good morning, Five Minute Families. We just completed our September marriage retreat, and as fall progresses we will be welcoming grieving individuals during a support group meeting once a week for six weeks and during a weekend grief retreat. Please pray for the families who were here deepening their marital relationships and for those who are mourning the loss of their spouses. We are moved by t...

Good morning, Five Minute Families. The 20th anniversary of 9/11 was last week, and it was a day of reflection. Many of us remember those events - where we were and who we were with. Now, we have a large population that were either very young or not yet born, and they cannot fully relate to our experiences; they feel frustrated by the ‘never forget’ tagline because they do not remember. But, they...

Good morning, Five Minute Families. This past Sunday our church celebrated its 129 th Homecoming. I don’t remember having the tradition of a church homecoming growing up, so for those of you who are unfamiliar with a church homecoming as I once was, elements typically include a special message, special guests (usually leading worship), acknowledgement of church members who have died during the pas...

Good morning, Five Minute Families. Jojo is our youngest son, and he loves to put on the whole armor of God. As we sit together preparing this week’s Five Minute Family devotion, memories of our older boys dressed in plastic silver armor, standing tall, and explaining each part of the armor fill our thoughts. We are recording at Clear View Retreat in Lancing, Tennessee, a family ministry which was...

Good morning, Five Minute Families. Thank you, Jojo, for getting us started. We are Kim and Jim from Clear View Retreat. We are parents to 5 boys, 3 of which are still at home with us. We have seen the spectrum of child rearing. Some things we could have done better, of course; some things we have done and continue to do well that have outweighed any of our misgivings. The best thing we have done...

Good morning, Five Minute Families. The COVID-19 virus continues to wreak havoc around the globe and has struck us at church and at home. We are in the recovery phase and are thankful that no one in our family needed to be hospitalized. We are praying for those whose lives have been affected by this crazy virus. One thing that cannot be changed about me by any virus or other catastrophe? My salvat...

Good morning, Five Minute Families. Before we dive into our Key Truths for Families series, we want to tell you about an exciting opportunity happening at First Baptist Church in Wartburg on Sunday evening, July 25th, 2021, starting at 6 pm. Brother Ryan Karp will be visiting and sharing his unique perspective of faith as someone who was raised in the Jewish traditions; he is part of the Chosen Pe...

Good morning, Five Minute Families. Thank you for joining us on this next episode of the Five Minute Family devotional brought to you by Clear View Retreat. Our hearts are for your families and seeing them thrive in a world that continues to push against a Biblical view of family and Christian values. With the many challenges that life brings today, the Bible still has answers. Ephesians chapter 6...