Five Minute Family

Good morning, Five Minute Families! It’s been wonderful having kicked off so many Tuesdays of 2020 with you. We would love for you to share with us your favorite tip or show from the year. Head over to our Clear View Retreat facebook page and drop us a comment so that we know you are out there listening. This year has taken so much from so many, and most folks are aching for 2021 to arrive. Unfort...

Good morning, Five Minute Families! Merry Christmas to you all! It has long been a tradition in our family that our sweet Papa Jerry would open our holiday family meals with a devotion. The last couple of holidays, he has drawn in Jim and my brother-in-law, knowing that his earthly time would be short. Though we were all only able to be together via video messaging in some way for Thanksgiving and...

Good morning, Five Minute Families! So, a very important question here less than two weeks before Christmas... does your family write out Christmas gift lists to share with each other? We’re not talking about the letters to Santa for the younger kids, though that is an element, but an actual Christmas list for each member of the family, no matter the age? One family I knew had each person write a...

Good morning, Five Minute Families! It is great to be with you today despite all the cancellations and revisions as of late. Do last-minute cancellations get under your skin? What about the sound of a scraping fork? Someone drumming on the table or humming the same tune on repeat? Ah, my friends, pet peeves. We’ve all got them, but some of us are better at controlling our responses to our pet peev...

Good morning, Five Minute Families. We hope you had an excellent holiday weekend whether you had a simple, quiet one at home or were able to join with some friends or family to celebrate. Ours was going to be with a small amount of extended family but even that got cancelled last minute due to the wonderful COVID-19 coronavirus. We made the most of it anyway and enjoyed ourselves despite the ever-...

Good morning, Five Minute Families! Thank you for joining us here today. At Clear View Retreat, we always try to bring our focus back to the Lord and keep a clear view of His perspective and not our own. So, let’s talk about the fact that this is Thanksgiving week. I can’t believe Thanksgiving is in just a couple of days. Wow, it has been a very long year. These last nine months have been worse th...

Good morning, Five Minute Families! Thank you for joining us again this morning as we share ideas for godly family living in family-sized nuggets. Often, the noise of the holidays has already begun, and while this year many folks have unabashedly decorated for Christmas early, others of our loved ones are feeling overwhelmed because they experienced the death of someone they love very much this ye...

TRANSCRIPT: Good morning, Five Minute Families. It is so good to be with you on this unseasonably warm day. We will soon be closing Clear View Retreat down for the winter, but we certainly hope that all the projects our volunteers have been diligently focusing on this year will allow this to be our last year to have to close during the cold winter months. So many pastors, missionaries, and grievin...

TRANSCRIPT: Good morning, Five Minute Families. Thank you for joining us this morning. At Clear View Retreat, we reach out to families in both the ‘norms’ and ‘storms’ of life. Much of what we discuss here comes from what we are living out at the moment, so we are going to continue to discuss how families can honor the Lord and support each other through the process of grief. After someone dies, m...

TRANSCRIPT: Good morning, Five Minute Families. I come to you this week with a hurting heart. We are facing the imminent death of someone we love. In fact, I am alone with you today while Kim is with our extended family. We know that many of you are facing the same thing – the impending death of someone dear to you. As you know too well, even before the loss happens, the pain begins. Anticipatory...

TRANSCRIPT: Good morning, Five Minute Families. We at Clear View Retreat love to be able to share God’s truth here with you. We thank you for joining us and we hope you will comment on our blog or our facebook page. “Be blessed, our friends.” What does that mean? The top definition given on an internet search is as an adjective meaning, “made holy; consecrated.” As American English speakers, when...

TRANSCRIPT: Good morning, Five Minute Families! Leaves are falling, and rakes are out. Piles are being jumped into while jackets are on. Come fall into our family topic for this week: to compete or to complement. In 1 Corinthians 9:24 Paul uses a competition analogy to help us understand our striving for our eternal prize: “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives...

Good morning, Five Minute Families! What an exciting time to be alive and living for the Lord. We know by His word that the love of many will grow cold but that the one who endures to the end, he will be saved. Don’t give in to the hate, and do not give up on all the Lord has planned for your family. Five Minute Families, what can YOU do to continue to walk with Him during these unsettling times?...

Good morning, Five Minute Families. What a week this has been! No matter which end of the political spectrum you are on, all of us are affected by the current events going on around us. Sometimes, we can live in blissful ignorance, at least for a time, but we are impacted whether we realize it or not. One thing that impacts us daily is what is allowed to appear on the screens and devices we have a...

Good morning, Five Minute Families! Thank you for allowing us into your home (or car) for these five minutes a week. Here at Clear View Retreat, blessings abound as we see families’ lives impacted for Christ, yet, all of us will experience disappointment at the hands of someone we love. Our spouse will miss a special moment, a child will profoundly upset us with a decision he or she makes, and on...

Good morning, Five Minute Families. How was it tumblin’ out of bed this morning after a long, relaxing weekend? If it is anything like our house, this week is going to seem longer than a four-day week, that’s for sure. But, alas, we will all find the effectiveness and helpfulness of our alarm clocks soon enough. The discipline of using that tool wisely will help our families have discipline, too....

Good morning, Five Minute Families! Thank you for joining us this morning as we explore God’s great truth for families in bite-size, five minute, nuggets. Our desire for families is to learn more about God in their family’s unique way, based on where they have been and where God is taking them. We do that primarily at our Family Camp retreats at Clear View Retreat, but we also do that in our day-t...

Good morning, Five Minute Families! How has this week been treating you? Have you had a conversation (or two or ten) about your or another’s thoughts and feelings about the pandemic and all the changes that have happened? Did those discussions center on emotions or facts? While our conversations about the pandemic mask-wearing and socially distancing may alternate between emotions and facts, if we...

Good morning, Five Minute Families! How is your family handling this new school year? Please share with us your challenges or triumphs on Clear View Retreat’s facebook page, or head over to clearviewretreat.org for more information about us. Five Minute Families are to devote time to each other, intentionally and abundantly, and we know that having a strong support system means investing time and...

Good morning, Five Minute Families! This might be slated to be a rainy week, but we have a light that shines brightly through all the norms and storms of life, and we are so glad that you let us bring a bit of His truth to you each week. Let us start with a quick reminder that five minutes is just a start to help us get our minds focused on better relationships through the wisdom of God’s Word. Yo...

Good morning, Five Minute Families! How has this week been for you? It’s been a bit crazy for us! Let’s dive back into our discussion about biblical community. Listen to this story. A man went to church. He forgot to silence his phone and, of course, it rang during prayer. The pastor scolded him. The worshippers admonished him after prayers for interrupting the silence. His wife kept on lecturing...

Good morning, Five Minute Families! We hope your week was filled with sweet blessings of fellowship and kindness. We had a wonderful weekend here at Clear View Retreat with a group of volunteers coming to help us continue to get the facility able to be open in the winter time. Believe it or not, winter will be here before we know it. If you want more information about what we do here at Clear View...

Good morning, Five Minute Families. How has your week been so far? We pray that the Lord meets you today in a mighty and wonderful way so that you know His power and His hope and His glory. Alongside our key concept of intentional intimacy here at Clear View Retreat, we always encouraging families to disconnect to reconnect. Disconnect from technology and from other distractions in order to reconn...

Good morning, Five Minute Families! It is wonderful to joining you this first Tuesday of July 2020. This year has brought so many challenges and difficulties as well as unexpected blessings. We pray that God has shown you His power and might through all the unknowns. This morning we would like to chat about family freedom. First, let’s define freedom. Freedom means “the power or right to act, spea...

Good morning, Five Minute Families. Thank you for joining us today. If you would like more information about the ministry we lead at Clear View Retreat, please check us out at www.clearviewretreat.org. Today we wanna talk about an old saying that has been attributed to a number of different people, so we can’t give proper credit, but the saying goes, “Good,...