Favorites of 2009

It was our first year of blogging. Never would have thought that we would have over 100 posts. Here are my some of our favorites (in no particular order):

1. A summary to the introduction of "Shepherding a Child's Heart." Was it one of our favorites because of how central the principles of this book have been to our ministry and our parenting? Was it because it was our third post coming off the Intentional Parenting Conference? No and no. It was because this post had the most number of comments. A whopping 7! (Disclaimer: 2 of those comments were from Joey Espinosa. But 5 comments is still the highest number of comments to one post.)
2. What do you do with Santa? It was the single most widely-viewed post.
   
3. Bill White's response to the common parenting question, "How do I know when a young child is ready to accept Christ?" As we parents are feeling the burden of leading our children, we must remember that only the Holy Spirit can make this issue clear.
4. In the spring, we put together iMix's of songs we use in Preschool and Camp Grace (and updated in the fall). Finally, we had an easy (and legal) way to equip families with some regular songs that we've done in our Big Group times.
   
5. Our first posted video. Alyssa Rogers (then a 4th grader) gave a anchorwoman-style announcement about our Elementary Camp.
6. Mike & Cindy Chibbaro's thoughts on developing good communication with children. Not only was the content insightful and practical, but they gave us a bullet point list (love it!) with a one-day response time (really love it!).
7. A comparison of parenting goals from two different books -- "Shepherding a Child's Heart" (Tripp) and "Parenting by the Book" (Rosemond). I was proud of myself for reading two books at the same time and being able to make a connection between them.
   
8. Another video, this time about how NOT to raise Future Men.
9. Is it too broad of a category to say "anything under the label of Shepherding"? But, we feel we need to include this, since the book review was the original purpose of the blog. There were 26 posts under this label.
10. Thoughts on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Would have said "Why I Celebrate Hanukkah," but technically that article was posted on the Grace Church Pastor's Blog.