"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children.

“Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates." (Deuteronomy 6:5-9)

We've been discussing various types of family moments in previous emails. Today we're going to look at Intentional vs. Incidental Family Moments. The family moments listed in Deuteronomy are both of these types. Intentional family moments are those we create: they are planned. Incidental family moments, on the other hand, just happen. They occur in the “everydayness” of life, and they happen whether we are ready for them or not. They represent teachable moments that await our response, and we must be ready to take hold of such moments.

Of course, it goes both ways. There will be times when something unexpected happens, creating a wonderful opportunity to intentionally impress our values to the kids. The key again, is recognizing such occasions and capitalizing on the moment. Leroy Dowell, a successful businessman in Hobbs, New Mexico, once hired his teenage daughter Lynn for the summer in hopes that he would have intentional family moments for her. He felt there would be many lessons for her: learning the value of diligent work, experiencing the surprises and disappointments of people in the workplace, seeing how people advance successfully, and gaining confidence as a person.

The greatest lesson Lynn learned, however, was not planned by her father. During the summer Leroy was falsely accused of unethical business practices. Being in the office, Lynn knew the charges were untrue. She watched how her dad handled the lies and the accusers scrupulously, with wisdom, justice, and charity. Leroy had wanted to teach his daughter what the workplace was like. But in that unexpected development, Lynn observed her father's moral and ethical standards and learned far more incidentally than she would have by her father's intentional plans.

I cherish the times when my boy and I could talk seriously about girls. More often than not, those conversations occurred as an incidental outgrowth of an intentional outing.

Several times Gail and I took the kids to formal restaurants to teach them etiquette. Often those formal occasions created informal family moments in very humorous and embarrassing ways. On one occasion, I invited a nationally known speaker to our church. He accepted, graciously adding us to his busy itinerary. We went to a local restaurant for lunch immediately after the service. My wife wanted to take Leah, then age ten, to create a family moment. All the way to the restaurant Gail instructed our little chatterer on etiquette. She told Leah not to talk because the guest was in a hurry - and Dad and he had some important business to discuss.

Leah did great! She listened quietly until near the end of lunch, but then she could hold out no longer. At a small break in the conversation, she jumped in and seriously asked, "Mr. Ragle, were some of those stories you told at church true, or were you just making a point?" The guest almost slid under the table laughing, while Mom and I stared at each other wide-eyed before busting up with laughter.

We used the incident later as a launching point to discuss the value of not saying everything you think.

I could list a thousand similar incidents. At such times intentional family moments cry out for creation!

In the e-newsletter, we'll talk about how you, as a parent, can earn the right to impress your values on your children. You won't want to miss it!