Hi and welcome to Pause & Play!

Do your kids spend more time in front of a screen than anywhere else?

Do you share the frustration of many parents that whenever you pick up a new DVD or book aimed at children you find an indication of something inappropriate or just not in line with God's Best in the blurb?

Do you find yourself wishing that you had access to a much wider range of wholesome entertainment for your family instead of always having to say 'we don't watch this', 'you can't play that', 'I don't care that it's rated PG, you're not going to see it'?

Well hopefully you've come to the right place. This blog will aim to do what it says on the tin and resource CCFH parents with suggestions of wholesome media (DVDs, websites, music, games, books etc) to try at home and encourage everyone in the family to pause and play with a godly focus. Some featured media will be overtly Christian while other review items might simply be mainstream programming or books that have a particularly encouraging message.

I hope you'll enjoy following the blog and will be able to get into using some of the media reviewed here. It would be great if as many people as possible could add their own experiences of using the media in a family setting and also contribute other recommendations for people to try. Please also indicate when you are happy to lend out recommended media to other CCFH families.

Happy Blogging All

16/02/2015

Six Steps Towards Jesus - Lent 2015

Hi everyone - well it's been a while and clearly nobody wanted to follow this blog the first time round but my passion for resourcing and encouraging each other in our mission to do faith at home, through what we post online, hasn't changed so let's see if anyone fancies posting this time round :)

If you are a family connected with Christ Church then you have hopefully received your copy of 'Six Steps Towards Jesus' a booklet with 6 weekly Bible Challenges in to use with your family during Lent this year.  If you haven't got a copy and would like one then drop me a message via the church website and I'll happily get a copy to you.

I hope that you will all enjoy having a go at the different readings and challenges for each week and that you will find a few gems of inspiration for your faith journey in there - whether from the readings, activities or just general discussion that happens as you look at each page for a week. Above all I hope that this can just be one simple way that we can consciously move a bit closer to Jesus through this Lent and so be ready to celebrate him with heartfelt worship when we come to the season of Easter.

So you've got the booklet, you've got your family, why do we need a blog?  Well it's great to journey together with God in our homes and with our families and Lent is a great time to really focus on doing this well together, but it can be even more encouraging to remember that we are not just part of our individual families but part of God's Big Family too :)  So this blog is about encouraging each other, doing faith together and spurring each other on to dare to go closer to Jesus than we have ever been, whatever that means for each of us.  We can encourage each other by sharing our experiences as we reflect each week - what has God been bringing to mind for us?  Do we have any questions that we'd like answers to?  Is there something that we're not sure we understand from the readings?  Let's throw it open for discussion!  How have you found the challenges?  Have they made a positive difference to your family life?  There are no small thoughts and no insignificant contributions here - let's share and journey together this Lent - let the posts begin :)