Melissa Spoelstra’s ‘Total Family Makeover’ Family Fun Night Giveaway

Begin to build your family discipleship and become the key disciple-makers in your children’s lives with Melissa Spoelstra’s new book, Total Family Makeover.

George is two. In the short time we have been in year two, we have seen George explore his emotions and who he is as an individual. With that has come tantrums and unfortunately George being a bully. There have been days where I wonder if he will ever learn to listen.

This book could not have come at a better time to give me hope and encourage me as a mom of a spirited young man.

There were a couple statements that really resonated with me.

My son’s behavior is not a report card on me as a parent. She went more in depth about where this will lead you, and I sat in tears realizing this is what I had become. I was comparing myself to other mom’s because my kid was hitting. I was doubting how to control this little being, and I was extremely embarrassed.
Along with that, God is the perfect parent, and we disappoint him regularly. I do at least a couple times a day. So how can I expect myself to be perfect and raise a perfect child? That is just setting myself up for failure to have that expectation on myself.
It is a different mindset of shifting how our kids respond to things to how we are actually teaching them. In other words, I need to focus on my spiritual direction in order to be able to train George.

This book has a great format too. It makes it really easy to pick up and read for the practical ideas and not feel weighed down by text.

Spoelstra weaves in scripture with practical activities for you to explore for modeling and training. I really like this aspect because I can be really dense sometimes, and at the end of the day when I am reading before bed, sometimes I just need someone to tell me the bottom line.

With George’s increase in communication and sense of awareness, Tom and I have talked at great lengths at what we want to model and hopefully instill in George as a Christian family. We want him to learn about Jesus and have compassion for the world, and these are definitely things we can start now even though his sentences consist of two words or just “No” or “mine.”

While I believe this book was intended for moms, Tom and I are really using it to give us a better foundation as parents and set the tone as a team. It has opened our eyes to different things we should be considering and habits that we should be creating now. It also reaffirmed some of the things we were already doing. To be honest though, it is hard to think about being responsible for your own spiritual development as an adult, but then to tack on the daunting task of helping a child build their own concept of God, it can be a lot. This was great to see that our worries are common and reaffirmed that we are on the right track. At the end of each chapter there are discussion questions that we can talk about and that has been great for our marriage as well. While we have been together for 10 years, we learned a lot by going through this book together.

And the examples she gives where invaluable for me at least. I love to hear what other parents do so that was my favorite part of the book.

There is a lot of scripture throughout which I think would lead this book to be a great Sunday School class option or for any new parent class that a church may do. If anything it would be a great gift for a baby shower.

This book is great. I didn’t feel like I was getting lectured to; it was more like getting coffee with a mentor. It is filled with ideas and things that just make sense. It focuses on the basics of establishing values, and to me that is so much more important than how to teach my kid how to dress himself. (Although that is a basic that eventually I would like for him to fully master.)

Disciples are made, not born. Whether your children are babes in arms or teenagers getting ready to leave the nest, making disciples at home starts with you! Give your family a makeover with this practical approach to helping your children learn what it means to be a follower of Jesus.

Plan an evening of fun, pizza, devotionals, and games with your family! Melissa is giving away a Family Fun Night Prize Pack.