Why Family Meeting?

Leviticus 8:4

So Moses did just as the Lord commanded him. When the congregation was assembled at the doorway of the tent of meeting

Deuteronomy 4:10

Remember the day you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, when the Lord said to me, ‘Assemble the people to Me, that I may let them hear My words so they may learn to fear Me all the days they live on the earth, and that they may teach their children.’

These scriptures reveal how God called the children of Israel for a meeting with Him as His family to instruct, admonishing and direct them on what is acceptable to Him.

Family Meeting is not dinner time neither is It a time for Bible study, but it should be a time intentionally set aside to improve relationship with everyone in the family.

Family meeting time should be a great time to acknowledge and appreciate everyone for their good works and things they have greatly improved on like behaviors, chores, family values each person has upheld, school performance, new skills, etc, before talking about the things you wish everyone can improve on.

Family meeting is also a great time to ask everyone questions that make each person feels heard. Like what do you like about our family? Things they wish they would like to see improved or challenges they could be facing that they need help with. Then, you encourage building problem-solving skills as you lead the discussion on how to solve the problems and challenges while each person learns from the conversation.

Family meeting time is also a great time talk about your family vision, goals and values. Look at your values, decide to pick one and have an exclusive conversation on it. Introduce the value, talk about the what, why and how to apply it everyday when relating with others. This is a great way to teach your children life values to live by.

Family meeting is also a great time for family to come together as they share news with themselves. Like a parent's promotion at work, appointments, a transfer or moving plans, a new family development, like illness, death of an extended family member like grandparents etc, while helping them internalize the information as they process it.

Family meeting is designed to be when family members come together to plan an event, a trip, introduce new things, and have general conversations. When a new school year or session is about to start, families come together to set goals and expectations for the session, such as time to wake up, time to leave home, grade scores expectations and reminder of things the children have learnt in the cause of the break.

Family meeting is a great time for family members to bond, grow heart felt connections, brain storming, setting rules, revisiting family vision, goals and values, and everyone expresses themselves as they feel seen and heard.

Here are 5 rules that should guide a family meeting:

• Start with fun activities to make everyone feel relaxed

• Let everyone make their contribution in the conversation as they feel heard and seen

• Let this meeting be focused just on one topic or subject of discussion at a time

• Attendance is not optional, everyone is expected to be at the family meeting

• Parents must be in agreement on any raised conversation as leaders in the family meeting

When family meetings are done in love, children and every member of family continuously look forward to it.

God bless,

Nene Oluwagbohun