Finances and Budgets

We had a wonderful meeting this past Wednesday.

Our Mentor Mom, Leah, shared with us the importance of Praying for our children. Some verses she shared are John 16:23-24, James 4:3, and 1 John 5:14-15. There are important aspects of prayer and our children.

One~ we are to pray with them. You can never start to early when including your children in your prayer time. Some simple ways to include them are meal times. Give thanks for the meal and all God has given you, and include 1-2 short empathy prayers. (Leah reminded us never to pray long enough that your food gets cold :)!) Another great time to include your children is at bedtime. this is where you can spend more time praying over the concerns of yourself and others. Pray about bad dreams, fears your children have, those that may be sick or struggling. Also spend time reading the Bible with your kids. A great Bible to look into is The Taylor Bible (it is no longer in print, but you can search for a used copy). It is written in a way children will understand.

Two~ we are to pray for our children. You can start this before you even conceive, or after you do. Pray for their future spouses, their lives, their health, their salvation. Pray out loud so your children hear you praying for them. Prayer can sometimes be our only defense as a parent. A very scary prayer that we sometimes need to use as a parent is "whatever it takes".

When praying for or with our children always remember to pray in God's will.

Leah gave us 31 Biblical Virtues to Pray for Your Children by Bob Hostetler and suggested that we put this somewhere we would see it daily and then speak out loud these prayers for our children.

Where 2 or 3 are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them (Matthew 18:20)

We then had Julie Munyan from Eliot Baptist Church talk to us about budgeting and finances. Did you know that God talks about $ about 200 times in the Bible? Some verses that Julie shared with us were 1 Timothy 6:6-8, Mark 12:41-42, Proverbs 21:20, and Proverbs 22:7. We need to give with our whole hearts and do it willingly and happily. If we aren't giving this way, then we shouldn't give! We need to fully lean on God with our finances. Julie shared some wonderful tips about how to eliminate our debt and gave each of us a wonderful packet with a budget sheet, ideas on how to create a budget, and much more. If you missed our meeting let Jenny know and we can work on getting you a packet. A very good resource for finances is http://www.crown.org/ and http://www.daveramsey.com/eramsey.com/.

Our next meeting is March 16, 2010 at 9:30am. We are in desperate need of MOPPET workers. If you know someone who can volunteer every other Wednesday from 9:30- 11:45 or even once a month or as a substitute, please contact Becca Bannon or Carrie Terry. Without our MOPPET workers we are unable to have our MOPs meetings! Our workers are such a blessing to our MOPs Moms and we are so thankful for them!

Check out the MOPS website.