Summer Discipleship Tips for Busy Families With Bobby and Meg

After surviving the whirlwind known as Maycember—the month packed with award ceremonies, recitals, tournaments, graduations, field days, banquets, and enough calendar notifications to make your head spin—summer has finally arrived. The pace is slowing, the schedules are opening up, and families have a unique opportunity to be intentional with the time ahead.

In this episode of the Empowered Homes Podcast, Bobby and Meghan talk about how to move from the chaos of May into a summer filled with purpose, connection, and spiritual growth. Instead of simply filling the calendar with activities, what if your family used this season to grow deeper in faith together?

They introduce Camping Out in Colossians, a six-week family discipleship journey designed to help families gather around God's Word through simple daily readings, meaningful conversations, prayer, journaling, and fun hands-on activities. Together, you'll discover what it means to put Jesus first, grow deep roots in Christ, develop Christlike character, serve others, and build faith habits that last long after summer ends.

Whether you're traveling, staying home, or somewhere in between, this episode will help you take advantage of one of the best opportunities of the year to strengthen your family's faith and relationships.

Download the free Camping Out in Colossians Summer Guide and start your family's summer adventure today. Click Here.

CSB Bible Study Journal Bibles 

About Empowered Homes 

Empowered Homes exists to help families win at home by equipping parents, grandparents, and ministry leaders to live out gospel truths in the everyday rhythms of life. Through free, gospel-centered, and practical resources, along with in-person training, coaching, and equipping experiences, Empowered Homes helps families disciple the next generation with confidence and hope. Explore free resources, training opportunities, and more at empoweredhomes.org.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Hey friends, welcome to the Empowered Homes podcast. The purpose of this podcast is to grow strong families by giving you resources to win at home. I'm in studio with my pal Meg.

SPEAKER_01 0:18

Hey friends.

SPEAKER_00 0:19

Meg, how are you?

SPEAKER_01 0:21

I'm doing so good.

SPEAKER_00 0:22

Are you?

SPEAKER_01 0:23

Yeah. I mean, it's the it's the end of the school year, which people now call May Sember.

SPEAKER_00 0:29

Yeah. Okay, explain May Sember.

SPEAKER_01 0:31

Yeah, May Sember. It's like, from what I understand, it's, you know, the busyness of December has now all the activities, all the end-of-year things, now they call May Sember because everything happens in like the first three weeks of May. I was watching a video on this on social media and it was so funny because it was like a teacher being like, we should throw in every dress up day for every day they have to dress up, and then we should put Mother's Day in there because mothers would love to be celebrated in the middle of the busiest time of the year. So anyway, it's May Sember. We're finishing school.

SPEAKER_00 1:02

School.

SPEAKER_01 1:02

School will probably be over by the time we've we've released this podcast.

SPEAKER_00 1:06

So if you got littles, you know, you got the parties and the awards and all that stuff. But if you got older kids, you're getting into prom and dances, and you've got all the the graduation and graduation parties, and so this season is is pretty wild. It is.

SPEAKER_01 1:25

It's crazy and full and fun and exhausting because another word that is used to describe it is that they're saying that parents are exhaustulated.

SPEAKER_00 1:33

Exhaustulated. What does that mean? We're learning words.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

I know, new words. Exhausted, overwhelmed, and overstimulated all at the same time.

SPEAKER_00 1:42

What's the solution to that big word?

SPEAKER_01 1:45

For May Sember to end is that's summer to be here. Summer to be here. And May Sember to end. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:50

Yeah, I am very much looking forward to summer. We love summer. Um although as our kids are getting older, summer's not slowing down.

SPEAKER_01 1:59

We It's true. But it's kind of a different pace, right?

SPEAKER_00 2:04

True. Yeah, I mean, we can just, you know, a random morning where we don't have anything, hey, we're going to the pool. Right. You know, and and have fun. And I I enjoy having the kids at home and having our house full of other kids and running around. It's it seems more chaotic, but somehow more relaxed. And yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:21

Well, like the fact that there's some slow mornings in there where you don't have to get up and get all the things ready for school and get to school. Like it's that helps me personally as just a a human. Yes. To be a kind mother.

SPEAKER_00 2:37

For you to be a human. What was the what was your word? The exhaust.

SPEAKER_01 2:41

Exhaustulated.

SPEAKER_00 2:42

Exhaustulated. Yeah. We're coming out of that, jumping into summer. And so we want to take a few minutes to talk about summer because summer, yes, you know, for us it's can can be crazy, but we love those slow mornings. We love that time. Um, summer is an awesome time for leveraging new patterns, new schedules for discipleship. Absolutely. Again, not adding more to your plate, but leveraging what you're already doing and sprinkling in um some discipleship moments. And that's what we want to talk about today.

SPEAKER_01 3:16

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:16

And we've got a new resource. What I'm excited about this resource. And yeah, just looking at the cover page, um, it it like makes my heart happy because I love the outdoors and being in the wilderness. But what do we got, Meg?

SPEAKER_01 3:32

Okay, so our new summer resource, we do a summer guide or a summer discipleship plan or you know, something every summer. And so this year it's called Camping Out in Colossians, and it's a six-week Bible adventure or summer adventure for families. And it's it really is just in the book of Colossians and really encouraging families just to connect to God's word and connect to one another and take advantage of those slower moments in summer when you can um dive into discipleship and and really, you know, as you go about the way.

SPEAKER_00 4:06

Exactly. And before we break down the guide a little bit, just looking at the cover, it's a it's a campsite. Yeah, but there's no color on it. Why is it why is there no color on it?

SPEAKER_01 4:17

Well, I I mean, I feel like this is like it's in. It's a very like, yeah. Or you could color it.

SPEAKER_00 4:24

I know, that's so cool. It's a coloring page. The the cover is a coloring page. I want to color it.

SPEAKER_01 4:30

I mean, these muted tones are in, by the way. I know. Okay, so like the beige and the black and the white, that's a very in thing right now. So I was going for like trendy but also coloring, camping.

SPEAKER_00 4:42

If you got littles, I mean, they may not even know how to say Colossians, but the coloring the the cover of it.

SPEAKER_01 4:50

That's right. Yeah, and what I love, if you're not an outdoorsy person, that's okay. Because you don't really actually have to go camping to do this. My wife's but it's just a fun, I know. It's just a fun a fun thing, a fun theme, and throughout it, as um, if you download it, you'll see it's like encouraging you to kind of pretend like you're camping all summer every time you gather. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:10

So we'll go through this here in a second, but something we're doing as a family that um any family can can do. Um, our kids are getting older. Um, we've got an incoming freshman, incoming seventh grader, incoming fourth grader. Our youngest is really grasp reading this last year in third grade. Like he's become a really good reader. And so instead of us um having like a book or a devotional, like we're just gonna use God's word and have them go through it. Um, my oldest son uh learned the soap method of reading scripture. There's so many different methods, there's so many.

SPEAKER_01 5:50

Introduce a new method in there exactly.

SPEAKER_00 5:52

There's one in here, um, that the soap method or whatever method. Um, and so we got these devotional books. I love those books. And and these are just simple. There's CSB ones, there's ESV ones. Um it basically all it is is uh one page of scripture and then one blank page. Yeah. And so we're just gonna go through this at all of our own pace to talk about it, have a central conversation. We're gonna go through the book of Acts and teach our kids the soap method. Those of you listening, you're like, what in the world does soap mean? Uh S is scripture. If you break down, you know, you write out on the blank page uh S O A P and just leave some blanks in between each letter. So S is scripture. Just write down the passage that you that you're reading. O is observation. Um, what do you observe? What stands out? You know, highlight things in there, underline things. Uh A is application. Okay, what did I just read that can apply to my life and write down a few things? And then lastly, pray. P is pray. Just a short prayer of like, okay, God, whatever I just read, like I pray that that I could live this out, or I have more questions about it. Would you give me clarity? Whatever it is. So the soap method, there's the reap method, uh, which is pretty much the same thing. Right. Read, examine, apply, pray. And so we'll talk about the one you threw in uh this one. But this is our family plan uh this summer. I got one for all of us. Um we're gonna go at uh different paces and and let our kids um, but we're gonna my oldest son really wants to do kind of his own study. My daughter um kind of gives her some handlebars, but my youngest is really excited because he's gonna draw pictures and have comic book characters and stuff in there, which I'm excited to see what he comes up with. Like he could draw and and be creative and color, and and so we're gonna go through that um uh this summer. It's a little different, but uh again, we want to get resources in your hands to help you win. If you've never seen these, I got these on Amazon. I think they were $4.50. Yes, so it's very cheap, but very well done. Um, and they have every book of the Bible. So whatever you're like, we want to go through Genesis or we want to go through Acts or Colossians, you can add this to your plan for the summer.

SPEAKER_01 8:10

Yeah, so helpful. And what I love, and and really what we're encouraging to even through our guide or just any any sort of resource that we recommend is find what works for your family, find the rhythms that work for your family. So we have suggestions, and or you, you know, you have different ways that you're doing it and different spots throughout the day, maybe that work better for you. We've talked about this before rhythms of life. Like there was a time when the dinner table did not work for you at all, right?

SPEAKER_00 8:38

And we're just now coming out where we love sitting down and having dinner.

SPEAKER_01 8:42

Yeah, and so just really my encouragement is whatever time you can find to be consistent, even if it's once a week. Yeah, you know, even if it's for 30 minutes, if you've never done something like this before, or this is your very first time, like don't bite off more than you can chew and don't commit to to more than you think you can can do. Um, but also it's okay. Give yourself grace and and commit to what you can and and move forward. And any time that you spend in God's word or or connecting with your family through God's word, like it's powerful, yeah, you know, and meaningful, and your kids are gonna see like, oh, this is this matters to our family.

SPEAKER_00 9:22

And so Yeah, and you know, in years past we've we've done a simple the we had one scripture, one verse, and we made posters and put them all over the house in the bathrooms, in the kitchen, in the kids' rooms, and that verse was a verse that you know we all said we're gonna memorize by the end of the summer. And so, you know, some of my my daughter was she's super competitive, she had it done in a week. Um, my son, it took all summer. My youngest, he couldn't read at the time, so he's just kind of reciting after us. But that was what we did that summer, and we still have one of the posters up in the hallway, and it's just on on tape and super fancy. No, we we we we just I can't take I can't take it down. Like, you know, it's just a memory of of summers from from years ago and whatever it is, we're just getting in God's word, pouring Jesus into your kids in different ways, um, and just leveraging the new routines and and rhythms of of summer. Uh that's the point.

SPEAKER_01 10:24

Yeah, yeah, and you know, uh too, I encourage like when you're on if you're on a road trip or if you're having to travel to a bunch of sporting things or whatever, like car time, what a great way to take a little chunk of your time in the car and everybody take off their headphones and and stop watching something and you get to discuss, you have a captive audience. I mean, they might moan a little bit because you're making them not watch a movie or something, but you know, there's just so many sweet times within the summer that you can can leverage, and so that's our encouragement, definitely.

SPEAKER_00 10:52

Yeah, the key is to take off the headphones. Yes, because I don't know how many times last summer we're in the car and I would ask a question and I get the huh.

SPEAKER_01 11:02

I remember we talked about that.

SPEAKER_00 11:04

I didn't hear you. Um I got so tired of huh.

SPEAKER_01 11:07

So what didn't you change the word?

SPEAKER_00 11:09

No, the kids did. I said you're not allowed to say huh, yeah. And so they were like, Pardon? Pardon me, father. Oh, so fancy. Yeah, they got real fancy being creative.

SPEAKER_01 11:17

I'm not a big fan of huh, but I say it a lot, I realized just recently. Huh? Huh?

SPEAKER_00 11:22

But hearing it from the kids like, hey, whatever the question is, huh? It's just irritating. It just boil my blood was boiling every time I heard it. Um but yeah, leveraging the car is a huge one. Uh mealtimes is a huge one. Just the the even at the pool I'm or the beach or whatever, vacation. One of the great one of my best friends, he was we were all uh together uh a long time ago on a beach vacation, and it was the first time I I talked about the birds and the bees with Charlie, and we're just floating because he started asking questions. Yeah, what an opportunity. You know, we're we have no timeline, we're just floating in in with in the waves. And I'll never forget. And coming off the beach, and my buddy was like, What were y'all talking about? Because I look like I was probably panicked. And I was like, You have no idea what we just talked about. But it was sweet, and we still remember that. So summer's just an awesome time to slow down, change of pace, change of places, to to use those for for discipleship.

SPEAKER_01 12:27

Yeah, and another encouragement too is like if you have small children or children that don't have long attention spans, that could go, yeah, that could be little, they could be Yeah, adults, whatever. But like just kind of embrace the wiggle, embrace the like we're moving and we're going off on tangents sometimes. And I mean, I'll be really honest, I'll call my kids out. Like they're farting. You know what I mean? And they're laughing at each other and they're doing, you know, it's just like whatever. Like we just embrace it rather than like, oh, pay attention, you know. You don't want your kids to remember the time that you're trying to be in God's word where you're just constantly telling them. And so if it's not working at that moment, it's okay.

SPEAKER_00 13:05

Yeah, let it go.

SPEAKER_01 13:06

Circle back around, revisit another time, you know. Go tell them go to the bathroom and come back.

SPEAKER_00 13:10

Like, whatever. Yeah, and you know, I just had a conversation with with someone talking about he's struggling because his kids at night, their their prayer just becomes the same prayer over and over. And he's like, What do I do? Because it I don't see a spiritual depth there in their prayers. I said, just keep praying and just let that still be a routine. If they're saying the same thing every night, it's okay, but they're praying because there's gonna be one night where they're like boom and hammer you with something, you're like, Oh, that's what's on their heart. Right. But if you just be like, Well, I'm tired of the same thing, so we're not gonna do it anymore. No, just keep that consistency, and that's that's the key.

SPEAKER_01 13:50

Yeah, that's good.

SPEAKER_00 13:52

Well, summer guide, summer guide. Let's jump into it. Give us give us a breakdown, Meg.

SPEAKER_01 13:57

All right, camping out in Colossians. All right, it's written for six weeks, and I say in here, this is just a guide, right? So do what you can and do it when you can. But I I have a whole page um to help you prepare. So I suggest schedule your time. Like it can be there can be in-the-moment things, but if you can be have a consistent time each week, if you put it in your calendar like it's an appointment you cannot miss, if you really think about our your relationship with God, if you're helping teach your kids like the we're prioritizing our time with God, it may change every week because of our schedule, but we want to prioritize that time. So this is an appointment that we don't want to miss. Um, and so schedule it. That will help your family. And then I say pick your campsite. So maybe it's a if if you're doing it at home, maybe there's a spot in your home where this is gonna be our little campsite for the next six weeks. And so we're gonna have a little pretend fire and blankets and pillows. It might be appealing more to the little ones. Yeah, but whatever your family likes to do, like kind of make that your your zone if you're gonna do it at home. If not, then you don't have to do that. And then I say pack your supplies. So there's some things, there's a few supplies, it's not an overwhelming amount, but a journal for each person would be helpful. Yeah, so a kind of journaling Bible journal or even just a blank journal that maybe you decorate if you have little kids that enjoy doing that. That could be fun. Of course, you have your front page coloring page that they could color and stick on their journal if they want to. But the guide, every week there are daily readings out of the book of Colossians. There's a little reading plan. There's a page that you can print out and stick around your house if that's helpful, or give it to each person. So there's daily readings that if you have readers who who are learning and they're and they're excelling at reading and excited to read, then that is a great thing for them to have every 10 to 15 minutes a day. It doesn't have to be super long. Um, but that's not required, you know. But there are daily readings, and then every week there's a gathering focus passage out of Colossians. So there's kind of a theme and and a focus passage that you walk through. And then we I introduced the camp journaling method, which is very similar to the soap journaling method.

SPEAKER_00 16:03

Because we're camping.

SPEAKER_01 16:04

We're camping. So the camp journaling method is connect with God, apply the truth, memorize and meditate, and prayer. And so, really very similar, okay? Kind of opening with and and w what I suggest is if you've never walked through any sort of journaling method before, just do it together as a family and walk through. And I have some some kind of questions or prompts to help you walk through that with your family if if you need it and as much help as you need just walking through it.

SPEAKER_00 16:35

Yeah, and that's an awesome uh idea for a whole family to do it because if you if you're journaling or writing, you know, if brother says something, you know, everybody can write it down, or sister says something, or dad or mom. Like it's it's a it's a conjoined thing, and then that becomes something a learned habit or a learned uh experience that they can do that anytime on their own. Again, we're not raising kids, we're we're raising adults who we want to be able to feed themselves someday. That's right. And so this is giving them a tool, yes, and the camp method is awesome.

SPEAKER_01 17:14

Yeah, yeah, and and really just you know, giving them that habit of noticing and responding to what God is saying in his word. And so we know that our children's faith is is a borrowed faith until they make it their own. And so we are helping them learn how to do these things and we do it together, and it's powerful to do it together, and and not having high expectations of this time is okay. If it lasts five minutes, it's okay. And then I also say, like, and you mentioned it already, like Chapman maybe doodling, maybe graphic noveling out or whatever. I mean, scribbling, doodling, coloring, whatever they can do at their age and stage, that is okay, right? We're celebrating all those things, you know. Maybe it's just a scribble and a three-year-old daughter says, you know, that's Jesus. And you're like, that's amazing, right? Yeah, yeah. So just kind of embracing just the way that they're expressing themselves in that time and walking through it together. And then after you've kind of done that part, then an intentional campfire family chat. So you're already together, but taking five, maybe 15 minutes, whatever it is, I have questions for each week that are specific to the theme of that week and and the and the focus verse. And um, you know, for instance, in in week one, you know, um, what does it mean to put Jesus first? Um, and the last question is how can our family grow closer to Jesus this summer? So there's just kind of like specific things about the passage, specific things about your family, things like that. And then the last thing, which which is so fun, I I love this part, the camp trail family activity. And there's a few different activities on each week that you can choose from. You you don't have to do them all.

SPEAKER_00 18:54

Food involved?

SPEAKER_01 18:55

Food. Well, the first one is make homemade trail mix.

unknown 18:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:59

And I mean, I didn't put eat it for yourself, but you know, have it for yourself. But then you could package it and give it to neighbors as a little treat, right? Or you could go on a nature walk and name all the things that got created, then talk about how Jesus holds all things together because that correlates to the focus first that that week. Um, the last activity, I don't know if I should give it away, but on week six, have a backyard or a living room campout night.

SPEAKER_00 19:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 19:26

So what would you do? Would you would you and Jen, would one of you stay in the living room and one be in the backyard?

SPEAKER_00 19:31

Uh yeah, Jen would not be in the backyard at all. No, especially not summer here. Uh I don't even want to be in the backyard.

SPEAKER_01 19:38

True, true, yes. So that's why I said living room should be.

SPEAKER_00 19:41

Living room, yeah. We used to do that when the kids were little. We would just move the coffee table, lay out all the blankets, and have pillows, and we would, you know, hang out. And um, you know, our kids love desserts, so uh clearly we do s'mores or like at home s'mores or uh you know the I just saw this recently. Um you can put a one marshmallow in an air fryer and it like triples the size of it and it's all ooey and gooey. So if you got an air fryer, throw a marshmallow in there, and you don't have to roast it. It's it's just it's ready. So that's a that's free. Pro tip. Yeah, pro tip. Free pro tip.

SPEAKER_01 20:21

I love that.

SPEAKER_00 20:22

No, that's awesome, eh? It's it's a great resource. Um, where can folks find it if they want it?

SPEAKER_01 20:28

Empoweredhomes.org. It'll be a free download on empoweredhomes.org. Of course, we have a lot of resources, and even we have old summer guides if you're looking for something a little different to do for the summer.

SPEAKER_00 20:39

That's what I was gonna say. Like, oh, we just got through with Colossians. Well, we've got multiple old summer guides and different resources, different uh devotionals and different things you can do with your family. The key is not being legalistic or rigid, it's about pouring in and teaching and training your children in the ways of the Lord and whatever that looks like for your family. We just want to put resources in your hands to help you win at home. So, Meg, thanks for uh putting all that together. It's gonna be a great summer. Um, and we are excited for how God's gonna use this and how God's gonna pour into your families. So thanks for listening. You can find all this at empoweredhomes.org. Go download it, print it, use it this summer, and let us know how you're using it. Send us pictures, send us stuff uh on our social media however you see fit. Um, we would love to to to know how you're using it.