All-in Night, by Lynne Burgess
From the author:
Writing this book has been a huge journey of faith and God has guided me every step of the way.
I've always been a passionate stay at home mum and wanted to be intentional about instilling life skills and principles into my kids from a young age, so I began to set aside Monday nights as All-In Night.
Through intentional teaching each week, we began to see incredible growth in our childrens lives, as other parents began to notice the changes in my kids, I found myself answering the question "how do you do All-in Night?" on a regular basis.
God then began to challenge me to start writing what I had learnt from this experience so I could share it with other parents.....but of course, I thought I knew better.
I argued with God for about 6 months saying, "how can I God?I have five teenage kids to bring up!" And every other excuse I could think of!
I got to a point where I could not ignore God anymore as I continued to be bombarded by parents wanting to know how to do All-in Night. The final straw for me was at Color Conference when I heard a speaker say 'when God asks us to do something, He will give us the gifts and abilities to do it, but if we procstinate or say 'no', He may move on and ask someone else to do it'. At that point, I realized, I needed to write my book because I didn't want to dissappoint God, so I finally gave in and asked for His help as I knew I could not do this by myself.
I was amazed at the way God provided a continuous stream of people to help me in every step of the way to the point of getting my book published.
Im so grateful to God for believing in me and entrusting me with such an important job of passing the baton onto other parents.
Im praying this book will be a blessing to other parents and that many families can enjoy All-in Night as much as we do.
Reviews:
All-in night by Lynne Burgess. Mostly for Mothers, 2010 pb 135p $17.95
The author recounts, in 40 short chapters, the weekly fun activities she organised for her children in their formative years. About half an hour of each Monday evening was set aside for every family member to participate in family activities and discussions based around a central theme. They ranged from issues like forgiveness, self belief, and sympathy to budgetting, hygiene and eating out. But the book is ostensibly a template for other families who wish to enrich their own family life. While the ideas are not explicitly God-centered, they are cleverly designed to work in either a Christian or non-Christian setting. The appendices contain extra tips, a brief resource listing, plus photos and thoughts of Burgess family members. There are endorsements by Dame Elisabeth Murdoch and Steve Biddulph. This book would be a useful addition to a church library or a parenting group’s resources. NS, ACLA