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1. Get a board.
As with most things, I thought about it awhile, researched all of the possible “huge” bulletin boards that I could find and afford, and then finally settled on one. It had to be big enough to hold the conversation whatever that may be and strong enough to handle our little people hanging and re-hanging their words and pictures! Remember to check out the www.etsy.com options I mentioned above.

2. Make name cards for each of your family members as well as God.
So, I made . . . . well, to be honest, I had my “crafty friend” make name cards for each of us – Father God, Ron, Karla, Maya, Ada and Carson. The intent is this: each of us has something to say or a response to the topic at hand. Therefore, each of needs a place. This is an important symbol to give each person in your family a place on the board and Father God a place too. His place on the board is important, because our kids need to recognize that Father God is active and speaking on a day-to-day basis. Many times, it is our verses that we study that go under his name, but sometimes it is a word or a picture that he has given us too. Secondly, it was important that instead of making our names read Mommy and Daddy, our names should be Ron and Karla on the board. Our kids needed to see that we have our own story and our own conversation and all of us are fellow pilgrims on the journey. Father God has chosen to put us under one roof, and he has given Ron and I the charge to care over and disciple the three little people in our home. But we each have a story as individuals in conversation with Father God. And if you would like my “crafty friend” to make name cards for your family, just let me know at karla@thewholepeach.com.

3. Once the board is hung and the name cards in place, you can also make a card for your family verse.
Our verse is Psalm 84:5 – “Blessed is the man whose strength is in you, who has set his heart on pilgrimage.” The cool thing about this verse is that sometime later, after it had been hung for a while, I realized that I had spelled Psalm wrong. I had my friend write it as: “Psalms.” After working through my condemnation for not knowing how to spell a book in the Bible (I mean it is our family verse, you would think I would get that one right, at least????) and then not realizing it for some time, I grew to like it. That card on the board is like so many things in our life – undone and almost right. We are a mess, just moving forward, holding hands. Remember my favorite quote by the short story writer, Tillie Olsen: “I am just a peaceful wreck holding hands with other peaceful wrecks.” So, I have come to love that verse on the board. It tells the story – the Hagan family – fellow pilgrims on the journey towards home, putting our strength in Father God. We are undone, with mistakes along the way, but moving towards him and his intentions for our family.

4. Hang up your creations from the conversations you are having.
The last thing on the board is the content of the conversation. Whatever we are studying as a family (Story, God or Me card usually), we hang our creations from this discussion on the family board when we are done. Sometimes, it is painted pictures, verses written in crayon or markers, magazine phrases we find, letters we get in the mail, copies of journal entries or prayers, photos, lists of things, etc. We are all involved in creating something from our study that we can hang on the board. The kids need to see that Ron and I are engaged in the study and we take part in the painting or picture drawing or list making or whatever! We also make sure that when we are talking examples that Ron and I give examples from our journey as well. So, a list about the “mountains in our life” has real time examples from Ron and I as well. It is rich for our family to stand back and look at a completed family board from one of our studies. It is a work of art!

5. Keep talking.
And for our failing memory, it reminds Ron and I and the kids what we talked about yesterday or the day before. So, we can constantly circle back around to the conversation, or say the verse we worked on memorizing or pray again the words he gave to us. When we end up back at the kitchen table, there it is posted on our wall, the discussion Father God led us through, and we get to have the conversation all over again.

6. Take down your pictures, put them in your file box and begin again.
You can find our file box system in the store. We will gladly help you put together a box to house your amazing creations. Check it out at the Store. And if the words or pictures stay up too long, it serves as a great accountability that we aren’t asking the questions, seeking Father’s heart for our days nor growing together in his intentions for our family.

Obviously, we have to make room for the next family time study, but there is a really cool gift from keeping what we take down. When we study that idea again, we can pull the pictures from years past. It is so great to see the kids’ growth through the products of the family board, and it creates instant excitement and learning when we circle back around to a topic we have discussed before. Right now, we are going through the Me Cards for the 3rd time, and before we start each card, we go through old pictures, verses and prayers. They laugh at their stick drawings and funny writing, but they also remember the conversation, and we move to deeper places because they see where we started. These products of the board are priceless icons in the story of our family!

I am inviting you to Post; this tool is imperative in your spiritual journey as a family for it chronicles the conversation going on in your house. When someone walks into our house and sees this big bulletin board hanging in our kitchen, they often ask: “what is this all about?” My response is usually: This is our family board, and it records the conversation we are having in our house. Post helps us remember this intent and celebrate the treasures!

Spiritual Formation in the Hagan household is a plan filled with flexibility and fluidity. Ron and I never know what we will get, how long we will get it and if in fact any of it will be remembered. Our hearts are filled with hope, and we continue on in face of chaos. Because we believe! We believe that our children see our heart and know our love, our love for Father God, for each other and for them. But even with all this love, the chaos is still hard to manage. And love still needs a plan and a place. So, Father led me to the family board idea, because Ron and I need help. I needed a place to remember what we talked about in our moments of intentional words about Father God and his story, and I needed it hung up in a place that I would see a lot.

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at t home and when you walk along the road, when you life down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your house and on your gates.”
Deuteronomy 6:4-9

“Set up road signs; put up guideposts. Take note of the highway, the road that you take.”
Jeremiah 31:21

“We need to be in the presence of images, both visual and auditory. These can constantly direct and redirect our minds toward God, Jesus Christ, the Spirit, and the church (people of God). ‘Icons’ have a millennia-long track record with the people of God and can be a powerful way of keeping entire stories and teachings effortlessly before the mind. We might arrange to have them tastefully present in each of our living and work spaces, so that they are always present in our visual field. We can thoughtfully use them to dispel destructive imagery and thoughts and to see ourselves as before God in all levels of our being.”
Dallas Willard in Renovation of the Heart