Vacation, Enthronement, and Phil Wickham

Three things for your weekend

Jun 27, 2025

We’re headed out on our first “real” family vacation…ever. We’ve made some off-shoot adventures while on work trips, piggybacked on speaking engagements, took a detour on the way to a wedding, and back in the day, added some fun while coaching basketball and softball tournaments. We’ve traveled to visit family, which is always a treat. But this is just for us. It was planned before all of the things started to break and pets got sick and cars needed repairs, and it is heavily influenced by the generosity of a dear friend. So we think that it must be just what our family needs.

We will be going dark on social media. And aside from checking emails to make sure teens are filling out their liability forms for our upcoming Steubenville retreat (if you know you know), we will be putting work on hold. If God wants us to have quality time, then we will be saying “yes!” to that.

Pray for us: for safe travels and for restful and rejuvenating family fun.

We will be praying for you: in thanksgiving for your support, for the health and wellness of your families, and for good fruit to come from your faith in the Lord.

1) Sacred Heart of Jesus

Happy Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus!

This month, our family prayed a novena and enthroned our home to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Each night before bed, we prayed the novena prayers. At the conclusion of the nine-day commitment, we placed an image of His Sacred Heart above our fireplace and promised to entrust our home and our family to His love.

There is a special part of the enthronement prayer that stuck out to us. It perfectly articulated our family mission.

“We ask that you stay with us always; increase our love for one another; share in our joys, and comfort us in our sorrows. Inspire us with your love, so that we may be a family devoted to you, and our home be a place of welcome to all, especially those in need. Help us to be an apostolic family, committed to bringing your message of love to all people. Amen.”

For resources for enthronement and devotion to the Sacred Heart, check out the Knights of Columbus.

2) Phil Wickham

As youth ministers, one of the highlights of the Summer is the annual Steubenville conference. Since going as teens ourselves, we have committed to bringing our group out to the OG site, Franciscan University, every few years to increase the pilgrimage vibe. This year we are headed out to Ohio with 45 teens…pray for us!

When we took a look at the information sent to us from the conference, we got extra excited seeing the set list. Some of Phil Wickham’s, our favorite worship leader, songs are on the agenda- and that are some absolute bangers.

Phil has a special place in the heart of our family because his music has offered our daughter extra comfort and peace in times of anxiety and dysregulation. We took her to one of his concerts back in March and it will forever be a core memory for us.

So we are fully prepared to weep when this song, The King is in the Room, begins to play for the procession of adoration. (putting our money on that being His entrance jam) We highly recommend taking a listen to the rest of his songs as well.

Renzo’s favorite: Living Hope

Monica’s favorite: Hymn of Heaven

Close second: Battle Belongs

Also, for the Gen X and Millennial crowd, you’ll surely like his remake of Awesome God called, What an Awesome God. You can save the hand gestures and just enjoy.

3) New found love of baseball

Our family and a family from our co-op just click. All of the kids happily get along and the parents love to chat and challenge one another. Our oldest and one of their middles, in particular, have a fondness for one another. So, when his buddy was selected to play on his town’s all-star baseball team, we made a night of it to go and cheer him on in the first round game.

It was our family’s first baseball game (an American shame, yes), and our boys loved it! They wanted and learned the rules, the strategy, and the lingo. And for the last several days have been playing outside for hours.

Kids are sponges. Athletically, our kids enjoy watching and practicing. They can see a new skill and want to try it out, quickly.

The same is true for jiu jitsu. We’ve been watching episodes of UFC BJJ: Road to the Title together on the TV, and have seen our kids already trying to implement moves they saw without explicit instruction.

For entertainment, or for inspiration to try the sport, Watch here (if you don’t mind some bleeped out foul language).

Friendly Reminders

Just a friendly reminder, we wrote a book! Lovemaking would be a great gift for engaged couples or newlyweds. It’s meant to be a conversation starter for couples around the topic of sex and intimacy.

AND We also would love it if you would consider supporting our mission by upgrading to a paid subscription. Writing and recording take time and effort, and we would love to keep at it, but could use your help!

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