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title: "Appendix A: Household Field Guide"
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# Appendix A: Household Field Guide
This appendix gathers the book into tools a household can use without turning the home into a project. Begin with the audit, choose one practice card for two weeks, and review before adding another. If the audit exposes danger, abuse, exploitation, serious self-harm, or medical crisis, stop the ordinary formation plan and use the protection path in Chapter 12.
## The Seven-Field Household Audit
Do not score the household. Write one observation and one possible next step in each field. Leave a field blank if attention belongs elsewhere this season.
- Field | Questions that make reality visible | A fitting response
- Body | What are sleep, food, movement, illness, disability, touch, pain, puberty, workload, and place doing to the people here? | Name one bodily mercy or qualified-care need.
- Heart and attention | What are fear, desire, memory, shame, anger, comparison, screens, and stories teaching us to notice and love? | Name one repeated input to receive, limit, or bring into truth.
- Life before God | Where do prayer, Scripture, worship, confession, gratitude, doubt, and hope actually meet the week? | Keep one honest Godward practice small enough to repeat.
- Relationships and power | Who speaks, serves, decides, interrupts, apologizes, disappears, carries emotion, and can safely say no? | Repair one unfair pattern or bring in accountable help.
- Daily channels | What do meals, mornings, chores, money, school, work, dating, media, and the calendar repeatedly teach? | Change one channel rather than making a speech about the whole family.
- Church and help | Who knows the household, shares worship, notices absence, carries practical burdens, and can correct the adults? | Name one real person and one specific request.
- Protection | Is anyone afraid, controlled, threatened, sexually harmed, neglected, exploited, trapped, or responsible for keeping an adult safe? | Pause ordinary practice and use the safety, reporting, medical, or crisis path.
After the audit, finish only these sentences:
> The pressure we most need to name is _____. The smallest truthful practice is _____. The person or service we need near us is _____.
## Ten Two-Week Practice Cards
Choose one card, not all ten. Adults go first where the card involves attention, confession, screen discipline, or repair.
- Card | Moment | Practice
- Morning blessing | Before school, work, or leaving | Say, "The Lord is with you today. Walk in truth, receive his love, and love the person near you." Keep touch optional.
- One-sentence Scripture | Breakfast, car, or bedtime | Read one sentence in context. Ask what it shows about God and what truthful response it invites.
- Repair sentence | After ordinary sin or conflict | Say, "I was wrong when I ___. I am sorry. I am going to ___. Will you forgive me?" Do not use this card in place of a safety response.
- Table gratitude | A shared meal or snack | Each person may name one received gift. Do not correct the answer unless it becomes cruel.
- Screen pause | One meal or the first minutes after school or work | Put devices in one visible place. Adults participate. Ask one question: "What was heavy or good today?"
- Bedtime fear prayer | Before sleep | Ask whether anything feels scary or heavy. Pray, "Lord Jesus, hold what is too heavy and show us the next truthful step."
- Worship preview | Before gathered worship | Say why the household gathers and name one person who may need welcome. Lower performance pressure without making worship optional by mood.
- Household mercy | Weekly or monthly | Choose one local act: food, note, ride, visit, gift, repair, prayer, or practical help.
- Question night | Weekly or monthly | Receive one real question about God, Scripture, body, suffering, Church, friendship, sex, or life. "I do not know yet" is permitted; contempt and evasion are not.
- Crisis pause | When the household is overwhelmed | Keep one prayer, one food or sleep mercy, one outside contact, and one safety step. Pause nonessential spiritual performance.
## The Two-Week Card Review
At the review, ask only:
- Did the practice bring more truth, love, worship, repair, protection, or wise responsibility into real life?
- Who carried the cost of the practice?
- Did any person feel managed, exposed, shamed, or made responsible for an adult's peace?
- Should the practice be kept, made smaller, changed, or stopped?
- Did the practice expose a need for Church, medical, clinical, legal, school, disability, or safeguarding help?
Visible fruit matters, but practices do not prove hidden salvation or household worth. The review exists to improve reality contact, not to reward a family image.