Arrows and Acres

How do you spell love? Bruce Crevier says it is T-I-M-E.Bruce and Diane Crevier have 12 children, close to 30 grandchildren, and a family ministry called Champions Forever. For about 30 years they have traveled to schools, churches, prisons and even NBA games with a show built on basketball spinning, juggling and 10-foot giraffe unicycles they build themselves. Their whole family took that show all the way to the America's Got Talent finals at Radio City Music Hall.They are also family to us. Holly introduced their son Josiah to our daughter Makenna, the two married, and we now share two grandchildren with one on the way. We recorded this conversation in a beach rental during our April Gulf Coast Family Camp in Panama City, after the Creviers drove all the way down from South Dakota.You will hear:Why quantity time matters as much as quality time, and why Bruce says "you'll get quality out of the quantity"How a prisoner grabbed Bruce by the arm and told him to apply to America's Got Talent, and what Bruce told his children backstage: "Every one of you deserve to be here"The four stages of raising a child: discipline (0 to 6), training (6 to 12), discipleship (12 to 18), and best friends from 18 onHow eight grown sons ripped out and installed Diane's new kitchen in three days while Bruce was awayThe family Bible reading habit where every child shares a takeaway, from the youngest to the oldestThe world record where Bruce and his son Caleb spun 60 basketballs at the same time, and the 12 stars on each ball for their 12 childrenWhy they tell families to put their children in the same roomDiane's simple homeschool approach (reading, writing, arithmetic, and teaching children to teach themselves), plus the "answers will vary" storyThe hard seasons: a daughter-in-law lost, a burst appendix, and Josiah nearly dying of spinal meningitis at one month oldWhy 10 of their 12 children live within 10 minutes of them, and why their son Isaiah says "you just made it so fun around here, none of us want to leave""Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, The fruit of the womb is a reward." Psalm 127:3 (NKJV)Watch the Creviers on America's Got Talent by searching "Champions Forever AGT" on YouTube. To book them for your church, school or sports organization, visit https://championsforever.comBetter yet, come see their show for free at Gulf Coast Family Camp. Learn more at https://arrowsandacres.comHave questions about raising a big family, homeschooling, or getting out of debt? Join The Forge, our online community and mentorship program for Christian families: https://arrowsandacres.com/the-forge

The chicken bin is crawling with maggots. The trash never made it to the curb. Mom is shouting across the house, and every child swears they never heard her.We recorded this episode on a day that went sideways while we packed for family camp, and Daniel and Allison Hartman are honest about it: "Today has been an example of what not to do."In this episode, Randy Schrum sits down with Daniel and Allison to talk about the one habit that keeps a large family running: the daily family meeting. They hold one every day, sometimes twice a day, and it is a different thing from family devotions. As they have said many times, clarity is kindness.You will hear:What happens in a home with no family meetings: children who do not know what is expected, moms carrying the whole mental load, dads surprised by problems, chores that get forgotten, and schedules that collideHow to run a family meeting simply ("Everyone come sit on my bed" works fine)The two questions their 18-year-old son Asher asks: "What are your goals today? What can I do to help?"Why family meetings cut down on nagging and teach responsibilityHow to give every child a voice, from the 6-year-old to the married childrenWhat their son-in-law Cedar said that stopped them in their tracks: "I just want to thank y'all for always asking our feedback. That's the one thing I probably appreciate the most about being in this family."Practical ways to start: pick a shared meal, sit everyone down, put the laundry away, and "have them look at your eyeballs"Why a family meeting is a huddle, not a lecture, and why discipline belongs one-on-oneHow praising a child in front of the family builds the kind of young man who cleans the fridge without being askedIf you have ever thought, "I can't make this work in my head," Allison's mom had the answer: do something, even if it's wrong. This is not rocket science. Bring in your people, sit down, and look them in the eyes.We are not raising children. We are raising adults.Want to build this with other families? Join The Forge, our community for Christian families building strong homes and family businesses together: https://arrowsandacres.com/the-forge

Lauren Collinsworth has seven children, is expecting her eighth, and lives on 25 acres near the Ark Encounter in Kentucky.She is never behind on laundry.Allison has been watching Lauren at Gulf Coast Family Camp for years. She describes her as everything she herself is not, which is exactly why she pulled out the microphone in the Airbnb and recorded this on the spot.Lauren runs a Facebook group called Housekeeping Tips for Everyday Moms. It has 400,000 members. She has never paid to grow it. She makes no money from it. She started it because she kept showing up at other women's houses to help them get to something she calls equilibrium, and she realized she could reach more people through a group.Equilibrium is not perfection. It is not Instagram. It is a home where the daily things are handled, where she is never nagging, never behind, and never lying awake thinking about the dishes.She color codes every child's hangers. Her three-year-old hangs her own clothes. They do laundry every day, one load per person, about five minutes, done. All seven children are in bed by 9 PM. Every night from 9 to 11, she and her husband Timothy have the house to themselves. Every afternoon from 1:30 to 3:30, she rests.She built this in a little double-wide trailer with almost no storage.This episode covers color coding, morning routines, meal planning, the Skylight digital calendar, weekly routines by day, how she hosts families with no stress, why she says "your day starts the night before," and why she believes children are not a block to ministry but the whole point of it."Why can't we be joyful mothers who also have peace and rest? Like why not?"

Two and a half months before the wedding, the house was a frame on a trailer.No electrical. No plumbing. No toilet. No shower.In Part 2, Daniel and Allison finish the conversation with their oldest son, Ethan, and his bride, Savannah.Ethan was nineteen with about $100,000 saved, a fencing business, and no debt. He could have built a $150,000 house. He chose a $30,000 tiny house instead so they could stay out of debt and have more to show for it. He had never wired a house or plumbed one. A general contractor friend, David Cross, could have done it all for him. He didn't. He told Ethan what to do first and let him do it. By the end, Ethan could go build another one.Savannah came into the marriage with no debt and her own car. They paid for the wedding and the honeymoon in cash.They talk about life as newlyweds on family land, with nieces and nephews knocking on the door. Savannah's goal is to be the favorite aunt, and she has the toys to prove it. They pray and read the Bible together every day, or try to. They have someone over almost every week. One night they fed eighteen people in an 8x34 tiny house. Homemade lasagna, bread, and dessert.Savannah shares how she started baking sourdough at nineteen so she could fail at it before she had children, and how that turned into a monthly snail mail with recipes, photos, stickers, and homestead updates.Ethan shares how he runs his fencing business: honest work, worship music only on the job site, four employees, and a goal to leave every property better than he found it. When he wanted to get better, he asked other fence contractors what they would do. Their answer: do good work.Then Allison asks the hard question. Did we go too hard on you?"Honestly no. I felt bad for all the people who had their moms doing the laundry for them."They close with what they would do the same with their own children, why Savannah says the Hartmans work hard and play hard, and why Ethan believes you judge a tree by its fruit.Missed Part 1? Start with EP 28.

Ethan grew up with three older sisters. Four moms, really. They told him what to wear, how to do his hair, which bedding he was allowed to use. They dressed him up. They painted his fingernails.He did not roll over and take it.In Part 1, Daniel and Allison sit down with their oldest son, Ethan, and his new bride, Savannah.First, the business. Ethan started selling moringa trees at twelve, with pots he asked people for and soil he mixed from Daniel's recipe. He sold $800 worth of trees on his first market day. He had been saving since he was eight, not for a car, but to build a house. At seventeen he worked one fence job with his brother-in-law Cedar in 110 degree July heat and loved it. His first fence on his own took about fifty hours. He can build that same fence today in five and a half. Around 200 fences later, he sometimes has enough work to run two crews, and when work is slow he knocks doors. Sometimes seventy doors for three jobs.No school taught him fencing. No school taught him business.Then, Savannah. They first crossed paths at a volleyball event in Tennessee, but only in passing. Then she came to family camp as a single with another family, and the Hartmans loved her right away. Ethan did not. She tattled on him to his mom and sisters. He called her arrogant. "No love, just hate."Until the April retreat.Ethan had never dated anyone before her. He wrote his own relationship guidelines, called a few people for advice, and shared them with Savannah as soon as he could so they could hold each other accountable. They saved their first kiss for the wedding. They almost never drove anywhere alone.And Savannah explains why the sibling in the back seat was never just a chaperone to her."Now I have ten siblings who actually enjoy me and have been around me and know who I am because we were intentional about having them, rather than it just being the third person in the back row to make sure we don't hold hands."Part 2 is coming next week.