I have a daughter who is eight years old, and sometimes she's a real pest.
I'll be in the spare room, working on something on the computer, and she'll come in and want to talk about a new Barbie doll she heard about. Or I'll be up early, just trying to eat a bowl of cereal and get the groggies out of my brain to start the day, and she'll want to make a silly joke (OVER and OVER and OVER...) Or maybe I'm actually trying to do something with her, read a book or watch TV or play a game, and first it's of critical importance that she gets a drink of water, or a blanket, or a trip to the restroom.
Frankly, sometimes I get a bit grumpy. I may growl out some crabby passive-aggressive sort-of-ironic thing, like "You know, I told you thirty minutes ago that we were going to do this now. Maybe you could have gone potty then?" I can be a big old grouch sometimes. (I know, on the Internet I'm a super nice guy every day... aren't we all, on the Internet?)
In real life I'm a serious introvert, and I'm pretty sure if I went to a doctor who knows about it, I would be diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome. What that adds up to is that if I'm not thinking about it, my face often has an expression on it that does not show much emotion. Even when I feel perfectly fine and happy, sometimes you wouldn't know it from looking at me. I'm not an easy guy to read.
But you know what? It's crazy, but for some reason that never seems to bother my 8-year-old at all. No matter what crabby thing I just said, no matter whether I'm smiling or even frowning, she has no trouble diving right in for a hug. Even if something she did is the reason I'm being all gruff in the first place! It doesn't bother her a bit, because she knows that no matter what, I love her, and she belongs to me. And she loves me too, so why not give me a hug?
So, what I'm wondering is this: why don't we believers in Jesus, members of God's family, feel that way about God? We really have even less of a reason to be intimidated by God than my little girl has to be intimidated by me! After all, if she does something wrong, it's my job to administer punishment... but Jesus has taken the full punishment from God for any sin we ever have committed or will commit. We are more blameless and perfect before God than a little kid could ever be before her earthly father.
Hey, why don't you go in for a hug right now? God loves you; he wants to commune with you. He won't ever be grumpy or passive-aggressive or even regular aggressive to you. He calls you His child. Every child has time for some cuddles! So grab your blanket and a quick drink of water if necessary, and then close your eyes and say from your heart, "I love you, God!"
"That's the curriculum we use in our classes!" the pastor of the children's ministry at my church told me when I showed him the review copy of My First Hands-On Bible that I had received from Tyndale House Publishers. But it wasn't this specific book he was talking about—at the time, the book I was showing him had yet to hit retail shelves at all. He was talking about the "Hands-On Bible" curriculum for churches, but this new book is indeed from the same source. I told him that he was holding a brand-new release, and within thirty seconds he had calculated how much he would have to budget to buy enough copies of the book for every child in his classes to be able to use one on Sundays! That's how enthusiastic he is about the Hands-On Bible materials. He told me that when they were examining curricula to use in Sunday School, he had decided on a different curriculum and even ordered it, but then he saw what the Hands-On Bible curriculum had to offer and actually canceled his order for the other product to order Hands-On Bible. After using this book with my 3-year-old daughter for a night or two, I understood what he saw in their materials! I don't know that this book would be entirely appropriate for a church class—it's designed more for home use—but you certainly could use it in a church setting in a pinch, and for home use it would be hard to beat.
My First Hands-On Bible is very tightly structured. Each Bible story is taken directly from the New Living Translation of the Scriptures, word for word; it is not a reinterpretation of the Scripture text (or, at least, not any more than the NLT itself might be). Each lesson, including story, colorful illustrations, and some discussion materials and activities on the last page, is four or six pages long (a perfect length, as we found out, for bedtime reading to a preschooler). After the story proper, there is a section called "The Jesus Connection" (one or two sentences highlighting the relationship of the story to the person of Jesus), a section called "Let's Talk" containing two discussion questions, an activity introduced by a character named Cuddles the Lamb (at my church they actually have the puppet of Cuddles to use with their lessons!), another activity (or sometimes a song), and a short prayer introduced by a kangaroo named Pockets (there is also, by the way, a puppet of Pockets, although I don't think my church's ministry has picked one of those up yet). Several times in each lesson, there are small color-coded icons of handprints; these lead to micro-activities such as "Sarah laughed because she was happy. Let out a really happy laugh." and "Simeon was very old. Act like an old man leaning on a cane." These micro-activities are well-designed and well-spaced to keep the attention of a small child by breaking up the story a bit, and to provide something they can remember the story by later. The book itself is a 416-page hardback containing 85 stories.
The NLT is a good choice for a story Bible like this; I have trouble calling it a "Bible story book" because although it is a book of Bible stories, so is the Bible itself! And these stories are, after all, the exact same easy-to-read, easy-to-understand words you'd find in the NLT Bible you might have on your shelf. But it does not contain every single word of the NLT translation; in fact, some stories are highly abridged to fit into the book's format. The story of Jonah, for example, which fills four chapters in the Bible itself, is told in four parts, but the complex story of Esther, on the other hand, which fills 10 chapters in the Bible, is told in this book in only two short segments which each cover 3-4 chapters of the Bible text. So this book is not a traditional Bible story book, but it is not strictly a Bible either; it's something sort of in between. But it is obvious that it was designed by people who know how to engage the attention of children; the activities I called "micro-activites" above, for example, seem to come at perfect spots to keep attention from wandering. The "Jesus Connection" sections (example: "Jacob loved Joseph and gave him a coat. God loves us and sent us a special gift—Jesus.") do a pretty good job of bringing out a point in the story, much like a good pastor will do for his congregation, but on a kid level. The "Let's Talk" questions allow you to invite your child into the conversation and let them tell you what's going through their minds as they think about the story. And my child always wants to know what Cuddles "says" and what Pockets is going to pray. Add to that the cute watercolor-style illustrations, and you get a book that can make Bible story time fun (and educational) in ways that most Bible story books can't.
I did figure out early on that if I was going to use the book for bedtime reading, the activities at the end of the chapter were generally not going to be usable. Don't get me wrong, they're great activities... they're simple enough to do with a child, never require anything that you don't probably already have at home (and usually don't require any "props" at all), and relate to the story in ways that help bring it back to your child's attention. But the activities aren't things you can do as your child is winding down for bed. In fact, they resemble something that you might send home with a child in his "things to do this week" Sunday-School packet, and my guess is that they were created for that or are adapted from some materials created for that (some of them even start off with phrases like "As you do ________ with your child this week..."). Some of them are simple crafts, some of them are things to do as you're driving in the car or as the child is taking a bath... not things that happen before bed, and if you're reading a new story every night, some of those things might not even happen before the next story. I'm a fast reader, so normally when I get to that part of the night's reading, I skim through it to see if it's something we can feasably do; if I can tell it's probably not going to happen, I just skip those parts. I consider them optional; in a few cases we've been able to use them, and they've been quite effective, but usually we leave those parts out.
One part I never leave out is the prayer. I always save it for last, and when I say, "Pockets says..." my 3-year-old girl says back, "...it's time to pray!" The prayers are very short—one or two sentences—but they pertain to the topic of the lesson, and they are actual prayers, written to be prayed out loud to God. They are not lessons disguised as prayers; they are actual prayers, sometimes thanking God for something that was illustrated by the lesson, sometimes asking for help with a dilemma highlighted by the lesson which a child might face in his or her day. They are prayers that I, the parent, easily find myself praying from my own heart. It allows me a chance to pray humbly and honestly before my children, and that's a wonderful thing.
This is easily my all-time favorite Bible story book for children. As of this writing we have read forty-eight of the stories/lessons, and when we get to the end of the book, I'm not sure what we'll do next... maybe start over from the beginning! If I misplaced this book, I would immediately buy another copy; if a second volume is ever released, I'll be the first in line to pick it up. It's not often that you find a way to share treasures from the Bible with a preschooler in a way that is meaningful to them and immediately applicable to their lives; I can't say I've done exhaustive research into children's Bible literature, but I can say that this is hands-down the best I've ever seen for little ones. For under twenty dollars, you can spend the next three months sharing a Bible story every night with your child, and they'll love every minute of it. That's quite a bargain.
I was provided with a
review copy of this book by Tyndale House Publishers. The opinions
expressed in this review are mine alone.
You can find some more clips from the video here. These videos are crammed full of songs, puppets, cartoons, and sometimes popsicle sticks. Oh, and LOTS of information about the Bible. And not just the names of the books and major characters, either... these videos go quite in depth as to what major themes are there on the pages. This ain't some two-bit puppet show that the youth group from the church down the street made up in their spare time; these shows are well-researched, well-written, and performed with a Kermit-and-Piggy-inspired gusto that will keep your kids (and probably their parents!) riveted. And when the credits roll, I can almost guarantee that everyone in the room, kids and parents alike, will have learned something. And I don't say that lightly. It's seldom that someone manages to create something for kids that is simultaneously so filled with information that it almost makes your head swim if you think about it, and also so interesting and fun that you don't want to look away. That's what these videos are like.
My kids are ages 3½ and 11. My 3-year-old girl calls them "the puppet show" and asks for them periodically; my 11-year-old is too big and manly to ASK to watch them, but I don't see him walking out of the room to get away from it, either. They both watch and learn and have a great time. Your kids will too! You can order a copy from ChristianBook.com or pick it up at your favorite Christian bookstore, but you could also enter a contest to win one of five copies right here (I did)!
My son Mikey will turn 11 years old in April. When he was five years old, we bought him a fabulous Bible for small children called the NIrV Super Heroes Bible (you can read more about that Bible purchase in this post). That Bible was amazing for him at the time, but now that he's a bit older, the NIrV translation is starting to feel a bit pedestrian to him. The sentences are choppy because they are shortened on purpose for beginning readers; when he was five years old this was an advantage, but at ten, he reads very well... and as he approaches his teenage years, I think the cartoonish illustrations may be looking a little childish to him, too. When I heard that the tween-targeted iShine Bible was coming out, I requested a review copy right away! I was hoping it would be something he could enjoy at the age he is now as much as, or even more than, he enjoyed his Super Heroes Bible back when he was little. And I think I can safely say that he's loving the iShine Bible!
There are actually two slightly different versions of the iShine Bible: the "for Boys" version that Mikey has, and a "for Girls" edition which I have not actually held a copy of. The contents of the book are not gender-specific, and I'm guessing that the only difference is the cover itself (predictably, "Backstage Blue" for boys and "Lip Sync Pink" for girls). The cover is a nice soft faux leather, very flexible and comfortable to hold; our boy-targeted copy has a picture of a boy playing a guitar on it (you can see part of him through the triangular hole in the cardboard packaging in the picture above). Most of the Bible is printed in black and white on the traditional thin Bible paper, but there are some special color sections inside; I'll talk more about them in a minute, but right now I'll say that they carry on the trendy tween theme, with pictures of Christian rock band Mission Six and several other musicians and speakers from the iShine universe (learn more about iShine at iShineLive.com). There are also QR codes to scan with your cell phone (they take you to relevant videos and other materials), and even the pictured artists' and speakers' Twitter handles. The whole thing has a fresh, trendy feel to it; I imagine in five or ten years the supplemental material might seem outdated to the trendiest kids, but by that time (hopefully) they will have developed a love for God's Word and graduated up to an adult Bible anyway. But even if those iShine features begin to show their age at some point, the Bible itself is of course timeless.
The Bible text itself is the New Living Translation, Genesis to Revelation. My son loves it. He thinks it is much more readable than the choppy NIrV in his other Bible. For myself, I did some side-by-side comparison between it and my beloved ESV translation, and although I still prefer the ESV for my own use, I really liked what I read in the NLT text. I actually wouldn't recommend the ESV for the average teenager or tween, because I think it might be too complex language-wise to be fun for them to read; I would heartily recommend the NLT for a tween or young teenager, though.
My son's favorite part of the iShine Bible is called "The Bible Talks About..." in the front of the Bible in a section called the "iShine Index." It's about a 40-page topical list of question after question that a tween might want a Biblical answer for. Some of the questions are pretty straightforward: "Smoking looks cool. Should I try it?" "Is it right to treat people differently based on how they look?" "I dislike one of my teachers." "Is swearing okay or not?" Some of them are things that adults wonder about as much as kids do: "Does God really listen when we pray?" "Is there really a hell?" "Can I trust God?" "Why is there evil in the world?" And there are some that, as a dad who is also a former teenager, I find positively heartbreaking: "I can't do anything right." "I'm afraid of dying." "I'm being abused. Is it my fault?" "My friend is hurting. What should I do?" "I wish I weren't so afraid." "I feel dirty. I'm not good enough for anybody." Each question is followed by a quoted Scripture verse, a short paragraph giving an answer to the question, and an "Other verses..." section with several Scripture references that are relevant to the topic. I love the sensitivity of the questions themselves (just reading the questions takes me back to how it felt to be a Christian kid growing up in a confusing world!), and I appreciate the thoughtful way the questions are answered. I also love, both here and elsewhere in the iShine Bible, that the Scripture references always have page numbers next to them. Why assume that a child knows how to find Ephesians 4:31-32 when you can help them out a bit and tell them to look right on page 897? And the page numbers are really easy to spot on the pages, too, right up next to the traditional book+chapter at the top of each page of the Bible text. My son liked this "The Bible Talks About..." section so much that he read it straight through the first time he picked up the iShine Bible; that's how well-written it is.
There are three more articles in the iShine Index: "What Is the Bible?", "Finding Your Identity in Jesus", and "Growing In Faith". All of these articles are written in the same warm, friendly style as the "The Bible Talks About..." section. They don't talk down to the reader, but they aren't over the head of a 10-year-old, either. I think the execution is fabulous.
I mentioned before that there are some colored sections midstream in the Bible text; these are of a thicker paper than the traditional Bible paper that the rest of the pages are made of, and they contain some tween-friendly design elements, but they aren't just about style and flash. There are three of them, and they are each focused on a specific thing: "value" in section 1 ("What matters to you?"), "identity" in section 2 ("Who are you?"), and "purpose" in section 3 ("Why are you here?") Did you notice that the initials let you know that you are a "V.I.P." to God? Each of these could easily be used just as it is by a youth pastor as a message to his youth group. They are surprisingly dense with information, but the page design and typography make them so visually interesting that you almost don't notice that you're learning something as you read! And the three topics are well-chosen for tweens... in fact, if more of us adult Christians got a firm grasp on what really matters in our lives, who we are in Christ, and what God has created us to accomplish with our lives, we would be much more effective Christians. I hope a lot of young people get a great head start on those topics through reading this Bible.
In the back of the iShine Bible, there are some very interesting lists: "Great Chapters of the Bible," "Great Stories of the Bible," and "Great Verses of the Bible to Memorize." These lists are short but sweet; the chapters/stories/verses are well-chosen, and page numbers are included to make it simple to find the right spot. I suspect that these short sections are going to be the antidote for many a "bored" teenager's idle afternoon, and I think that's great! Traditional Bibles have a concordance and maps in the back; those features have not been included in this Bible, but in an age of computer technology, I'm not sure those things are as necessary as they might have been in years past. Young people certainly won't miss them; the topical approach will seem much more immediate and relevant to them.
If I had to come up with something to criticize about the iShine Bible, it would be the small print. The Bible itself is small; at 6.13" X 4.13" I can nearly cover the whole thing with one hand. The compact size is nice to carry, but it does mean that the font used for the Bible text is pretty tiny. I asked my son if he even noticed it, and if it bothered him. He did notice the small text, but he wasn't bothered by it: "I wouldn't recommend it for someone who wears glasses, though," he added. This 40-year-old who wears contact lenses can make it out all right, so younger eyes should have no problem, but if you see your tween reading it in low light, make them turn on a lamp so they can avoid eyestrain.
The "This Bible belongs to" page in the very front of the iShine Bible says that it is "...a reminder that I am loved, valued, and called by name." I can't think of a better description of the Bible... any Bible. But this Bible goes to great lengths to approach pre-teens on a level they find interesting and engaging and bring the truths of God's Word to them, organized in such a way that it's easy to discover something they find relevant and useful. My 10-year-old loves it. If your child is a two-digit that doesn't yet end with "-teen", I think they'll love it too.
Want a quick tour of the iShine Bible? Here's the video you see if you scan the cell phone QR code on the title page.
I was provided with a review copy of this book by Tyndale House Publishers. The opinions expressed in this review are mine alone.
This morning in church I was struck again with something that's been a large part of my worship experience since I wandered deep into the Old Testament last year. The thing that keeps coming to my mind is God's faithfulness to His people over the course of many centuries. He has never given up on us, He has continued to love us, all the way from the fall of Adam through Noah and Abraham and Joseph and Moses, through Godly leaders and through unGodly leaders, through our faithfulness and our apostasy, on and on through thousands of years of time, right up to now. God is still faithful to His people. It gets me every time!
Pastor touched a couple of times on the power of words, and he mentioned this passage:
“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire. (Matthew 5:21-22 ESV)
In context, Jesus was taking a number of serious transgressions of the Law (lust, divorce, breaking an oath, etc.) and saying that once the deed is done in your heart, it's as sinful as if you had done it for real. In this case, though, Jesus is basically saying that if you speak out to someone in anger, it is tantamount to murdering them. And I got to thinking about my relationship with my kids.
Are there any parents in existence who don't ever get frustrated and angry with their kids? I doubt it! Kids are kids... they haven't learned how to act like adults yet, and they haven't become as emotionally and mentally mature as their parents (hopefully) have, and sometimes we see blossoming in them things that we once struggled with and finally defeated. Emotionally it's like finally clearing your yard of dandelions, and then the next day waking up to see the whole yard yellow again. I certainly know that I've raised my voice to my children in anger before! I try to be very careful when correcting my children, and always tell them that even if they've done something stupid (messing with something that could hurt them, going somewhere dangerous, etc.) it doesn't mean that they are stupid... it means that their actions were stupid, even though they are both very smart kids. But I wonder if raising my voice to them in anger actually really does kill something inside of them. I don't want to be the murderer of any part of my children; I'll be reevaluating how I communicate with them in those kinds of situations. I think God can teach me how to always be someone who heals and reconciles and never someone who kills with my words.
After the music portion of the service, we had what we call "baby dedications." Basically those are just a time for new parents (or even not quite as new parents... one of the children we prayed over today is in the toddler class!) to kind of present their children to the church, pray for a safe and Godly upbringing for them, that sort of thing. For some reason I started thinking about my own two kids and how sometimes I'm pretty sure they think my wife and I get great mirth and joy from making their lives miserable. That is of course not the truth of the situation, but I was a kid once... I remember feeling that way sometimes! I realized today, though, that my job as a parent is to make my kids' lives harder... if they are not doing the right thing. My job is to make sin as difficult and unpleasant as I can, but when they are doing the right thing, my job is to grease the rails for them and empower them to succeed. I never thought of myself as a standing-in-the-way kind of parent, but if I'm standing in the way of my kids getting hurt or messing up their lives, I'll stand in the way of a speeding train if I have to!
Later in the service our associate pastor was talking about some of the things we are doing as a church to help needy people in the community, and I was thinking about how I usually feel sort of disconnected from those kinds of church ministries. After all, nobody asked me if we should help that person pay his rent or give him groceries or whatever. But then I realized that just because I don't make the actual decision to help that particular individual person, it doesn't mean I'm not a part of the decision... because if someone had asked me my opinion about it, I'm fairly certain I would have said "yes." In fact, I think it's safe to say, based on what I know about the people in my church (and I've spent time visiting with quite a lot of them), that we would as a body say "yes" if we were asked whether we should help someone who needed our help. When there's unity in a church body, the pastor knows that when he says "yes," the church says "yes." Come to think of it, the reason the pastor says "yes" and the reason the church says "yes" is because when someone calls out to Christ Jesus for help, His answer is "always yes" — within constraints of the church's budget, helping hurting people is always a top priority. That's how I feel, I know that's how my fellow church members feel, and I know it's how my pastor and his staff and board feel... so if Jesus says "yes" and leadership says "yes," and the church is of one mind with leadership, then the church also says "yes!"
When I was a freshman at Oral Roberts University in the late 1980s, one of the first things I learned was to hold doors open for the young ladies. There was no etiquette class for freshmen, no university-wide rule, no obvious reason for this at all. There was just a culture of the young men taking care of the young ladies. For anyone who wasn't born yet then who might be reading this, let me emphasize: this was the eighties, not the fifties. Holding a door open for a young lady when you weren't on a date (or maybe even when you were on a date) was certainly not the societal norm. But I think I learned more about servanthood and about respect for the opposite sex from that one tiny repeated act than anything else before, or maybe even since. What's more, the young ladies expected that kind of treatment; some would even refuse to go thorough a door with a young man unless he opened and held it for her. Training girls to understand that they deserve dignity and respect and should expect it from the males in their lives is a main focus of James Dobson's new book, Bringing Up Girls. To some the book may seem unforgivably old-fashioned in its treatment of the fair sex. Others will find something to get offended by, and some may even be astonished at some of the ideas expressed (I know I was!) But I think if you open your mind a little bit, forgive Dr. Dobson for some attitudes that may seem at first blush a little too much like something out of Leave It To Beaver for the twenty-first century, and look at the heart of what he is saying, you'll get some valuable insight before you're done.
This book is, for most intents and purposes, a follow-up to Dr. Dobson's 2001 book, Bringing Up Boys. If you've read that book, you will see a lot of similarities, particularly in the early chapters. Dr. Dobson seems to like to break the ice by including a few "lighthearted" letters from "fans" (in this case, some of them were unintentionally funny letters from child "anti-fans" who did not appreciate Dr. Dobson's stance on corporal punishment in previous books!) and telling a few stories about childhood. He has a grandfatherly sentimentality that is pretty hard to resist. But that sentimental side doesn't stop him from being brutally honest about some things, and that made some of the later chapters a tough read for me.
Like Bringing Up Boys, this book contains a lot of statistics about its subject: in this case, females of all kinds (not just little girls, but also teenagers and even grown women.) The basic theme of the second and third chapters, in fact, is that society is a dangerous place for females. There are extensive discussions about such things as the fragility of a girl's ego, the harmful effect of certain things in media, the aggressive marketing of those things to females, the accessibility of materials on the Internet through both computers and portable devices such as cell phones, the moral anti-absolutism of our 21st-century culture, and cultural changes such as the acceptance of public nudity. There was one section I found particularly difficult to get through - it was about "cutting," a practice in which people (often teenagers) will physically cut their skin with a knife or other implement in an attempt to dull emotional pain with physical pain. I've known that cutting existed for some time, but revisiting it in such detail was chilling. I found myself wading through those chapters as though I was hip-deep in toxic water; the information is awful to be exposed to, but you've got to get through it to get where you're going.
Then sometimes I would come to a spot in the book that seemed like a breath of fresh air. When I got to chapter 16 ("Good News About Girls") it was such a relief after spending the two previous chapters wallowing in the filth of media culture. The odd thing is that the whole point of the book is that the danger of a girl falling into those dire straits is greatly reduced by the presence of loving, involved parenting as she grows up. The kind of negative statistics in the "hip-waders" chapters would seem to be the kind of thing you would use to convince someone to read the book. Once I'm reading it, I've already decided that I want some help and advice; I don't need to be convinced. All that to say, I think maybe the book dwells on the negative a little more than is necessary; some parts are wastelands of discouraging numbers and trends. You can go for chapters and chapters and never actually learn anything practical to use in your parenting. Sometimes I felt like saying, "Okay, Dr. Dobson, you made your point twelve pages ago. Growing up is hard for girls. Can we get on to how I can help my girl now, please?"
And of course, the "how can I help" information is there, too. In fact, I would encourage any mother of a girl to at least take a look at chapters 5 and 7, and any father of a girl should at least take a look at chapters 8, 9, and 10. Chapter 8, in particular, is a must-see for dads: it is a series of heart-rending first-person stories, told by young women in college, of the huge effect their fathers have had on their lives. The basic message of the book is that girls need to be endowed with a sense that they are valuable, not commodities, and the girl's parents are in the primary position to do that for her as she is growing up. If we parents can help our daughters understand that they are valuable persons, they will be less likely to do things like using their sexuality to get what they want or trying to hold on to the affection of a boyfriend who is finished with the relationship. The idea is not to exert control over females, but to free them to control themselves as adult women. To empower them to not feel like they have to resort to drastic measures in order to get what they want. To free them to want what they really want, instead of what society all around them screams that they should want.
There are a number of opinions Dr. Dobson expresses in the book that strike me as controversial. He is against mothers of young children working outside of the home unless there is a dire need, for example. He is against same-sex couples raising children. He is against co-ed sports, particularly with teenagers (he believes that having members of the opposite sex on the team changes the dynamics of how the team works together and reduces the value of the whole thing for everybody). He believes in sexual abstinence before marriage for both genders. He says that casual sex with multiple partners physically rewires the brain and makes the eventual relationship with a lifelong partner less satisfying in the end. He seems to believe that body piercing is psychologically related to cutting (really? What about one earring per ear? Is that cutting? What about two? or three? Why is a belly-button different from an earlobe?) I could see many people being turned off by some of those assertions - although presumably, the kind of person who is going to strongly disagree with those kinds of things is probably not going to be reading books by James Dobson anyway. I personally have very little trouble with most of them, and I see at least a grain of truth in each. But if any of those statements bothers you more than a little tiny bit, you might seriously consider whether you want to get into this book.
I found his discussion of what he calls the "princess movement" particularly interesting. This is the same thing that I've referred to for years now as the "pink aisle"... you know, the toy aisle that is almost blindingly pink because it's where all of the "girl toys" are. These days, a lot of the "pink aisle" toys have Ariel, Snow White, Cinderella, Pocahontas, and other "princesses" from the Disney repertoire on them, and little girls eat them up. He characterizes the movement as a (mostly) positive thing, giving girls an outlet for their natural "girliness" and showing them that it's OK to not be the same as the boys. However, he does criticize culture's obsession with "beauty" in a lengthy section that, oddly, turns a very sympathetic eye on celebrities Anna Nicole Smith and Farrah Fawcett, both of whom suffered during their lifetimes because they were physically desirable (he quotes Farrah as saying, "How would you like to be photographed every day of your life?") The general sense is that a girl needs to be taught that she is a princess, yes, but not only because of physical beauty; she is a princess because she is a child of God.
Chapter 11 discusses the Father Daughter Purity Ball movement. This is a kind of formal party, sort of like a prom, to which dads take their daughters. Dads and daughters dress up in formal clothes, they dance, and the daughter pledges to her dad that she will keep her virginity until marriage, and the dad pledges back that he will help her protect her virginity. That probably oversimplifies things a bit, but that's the main gist of it. I had heard of this before, and it has always seemed a bit odd to me, maybe a little bit creepy... and this chapter did not change my mind. The whole thing extends the (perfectly okay) princess fantasy unnaturally from childhood nearly into young adulthood, and uses it to convince a girl to sign a contract that specifies what they will do sexually. But the way I see it, no document is going to change someone's mind in the heat of passion. And honestly, I'm not really sure that it's the father's job to "protect" his daughter's virginity; I think it's the father's job to teach the girl what she needs to know so that she will guard her own virginity. I'm going to teach my daughter what I believe the Word of God says about sexuality, but I'm not going to stand out on my porch with a shotgun waiting for her to come home from a date (I probably will wait up, though!) If she makes the wrong choice and has sex with a boy, what good will a written, signed contract do anyway? It will only make her feel guilty, and she'll hide the whole thing from me. That's not productive. It seems to me that taking your daughter to one of these things amounts to doing something outlandish to make up for years of not properly training her like you should have been doing all along. I'm sure in many or most cases it's not like that, and if one day my daughter asks me to take her to one of these, certainly I'll do it, but it seems over the top to me. Dr. Dobson's take on them is very positive, but personally, the whole idea strikes me as weird.
I had a similar reaction to the charm bracelet story in Chapter 17. Essentially, the story is about parents encouraging their daughter to stay away from any affectionate contact with boys until she is sure of the one she is going to marry. This includes kissing, saying "I love you," and even holding hands with a boy in addition to getting engaged and getting married. Their encouragement is in the form of a charm bracelet, the (rather expensive) charms of which must be given away to the first boy with which she has that sort of contact. The girl in the story, as it turns out, was wise enough to use that gentle pressure put on her by loving parents to keep her out of trouble, and after she was married, she still had the whole charm bracelet. But I have to wonder: is this bribery? Is this replacing a strong moral upbringing with a materialistic love for jewelry? It seems extreme to me, especially penalizing their daughter for even holding a boy's hand. (For that matter, what if she is in a class at school and everybody is holding hands as part of a lesson? What if they are holding hands in Sunday School for a prayer time? In my family, we hold hands to pray over our meals. Would those situations count if she happened to be next to a boy?) It's not my style to manipulate someone by giving them a gift with strings attached. Then again, maybe that's why I'm not a psychologist. Maybe that's the language that a little girl speaks most fluently, and I just don't know it yet.
All in all, though, I enjoyed the book very much. I didn't enjoy the "toxic statistic" parts, but I enjoyed the rest of it, even the parts with which I had a difference of opinion, because I enjoy seeing someone else's perspective. I enjoyed hearing about Dr. Dobson's daughter Danae, in part because her love of dogs reminded me of my little girl. In fact, it wasn't just my daughter that I saw reflected in the pages... I sometimes saw my wife there, too! I came away from the book understanding that for girls and women, relationships are the number one key to everything. If I can maintain a healthy relationship with my girl, she has a way-better-than-average chance at leading a very successful, happy life. If daughters of loving fathers look for a mate who is like their dad, I want to make it next to impossible for my daughter to find a man who will measure up, not because I want her to be alone (I don't) but because I want her to be with someone who loves her, and who loves God, at least as much as I do.
Are Dr. Dobson's perspectives old-fashioned? Sometimes, maybe... or maybe they're not old-fashioned, but a jarring reminder of a higher standard that should be held toward and by women. Girls and women are valuable and precious, and should be treated as such. If we all treated our daughters like princesses (not the spoiled kind, but the kind who know that royalty also comes with responsibility), and they all acted like princesses... wouldn't the world be a great place to be? When my princess grows up, I hope she still has the same attitude she had the other day when she wanted her mama to take her somewhere. "We can't go right now, sweetie," my wife told her. "Daddy has the car." My little girl replied simply, "Okay. I fly!"
I received a complimentary review copy of this book from Tyndale Publishing.
I'm reading Dr. James Dobson's new book, Bringing Up Girls (review coming soon, by the way) about parenting, and as designed, it has me thinking about my own job as a parent, not only of my daughter but also of my son. I was thinking this morning about some of the things he needs to understand that I've learned in my lifetime. I want to pass on those nuggets of wisdom to him so that he doesn't have to spend 20 or 30 or 40 years trying to figure them out. I thought, if only my own father had taught me some of those things better, he might have been able to help me out that way when I was a kid. And the fact is, he did teach me a lot of things he had to learn the hard way himself. I am quite grateful for the things that he managed to get through my thick skull and help me incorporate into my life. Passing on wisdom from generation to generation is critical; just ask King David, who many believe passed on the wisdom found in the book of Proverbs to Solomon, who later codified it in the book we have today.
But then I started thinking. The human race has been around an awfully long time, and there have been many, many very wise men and women in the world. Surely some of them were my great grandparents, or great great grandparents, or somewhere up the line. Somebody, sometime that I am descended from knew the things that I need to know. Why didn't they pass them down to me? Why didn't that knowledge filter on through the years until it rested in my lap, like a priceless gift from a stranger who seems vaguely familiar?
Well, it could be that the person who knew those things died before getting a chance to pass them on. That sometimes happens. It could be that there was a divorce, and a child never had the parent with that information as part of his life. Different children have different needs; maybe the parent who knew that nugget of information that I desperately need to know, simply never had a child who needed to know it. Maybe the child was just too hard-headed to listen to wisdom. There's an example of that, too, in the life of King Solomon; his son Rehoboam clearly had no grasp on the wisdom of his father, and instead of listening to wise counsel from older men, followed the advice of his idiot friends, and it cost him his kingdom (here, see for yourself in 1 Kings chapter 12). It happens to the best of us; there are any number of plausible reasons that knowledge might go to the grave with a parent and never be passed on to the child.
There is one reason, though, that haunts me a bit. I wonder if someone, somewhere in my ancestry, simply dropped the ball. Maybe they got busy with career, hobbies, social activities, politics, or whatever, and neglected to pass on critical information from parent to child, maybe even critical information that could save the child a lifetime of heartache. Maybe that child never learned what he or she needed to know, and thus was unable to pass it on to the next generation and the next. It could be that I have somehow managed to figure out something that some ancestor of mine hundreds of years ago knew, as plain as the nose on his face, but nobody else in my family has managed to get a grip on since then. As a parent myself, I have a responsibility, a duty to carry out, and that duty is to not be the weak link in the chain. If I can be a person who succeeds in passing on any and everything useful I have learned about how to be a successful human being to my children, then I will have gone a long way toward having been a successful parent. There is more to parenting than passing on information, of course, and given the choice between being a loving parent who passed on no wisdom and being a wise parent who did not love, I would go with being a loving parent and never look back. But if I can succeed in being both a loving father and a wise father, and pass both of those traits on to my children, then one day I will be able to face my maker with my children like trophies beside me and hopefully hear the two golden words that each of us hopes to hear from Him: "Well done."
I've been excited about the What's In The Bible video series for months... ever since the first time Phil Vischer mentioned it in his blog. When Tyndale House Publishers agreed to forward me a complimentary review copy ahead of the release date, I was so thrilled I could hardly stand it! We are big fans of VeggieTales at my house; I have a 9-year-old boy and a 2-year-old girl, and we started buying VeggieTales videos for him when he was a baby, before they were even making DVDs of the show. Now we have every episode (except Pistachio, which just came out), and my little girl asks for VeggieTales by name. When Phil Vischer's book about the VeggieTales days came out a few years ago, I read it with sadness and hope. Phil has been working on a few things since then (most notably Jelly Telly), but this is a big one. In a 5-minute introduction to the video series, Phil explained that this is a return to basics for him, going back to his "...original call to lead kids through the Bible and bring it to life for them." And I would say that this series is likely to fulfill that call even better, dare I say it, than VeggieTales ever did.
So far, two videos have been released in the planned series of 13 total. Each video is just under an hour long, and that hour is broken up into two 30-minute "episodes" which would be a perfect length for a kids' class at church (or a TV segment on Saturday morning!) The idea is to cover the basics of the whole Bible through the course of the series. Here's Phil explaining it:
I took the review copy home so the first time I watched it was with my wife and kids. We had a great time watching it, and I was pretty impressed with not only the content, but also the production quality. I spent a few years working in television back a decade and a half ago; I wouldn't consider myself an expert, but I worked at it long enough to understand a few basic things about TV production. And I can tell you that these shows are well thought out and executed. One of the first things I noticed was how bright and vivid the colors are, not only of the puppets and the animated segments, but even of the live set that Phil is on. The puppet sets have clever details in them, like a cowboy hat hanging on a hook on the wall behind the country music singing cowboy, or the silly "A is for Abraham, B is for Babel, C is for Caesar" signs on the wall in a Sunday school classroom. There's even chalk & erasers for the puppet's chalk board! Often the set is virtual, with the puppet performance over a cartoon-animated background, which makes for some surreal moments like a black Gospel song where the soloist is a puppet and the choir members backing him are an animated cartoon... of puppets! There is even a pirate character who is a puppet, but who has a parrot sidekick who is animated. Fun! And a clever and fresh use of the technology.
The editing style is fast and interesting; often puppets on different sets converse with one another, so what you're looking at on the screen is constantly changing, but it's not frenzied enough to be distracting to anyone who grew up in this YouTube/music video/sound byte era. I loved the camera work, particularly the fact that during some songs and segments the camera is never still... it is always slowly moving to the left or right, so it gives the scene some movement, even when the background isn't actually changing. It all contributes to giving the show its own personality and setting it apart from other kids TV shows out there.
The puppet characters themselves are a lot of fun. Most of them are instantly recognizable to anyone who has been watching Jelly Telly. See for yourself:
Jelly Telly fans will already know Buck Denver, Clive & Ian, Sunday-school Lady, Chuck Wagon, and the couch ladies, Agnes & Winnifred. I don't remember ever hearing Brother Louie's name on Jelly Telly (although he does appear in the Jelly Telly theme song), and I don't remember seeing the vaguely Shrek-voiced Captian Pete (the pirate with the animated parrot) on Jelly Telly at all, but they well may have been there. The puppets are fun to look at and listen to; each one has a very distinctive voice (which apparently are all supplied by Vischer... the man's a kid-show machine!), and they all have fairly specific roles to play on the show. In general, they have their own "home" sets... Clive & Ian are in a jungle, Sunday-school Lady is in a Sunday-school class, Buck Denver is on his news set... but occasionally they will go to a new set for a song or to visit another character (Buck's news set seems particularly prone to invasions by other characters). Phil Vischer is himself a character (not a puppet), and he sort of acts as a ringmaster for all the craziness. My kids loved it all - my little girl cracks up every time she sees Buck riding the space bike in the opening segment, and my little boy loves the jokes and gags.
Familiar references to kid culture are scattered through the videos... there's the mention of several children's books that you saw in the clip above, for example, and there are also mentions of Nickelodeon's Dora the Explorer and Disney's Finding Nemo (used as an illustration but not mentioned by name). And the references go beyond secular culture; in answer to the question "Why do we put all of those Bible stories in one book?" the puppet characters fire off the names of a bunch of stories children are probably familiar with from church lessons and coloring pages, and in one spot where Noah's Ark is mentioned, a child voice says the animals came in "by twosies" (a phrase from a well-known Sunday-school song about Noah), The Sunday-school lady replies that that is correct "...except for the ones they used as food... those came in by sevensies." (Phil has been known to throw in fairly obscure Bible details from time to time... remember in Dave and the Giant Pickle where Archibald/King Saul's recommendation for Dave was "Couldn't you just play your harp, and I'll throw things at you"?)
The cultural references aren't just for children, either. Their parents will appreciate references to one of Carrie Underwood's hit songs, and comic book hero The Green Lantern (kind of a crossover dad/kid reference there). There's also a very blatant rebuttal of the book/movie The Da Vinci Code which, at this point almost 4 years after the movie came out, may not be that topical for the kids, but I wouldn't be too surprised if some of their moms and dads weren't still wondering about it!
And what's more appealing to kids and their parents than silly gags? There are running gags, like the way Buck Denver always says "...man of NEWS!" whenever someone says his name, or Ian's obsession in the first episode with "PONIES!!" Then there are more subtle jokes, like Dr. Schniffenhausen's answer to the question "What is the Bible?" ("wood, black oil, & cow" ...when he says it, it actually sort of makes sense!) and car-trip-boy Michael's question why his breath didn't get fresher when he licked a "testa-mint". And there are plenty of sight gags, too; my favorite is the extreme double-take Abram does when God taps him on the shoulder. Hey, when you have wacky lines like "A sofa doesn't have metaphors!" and "There's a newsman on the floor! What's he reporting on, ants?" you know that you're going to find something to laugh at eventually!
VeggieTales has always been known for having great songs. The What's In The Bible series is clearly not going to be upstaged by vegetables! Give a listen to the ultra-catchy theme song (be forewarned: you will be singing about whether the "Bi-a-ble" is "reli-a-ble" and whether Buck Denver's "hair is pli-a-ble" for hours after you listen to this):
(That's "...Who knows our names and numbers hairs," by the way. I had probably heard it nine or ten times before that sank in.)
Songs are scattered throughout the videos. Sometimes they are brief and silly, like Pirate Pete's song about the canon of Scripture: "Oh, I've got a canon and I like to shoot, it's really big and black but I think it's kinda cute..." (yes, he's standing on his pirate ship next to a two-N cannon!) Sometimes the song is a major part of the content of the lesson; Chuck Wagon's song about Exodus/Moses not only covers pretty much the entire book of Exodus, but it also contains the funniest Country music description of the plagues of Egypt I've ever heard! Sunday-school Lady sings a song about idolatry that explains that anything we value more than we value God is an idol to us, and the specific things she mentions in the song are surprisingly grown-up things: money, credit, romance, cars, sports and travel are all named off one by one in a space of not more than 15-20 seconds. A little something for Mom and Dad to chew on, there!
I think my favorite song on the two videos is (Louie Armstrong-clone) Brother Louie's black Gospel number "Hallelujah, Look What God Can Do." If you loved "Second Chances" from the VeggieTales Jonah movie, you'll love this one too.
I have to say that the books of the Bible aren't approached exactly as I expected. I was expecting "In The Beginning" to be a straight-out summary of the book of Genesis, and "Let My People Go" to be a summary of Exodus. Although the raw Bible-story material does appear there, it's generally not attacked head-on right at the first; in fact, you're twelve minutes into the first show before you even get to the beginning of the Bible, and even then it's not Genesis 1:1... it's the Table of Contents! Instead, in general these videos approach the Bible from a thematic standpoint. The idea is to point out the lesson that the Bible is trying to teach us, rather than myopically focusing on the details all the time. Sort of like a Bible Overview course for third graders. They talk quite a bit about important Theological words like "covenant", "salvation", "redemption", and "patriarch"; terms for Bible-related things like "Septuagint", "testament", and "canon", and the origins and meanings of the names of each of the books. They also talk about things like the different categories of books in the Bible (the Pentateuch, the Historical books, Prophecy books, Gospels, Epistles, and so on) and why different Bibles may have different numbers of books (Bibles containing the Apocrypha vs. Bibles that do not). They ask and answer a number of "big questions" like "What is the Bible?" and "Who Wrote The Bible?" (my favorite answer, given by a child: "nobody") and "Who is Moses?" and "Who picked the books to be in the Bible?" Often there is a short segment in which kids (with lesser or greater degrees of success, depending on the question) try to give answers (some of those kids are pretty smart!)
Sometimes they stop and explain a detail that a child might ask about: in a puppet show about Creation, God is represented as a cloud, and they stop to explain briefly that we don't know what God looks like, so a cloud is a pretty fair placeholder. Ever wonder why the Bible calls God "He"? Why God created people? Those kinds of questions are addressed, and often in a way that your pastor could preach in the adult service. For example, Sunday-school Lady teaches us that God created people because God is three things: creative, personal, and relational, and God wanted a relationship with us! In the discussion about sin, we find out that God wanted to save us from three things: the "stain" of sin, the "power" of sin, and the "presence" of sin. If that seems about as clear as mud to you, watch the video and you'll see how well those three categories cover things!
The videos cover some touchy subjects, too, and I think they cover them well. There is a discussion about the inspiration of Scripture, centering around the difference between God's "words" and God's "Word" (synopsis: the "words" were written by Men inspired by God, and the truth they contain is God's "Word"). I've read quite a bit about the differences between a "literal" word-for-word style of translating the Bible and the more paraphrased thought-for-thought style, and this discussion comes close to that territory without actually saying anything that should offend either camp. There is a discussion about how long Creation took... 24-hour days or figurative "days" that could be much longer periods. I think Phil handles the topic quite well, presenting ideas from either side of this hot-button issue (again, without actually taking a side, allowing parents or teachers to discuss it further with their children) and concluding that "Genesis isn't about 'how' but 'Who'" (essentially, it isn't a book about science, but a book about God). I'd say those hard topics are handled quite well, and I see no reason why any children's church class or home should object to the open and honest way that they are approached, allowing teachers to provide further information if they so desire.
It is also helpful that each show starts out with a quick summary of some of the high points of the previous show, so if a class used these videos for several weeks in a row, for example, there's something to jog memories right at the start.
Will the VeggieTales set like these videos? I would say probably yes, although there is very little in common content-wise. To me, VeggieTales might actually work best with a little bit younger audience. The "lessons" in VeggieTales are generally pretty basic; the lessons in this series are cornerstones of Theology. These videos are probably less useful as entry/exit video for a Children's Church... I've seen VeggieTales and other vids used before and after service to keep kids entertained until parents arrive. These videos are more in-depth and build on themselves throughout each episode; kids would watch them in snatches before and after the service, but they are better watched as whole 30-minute "shows".
Would these videos be good for a Sunday-school or Children's Church class? Yes they would, but you would have to make sure that the rest of your class materials covered the same concepts and ideas as the video (I would love to see some curriculum developed to complement the videos, as a matter of fact [edit: since this was written, the curriculum I was hoping for has been announced!]). Who will learn something? You know, I'd say that almost anyone who happened to be paying attention will likely learn something. I had just completed reading and studying the books of Genesis and Exodus when I watched the videos, and even I picked up a tidbit or two here and there. So although the eight-year-old might be the one who gets excited when the theme song plays, the 15-year-old or the 35-year-old might just accidentally leave the room afterward with something to chew on too.
This is a great series. I'm pushing 40 and I had a terrific time watching it (several times!), and I'm sure you and your children will too. We can't wait for the next episode (topic: "Are the stories in the Bible fables?") If you've never been taught the Bible by a Sunday-school lady and then immediately been taught Church History by a pirate, it's a must-see. With nary a vegetable in sight, the puppets have taken over and are changing the way kids see the Bible!
We have a copy of each video to give away! To enter the contest, simply leave a comment on this blog post (use an actual identity or at least click "Name/URL" and put in your name, so I'll know who you are) and then immediately send an email to me at witb_contest@ScriptureMenu.com so I'll have your email address. Make sure your comment and email reach me before March 31, 2010. On March 31 I will randomly choose two entries, and each of those winners will receive one of our free DVD certificates, redeemable at Christian bookstores or direct from Tyndale. (I would wait until April 1 to choose winners, but then I'm afraid the winners wouldn't believe me!)
Back in the mid-'80s, I was at a Farrell & Farrell concert in Shreveport, Louisiana. Farrell & Farrell were one of the most successful "new wave" Christian bands out there, one with successful albums and even some radio hits to their credit. They were a married couple who had started performing in the '70s, with some of their biggest hits occurring in the early and mid 1980s. The concert I was at was tour attached to maybe their biggest hit album, Jump To Conclusions. I loved the album (still do) and was pretty pumped about the show.
Unfortunately, Shreveport Louisiana isn't particularly known for being on the cutting edge of pop culture, and attendance at the show was dismally, and uncomfortably, light. The hall was oh, I don't know, maybe half full, maybe less (give me a break, I was a kid... I wasn't looking that closely!) The band put on a great show, and I remember a few things about it, but after all of these years, the thing I remember most clearly was the chewing-out that the crowd received from Bob Farrell.
Bob was obviously pretty upset about something. Maybe it was the low attendance, or maybe there was something else that was bugging him that night. Maybe he ate something that didn't agree with him, or had some bad news from his management or record company, or maybe he and Jayne had had a disagreement earlier that day. Maybe he was tired from touring so much. Whatever it was, he took an unpleasantly long break from playing music to chew us out, the people who had paid to hear the concert, for not bringing our friends and filling the place up. Maybe he was right, or maybe not (how could he know? Maybe if we hadn't each brought a friend, the place would have only been on-quarter full!)... but all I know is that I don't remember exactly which songs they played or what he might have said about Jesus. All I remember is that he bawled us out. All these years later, whenever I listen to Farrell and Farrell, I remember Bob Farrell getting mad at me when I came to his concert.
Last night I was really tired because I hadn't had enough sleep and then unexpectedly had to do some major work in my garage, and I yelled at my wife in front of my kids. Because of me, my children will now grow up with the memory of my temper tantrum in their memory banks. Jayne Farrell may or may not have set Bob straight after the concert (how could he have done that to his fans?), and I know the Holy Spirit has certainly been working on me about my own tantrum, but words said in anger, whether from a stage or a dining room chair, cannot be retrieved and un-said. There is no way Bob could have reassembled that crowd and apologized for his harshness, but I sure can assemble my three-person audience and apologize to them for my outburst. Maybe my children will grow up with that apology in their memories and not just the image of my blowing my top.
![336343: What"s in the Bible? #5: Israel Gets a King! DVD](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_ucBSVrIkhggbEQXo9FJDNMwyNrx6c40N_b5eleqwBrUVKeGOV8ZGQHNJJa08xS1H3a2MjQvzciBl9Bux7mQa_sBn0zhuBIW_bMIHDgfS0cLwTJqj40Bfdh=s0-d "336343: What"s in the Bible? #5: Israel Gets a King! DVD")
Posts
