Gift Giving Part 4 – The best for last – Happy Birthday Jesus!

Last week at my MOPS leadership brunch, we went around and shared ideas for keeping the focus on Christ during Christmas. My friend Stephanie shared that her family puts a birthday gift under the tree for Jesus. It is the last gift that they open. In her family, it is usually a religious item for their home such as a cross. I loved that idea and I have been thinking about it ever since. This year our family is going to start a new tradition of having gifts for Jesus. The girls and I went to Michaels and purchased a plain wooden box with a hinge top. They painted it red and decorated it with birthday and Christmas themed stickers. On top, I glued a piece of scrapbooking paper with Matthew 25:40 written on it, which says, "I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me." From now until Christmas, we will put a drawing inside the box that represents each thing we do for those in need this Christmas season. Our five year old has taken on the job of doing pictures for each of the gifts. As of now we have drawings of two angel tree children we donated gifts to, one child who will receive our Operation Christmas Child box and three children in Africa who are receiving school uniforms. The last of these gifts is the most beautiful to me, as Sarah (age 5) emptied her piggy bank of her birthday money to buy them through her Awana club. She amazes me! I can't wait to see what else we come up with between now and the 25^th.

On Christmas night we will open the box, lay out all the drawings and wish Jesus a Happy Birthday!

 

 

Gift Giving part 3 - The Jesus Storybook Bible

Of all the people you buy gifts for, kids are ones who will tell you exactly what they would like to receive. So buying for kids is not that hard. Unless you actually want to buy them something worthwhile. That is really quite challenging these days. My favorite gift to buy for children is a book. Maybe because it is my favorite thing to receive, but I really believe books can have a lasting impact a child, where a toy never will. This year I am giving the book The Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd-Jones. Our family received this book a few months ago and it is nothing short of amazing! Now I could diverge on a very long litany of why I love this book. Let’s just say that if a book could have a fan club, I would be the president. I tell so many people about this book, I should make up pamphlets to hand out. It would save me a good bit of time. I love, love, love this book!

I know that you probably have several children’s bibles and bible stories. You’re thinking your kids don’t need another Christian children’s book with such stunning insight as “Mrs. Noah kept things clean.” (yes, we have a book that says that!) So what makes this book so fabulous? It's summed up in the book’s subtitle, Every story whispers his name. What does that mean? This except from the introduction describes it beautifully,

“There are lots of stories in the Bible, but all the stories are telling one Big Story. The Story of how God loves his children and comes to rescue them. It takes the whole Bible to tell this Story. And at the center of the Story, there is a baby. Every Story in the Bible whispers his name. He is like the missing piece in a puzzle ­­– the piece that makes all the other pieces fit together, and suddenly you can see a beautiful picture.” (pg 17)

Children (and adults) learn that Noah isn’t just a man in a boat, nor is Jonah just an unfortunate man who spent time in a whale – the reader learns that all of the stories of the bible are interconnected telling the larger story of God’s love for us and His plan for our salvation. If I could, I would throw out our church’s Sunday school curriculum and just read kids this book. It is that wonderful!

Okay enough of me, Sally agreed to join us for a little blog chat. Welcome Sally!

WS: You have written many bible storybooks, what made you decide to write one from the perspective of “every story whispers his name”?

SLJ: I saw the need for a Bible that was different. It's very hard to retell the Bible stories well and the pitfall many children's Bible storybooks fall into is that they dumb down the stories. They do this, it seems to me, in two ways:
Firstly, they dumb down the language and patronize children. Thinking that by talking down to the child they are making it into a children's book. But of course children are far smarter than that. Far smarter than we give them credit for. I love what Madleine L'Engle said, “When I have something important to say I put it in a children's book.” I don’t see why you shouldn’t speak to children as you would adults—who just happen to be small ones. They may not understand every word. Some things may be above them. But this lets children stand on tiptoes. And the effect is like water on thirsty ground.
The second way children's bible storybooks patronize and dumb things down for children is by hammering down the entire Bible into one long lesson in obedience. Almost like Aesop's Fables, each story becomes a lesson so you can fix your behavior and be a better person. The disastrous and inaccurate conclusion that a child is likely to draw from this: be good so God will love you.
I know I did. And I grew up in a wonderful christian home and came to faith when I was very small, but for some reason I somehow missed (as I think many of us do) the true heart of the Bible. It wasn’t until I was an adult—and under the wonderful teaching of Dr Tim Keller that I started to see what I’d missed it.
I thought the Bible was a book of rules filled with rules on how you should behave (or you would be punished) and a book of heroes you were supposed to copy (be brave like David so God will love you like David, don't run away like Jonah, etc.).
The Bible does have some rules in it (they show how life works best). But Bible isn't mostly about what you should or shouldn't be doing at all, it's about God and what God has done. And the only true Hero in the Bible is God himself. (The Bible does have some heroes in it but most of the people in the Bible are not heroes at all—they are people who mess up all the time!)
Because the Bible is not book of rules or a books of heroes, the Bible is most of all a Story, a Story that runs like golden stream under all the other stories of the Bible: the Story of how God loves his children and comes to rescue them. It takes the whole of the Bible to tell this Story and at the center of the Story is a baby, the Child upon whom everything would depend. And every story whispers his name.
I wanted children to know that God loves them—with “A Never-Stopping, Never Changing, Un-breaking, Always and Forever Love”—to know this wonderful Story of Grace. Because in the end, the rules don't change you. But a Story can.

WS: How did you go about deciding which stories to include in the book?

SLJ: That's a great question. I could only include just over 40 stories. So it's very hard to choose. In a children's storybook bible you have various criteria in choosing which stories to include:
—obviously there are the non-negotiable ones. You need as many of the classic stories as you can fit (Creation, Fall, Noah, Moses, Joseph, Daniel, Jonah, John the Baptist, Paul, etc.). And if you're going to tell the central story of the Bible—the great Rescue Story—you need to be sure to include certain others stories too
—I wanted an approximate equal number of stories from the OT and the NT
—I wanted the stories that are good for illustration potential (e.g. Noah is great, so is Jonah) because this will keep the young reader engaged
—I wanted to bring out the variety in the Bible itself (psalms, parables, healings, teachings, prayers, etc.) so that determined other choices
Beyond that:
—I prayed for wisdom in choosing and I went with the stories that moved me at that moment the most, knowing as Frost said, "no tears in the writer, no tears in the reader"

WS: Any suggestions for parents who want to start introducing the bible to their children?

SLJ: I think the most important thing is to tell them the Story. Over and over. Again and Again. The Story of how God loves his children and comes to rescue them. That needs to be central and first. Children need to know God loves them. Period. It's out of that knowledge that anything changes. I think you should be very careful about applying things from the stories. Yes, of course there are rules and we need them to know how life works best. And yes, there are of course things we can learn from the stories. But I don't think it can be said enough: the bible isn't mostly about you and what you should or shouldn't be dong. It's about God and what He has done. Every story in the Bible is telling a greater story.

WS: In the spirit of my series of gift suggestion postings, what children’s book do you love to give kids?

SLJ: Well aside from my own books (!)—which needless to say all of my friends and relations and their relations are getting—and my latest favorite is HOW TO BE A BABY, BY ME THE BIG SISTER, because it's totally cathartic for big brothers or big sisters like me to see how poor babies are so hopeless at everything unlike them (and by the way, it’s been so fun to see it become a New York Times bestseller and just last week win the NYT Notable Book 2007 as well as the NAPPA 2007 Award)—aside from that, depending on the ages... some of my favorites are; THE FRANCES BOOKS by Russell Hoban, WINNIE THE POOH (the real one not the Disney one); CHRONICLES OF NARNIA; CHARLOTTE’S WEBB by E B White; anything by Charles Marshall or Ruth Krauss or Margaret Wise-Brown.
There are obviously loads and loads more, too many to name… but basically, I suppose I want to give any children’s book that is living—that has a heart and life in it. The book that moves you, makes you laugh, makes you cry, open your eyes to wonder. I know they’re the only ones that I want to be reading. And they are the books I suspect that children will still be reading 100 years from now.

Thank you Sally! Sally has a wonderful website which has more information on her many other books. If you find yourself in a grumpy mood go to her site and watch the Handy Bag Friends movie. It is hysterical. http://www.sallylloydjones.com/. Sally recently recorded three Christmas stories from The Jesus Storybook Bible on Haven Today. Our family snuggled on the couch and listened to them the other night as our advent activity. It was fantastic. You can hear the recordings and read more about her on her blog http://sallylloyd-jones.blogspot.com/2007/11/christmas-story.html.