Every Christmas the Santa sacks in our home get loaded with goodies; there are favourite toys, new gadgets, clothes, beach gear…but what about something related to the star of the show? I’m talking about Jesus. As my kids grew out of babyhood, I wondered: ‘How can we make Christmas significant or at least connected to our kid’s faith development?’
Let me share with you something we’ve been doing to encourage our kids each Christmas. Around the same time as I started thinking about this, I began doing my live shows, Anton’s Antics, Gospel Shows for Children and Families. So I thought, why not have Anton buy a Christian book and sign the card? Now every year the kids get a book that we will read with them (or they can read on their own as they get older) during the year that is given to them at Christmas. These books were sometimes Bible stories (preschool, early primary years) but more recently we’ve turned to biographies of Christian leaders and missionaries that have been written for kids.
One of the great benefits of these types of Christmas gifts is that they continue to have impact long after Christmas and nourish our kids in ways that toys and clothes never can. We get to hear stories of real people facing real challenges and we see how that shapes their faith in Jesus. I love these biographies because they put ‘meat on the bone’- by showing real faith in Jesus in action.
Most recently we’ve been reading through a children’s biography of the famous ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’ author, John Bunyan. Now, let me warn you, the book has not been a page turner, though it has still been a worthwhile family ‘devotion time’ (note: the one on C.S.Lewis was a total bore!). Some biographies have been really great (e.g. Amy Carmichael or Jodi Erickson), with the kids wanting to move to the next chapter. But this is the down side of some ‘Christian art’. Unfortunately in our pursuit to be truthful and teach the message we lose sight of the art. The art becomes subservient to the content and the overall result suffers leading to a less than engaging read. I think Christian publishers, whether it is books, newspapers, websites, music, TV and preachers, think that because it’s Christian, Christian people will watch it anyway because they have to. Wrong. Well we might, but really, think about it, to be effective you have to push beyond the mediocre. You have to let the art take your content on a journey.
You’ll find biographies for kids in good Christian bookstores; the series we’ve been using for a while is called ‘Trail Blazers’.
Now do you want to know about some really cool, fun Bible stories that you can use with your kids around Christmas? I'm talking resources that are works of art from top to bottom but don't pull punches on the story or message.
Ok I’m blowing my own trumpet here, but really they are awesome and cheap! They are sticker stories – 4 pages of colour illustrations, activities and stickers that teach the story of Christmas from the gospels and the message of why it’s important. Sounds like it hits the spot right? It does. In fact Anton's got a whole series of them for both school age and before school age kids.
Do you want to grab some of these for your family?
You can get your hands on these in Anton’s store, right now and there’s still time to even pick up the special Christmas Stocking Stuffer which is a pack of 6 sticker stories from Anton's range plus Anton’s year round DVD.
Just go to the store here http://antonsantics.com/store.html
And get your kids into some guaranteed engaging, fun, meaningful and relevant Christmas resources this year!
Happy Christmas!
