The “subtitle” for this book is:

A beautifully illustrated, simple yet complete guide to help parents teach their children the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”

That is some billing to live up to, but I have to tell you, in the end I found this book to be exactly that.  Mr. Leuzarder, driven by the desire to come up with a way for his own daughters to memorize the core truths of the gospel has come up with this resources which should be in the hands of all parents and everyone who works with kids.

The Problem

Before I get into how Mr. Leuzarder solves the problem, it makes sense to define the problem itself.  As parents, or as children’s ministry workers, our chief goal should be to share the truth and power of the gospel with the kids we have influence over.  That said, there is a bit of a dearth [CHECK SPELLING] when it comes to good resources for sharing the gospel with kids.  The result is kids oftentimes get a watered-down, incomplete or inaccurate picture of what the gospel is all about.

Here how Mr. Leuzarder defines the problem in the introduction to the book:

“Many of us are familiar with the term ‘Gospel.’  We have hopefully heard its message in sermons, tracts or on TV.  We understand its great importance because God’s Word tells us that the Gospel ‘is the power if God for the salvation of everyone who believes.’  Understanding this, then, we would all agree that offering this message about the saving work of Jesus Christ to our children, as soon as they able to grasp its meaning, is of utmost importance.

But where do we start?  The Gospel is much more than a few lines out of a tract.  In fact, to properly understand the Gospel we must reasonably understand all that the Bible teaches about the nature and character of God, about man as a created being, his fall into sin and his desperate condition, as well as the work of Jesus Christ to save men from God’s wrath and eternal punishment.  We also need to understand what God expects of His redeemed people and what it means to be an heir to the glories of eternal life.”

The Teaching Process

Now, that is a tall order for any adult to understand all of those concepts.  Thousand-page plus books like Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology have been written to help adults to begin to try to understand all that these concepts entail.  How then can we begin to try to teach these to kids?  I believe it is a three part process (two of which we have some control over): Continue Reading…