While at the Exponential conference a few months ago, I attended a meeting for church leaders sponsored by Zondervan in which the company introduced a new church curriculum by Randy Frazee called Believe. I was given a copy of the adult book (pictured on right) and told about other editions for kids and teens. I thought it was a neat idea...families being able to go through the same material but at levels that were age appropriate. So when I got the opportunity to preview the kids edition and to see how these two editions interacted, I took it!
Here's the scoop...
Believe is split into 3 sections, 10 chapters each.
- Think: 10 key beliefs of the Christian life
- Act: 10 key spiritual practices of the Christian life
- Be: 10 key virtues God desires to see developed in your life
Each chapter contains a Key Question, Key Idea, Key Verse, Main Text, and Discussion Questions. (The questions in the kids edition appear in each chapter, but in the adult edition are found in the back of the book). The neat thing about this book is that the text is mostly Scripture. There are a few paragraphs throughout providing background information about various texts, but other than that the text is simply the Bible. For example: Chapter 1 talks about the belief in one God and the Trinity. The Bible passages found in this chapter all support and give evidence for this belief. The kids edition has about 4 pages of text with some accompanying illustrations, while the adult edition has 12 pages (a wider variety of passages). The verses used in the kids edition are often found in the adult version too.
We had a short family devotional time this morning and I asked one of my kids to pick a chapter. He chose the virtue of Patience. As we were reading the key thoughts and verses about being patient and controlling tempers, I could see guilty smiles spread across their faces because they realized this is an area that needs work in their lives! The stories and questions gave us the opportunity to discuss why patience is hard and what we can do to slow our anger and help us to wait patiently.
These keys to the Christian life are all very basic, but sometimes it's good to go back to basics and strengthen foundations. I think it would be beneficial to go through this curriculum as a church or a family to ensure that everyone is on the same page in their beliefs. It's a great way to get discussions started and dig deeper into the Word of God.
*I received a complimentary copy of this book from BookLook Bloggers in exchange for an honest review.
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