Posts
1. If you can't find a church in your area whose preaching is expository, you can still get one on the internet:
John Piper www.desiringgod.org
Mark Dever www.capitolhillbaptist.org
Tim Keller sermons.redeemer.com
Ligon Duncan www.fpcjackson.org
John MacArthur www.gty.org
many, many more...
2. For teaching doctrine, we use:
Starting Points by David Quine: We use this as each child enters 8th grade. It takes one school year to cover seven basic worldview questions. We find we keep coming back to those questions time and again.
Thinkwells by Jeff Baldwin is a flip chart to teach sound bites for sound thinking.
3. For teaching systematic theology, we use:
Systematic Theology by Wayne Grudem. It is very readable, and we get each kid a copy when they start their freshman year of high school. We do one chapter about every other week and meet to discuss what we're all learning. It takes about 5 years to get through it that way.
Louis Berkhof also writes a popular Systematic Theology. We own it but haven't used it much.
In addition, catechisms are a great way to teach doctrine even to the very young. We have used the Westminster Shorter Catechism, but the Heidelberg Catechism is also good. You can get these free on the internet or get them in book version. Training Hearts, Teaching Minds is one source that teaches the entire shorter catechism in two years.
Also, we use The Big Book of Questions about Jesus by Sinclair Ferguson for our younger ones.
The ONLY children's bible we recommend is the Big Picture Story Bible. I've never seen a kid's Bible like this one. From the very start, it makes a bee-line for the Cross, and it never stops. An excellent resource for showing your children the overarching theme of the Bible!!! You can get it at Westminster Books.
4. Worldview Academy Leadership Camp. We do this even when we don't know how to pay for groceries. :) It costs $650, (sometimes discounted for various reasons) and takes your teen through a week of intense classroom time, teaching them how to find the worldview of movies, books, and art; how to talk to an atheist or a post-modern; how to share the Gospel. EXCELLENT. We send the kids twice; if they want to go again, they have to fund it. They always want to go again.
Worldview Radio is a podcast hosted by Bill Jack and Jeff Baldwin. It's both funny and engaging, and it's a daily dose of thinking well.
5. Herman Who? AHermeneutics Primer by Todd Friel: This is a great way to learn how to interpret OT versus NT, descriptive versus prescriptive, what applies today, how to bridge the cultures. It is fantastic.
6. Grandparents!!! If you are blessed enough to have parents who walk with God, give your kids lots of exposure to the grandparents. All four of my kids' grandparents are very charismatic. They think our church is boring; we think their church is bouncy. We think they're crazy charismatics; they think we're crazy Calvinists. Remember those loud, lively dinner discussions? They are still happening. :) But the rich legacy that is created when the kids talk to the grandparents about their faith is priceless. My kids talk to my folks about worship, tongues, prayer, Kingdom issues. It's good for the kids to see serious faith across several generations.
Here's to Truth in a world that's dying to know.
I see several favorites listed here! I would have to say that the one that really tops the list for me is spending time with my grandparents. While we do differ in several ways of thinking, it's truly a treasure to get to sit down with a cup of coffee and just talk about God. Those are the kinds of discussions that I never want to end. They're also the ones that remain imprinted in my memory the longest.
ReplyDelete