Last time I had the joy of sharing with you how we are catechizing our children. It is wonderful to see them learn doctrine. I must confess, with home schooling my boys, their Mom does an amazing job at this. I just come along at times and underscore or expand on these truths. Outside of teaching them these great doctrinal truths, the other thing we must do for our children is to introduce them to dead people. As believers we certainly have no séances, or channeling going on in the Everson household. But we do encourage reading! In fact my boys know that many of their chores they must do because they live in this house and we all contribute. However, they also know that Dad and Mom pay BIG BUCKS for reading books. If they want the new Wii game, all they have to do is read some books and they will have the money to buy it (amount we pay depends on level of difficulty and subject matter). This is invaluable for them! Reading is a discipline in my life, I was never pushed to read, and I suppose if I were growing up in today’s time I would be labeled as ADD. Needless to say, my parents gave me a spanking rather than medication and, while it required more energy from them, I would say it paid off greatly (but that is another post for another day). In short, I want to raise readers, boys who think as they read and grow from the things that they read. Recently as we prepared to move to Southaven, MS I was able to discuss with our oldest how even though God was leading us somewhere else, it was not as difficult as what God told Jim Elliot to do. I don’t have space to go into Jim Elliot’s story but you can find a synopsis here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Elliot . If you notice Jim Elliot was martyred in 1956. How does that mean anything to a 10 year old in the year 2009? Well, Caleb had read his biography, but not only his, he has read about Hudson Taylor, William Booth, Gladys Aylward, and several others. In fact, Joshua our 9 year old learned how to run faster by reading about Eric Liddell (how many people can say that Eric Liddell taught them how to run?) I would rather our boys read and idolize “dead people” that have finished the race faithful, than to look at the world’s heroes who have left their family, got on steroids, or stole some money. Tonight we are beginning a new book on Martin Luther; I am in awe at the resources out there for us that are seldom taken advantage of by Christian families. So below you will find some biographies for your children, if they can’t read them on their own (some of the biographies are difficult reading) then read it to them after supper. It may take some effort and you won’t be able to do it every night, but if you make a commitment to do it, maybe one day you can have a conversation about a great dead man who you both know!
http://www.graceandtruthbooks.com/biographies/youth.asp
A good biography to start with is George Muller. This site has some great things for boys and girls of all ages and men and women of all ages.
http://www.ywampublishing.com/c-64-biography.aspx
All of these books are written by Janet and Geoff Benge and are really good for children 9-15. Parents may have to help the younger ones get through some of these books but the effort is worth it!
.http://www.wholesomewords.org/children/biocc.html
The Children Of Bible Biographies and the Biographies of the Missionaries are recommended. The two sites above are the books we have more of in our home.
http://www.monergismbooks.com/Bible-Study-Resources-p-1-c-408.html
This site has catechism books, biographies and so much more.
Well there you have it, it may not be an exhaustive list but buying these resources and teaching them may be exhausting! However, the results will pay off with greater results that you have ever imagined. If you have some other sites, or advice I’d love to hear it
