Sammy Experiences Jesus

Sammy does not understand what it means to have Jesus inside his heart, so he talks to his grandfather who teaches him what it means to have a real relationship with Jesus.

Sammy is upset that he doesn't experience God the way the people in the Bible do, but after a talk with his grandfather, he changes his mind.

So often children know stories from the Bible but don't understand the story of the Bible as a whole, the metanarrative. This book seeks to tell the big story of the Bible in an accessible and engaging way. For very young children the pictures have been designed to tell the story without words, older children can have it read to them or, from about the age of 6 or 7 should be able to read it for themselves. Why is it important that children understand the big story of the Bible anyway? Often as children grow up, particularly if they are part of a church and/or have Christian parents, they will hear how much God loves them, that Jesus loves them; and that God loves the world. It's a great message and one I firmly believe in; but it creates a 'love bubble' which can easily burst when children start to become more aware of and engage with the world around them. A child who has grown up in this 'love bubble' might get to aged 6 or 7 and find that a pet dies, they begin to engage with news media for the first time and are surrounded by sadness; or perhaps a family member dies. Where is the God who loves them now? How could a God who loves them and is their friend let this happen? The love bubble bursts, and the risk is that children turn their back on God because they can't align what they have been taught with the world around them that they are beginning to understand. I believe children need to grow up knowing that God loves them and wants to be their friend, but also that the world is broken and not how God wants it to be. Children need to be given a lens to help them make sense of what they see and understand from the world around them. Teaching children about brokenness at the same time as love avoids the love bubble and the consequences of it bursting. God's Big Story also includes the idea of choices, the choices we make every day but also that being God's friend is a choice. Wrong choices caused the world to break but the essence of God giving choice is love. A God who wants to be our friend allows us to choose how to respond because He loves people. Children are invited to engage with the story, to make choices, on every page. At the end of the book children are invited to choose how they want to respond to what they have heard. God's Big Story aims to tell the big story of the Bible so that children have a frame of reference to fit individual Bible stories into. It also makes the foundations of the Christian faith accessible to children and lays foundations for the future.

A collection of Bible stories from the New Testament. The reader is challenged to find a lamb, shepherd boy, and other things in the illustrations.

Philosophers defined people as "the religious animal." Since the dawn of time, people sought a higher power than mere humanity. The ancients felt the tug of spirit, realizing that life itself involved more than what meets the eye. They seized upon the concept of a spiritual creative force that is the foundation of all that is physical. Spirit became the platform from which everything else derived. You have a body, but you are a spirit. We come from the spirit realm by the process of birth but at death, we return to it. With the modern advances in medicine, some strange things happened. People who were pronounced as dead by doctors came back to life and talked of things they had seen in another life. At first, these phenomena were considered the ravings of the deluded. However, some doctors themselves had the experience, or they ministered to patients who had the experience. A new science was formed called the near-death experience. Sammy Hughes suffered six heart attacks where there were no heartbeats, no blood pressure, and no brain activity. In one of these episodes, Sammy was gone for five minutes before being revived by the doctors. In two other episodes, Sammy went into another realm and saw his mother and father. However, the medical expertise of the doctors brought him back into his body. This is Sammy's story.

Sammy the sheep explains to a neighboring sheep how his loving shepherd takes care of him and keeps him safe. Includes the text of Psalm 23 and suggested discussion questions.

Experiencing God at Home takes a fresh path back into the rich roots of Henry Blackaby’s world-renowned Experiencing God writings to connect what happens in our homes to what happens in our churches. Here, his sons Tom and Richard Blackaby first establish the biblical case for the idea of experiencing God at home, illuminating how the clear foundation for God’s work in nations and churches around the world is his work in families. Indeed, healthy families lead to healthy churches, and the Blackabys illustrate that through real-life stories of families that have found ways to experience God in marriage, in choosing life’s direction, in rescuing broken relationships, in forgiveness, in the salvation of loved ones, etc. Lessons from the Bible support these moving accounts, and the book concludes with resources that will guide individuals families as well as entire churches toward practically experiencing God at home.