Fall 2023 Supporter Update

Welcome to the Media Gratia Supporter Update. We want to tell you of a number of things that have been completed and what lies ahead and how you can pray for us.

First of all, we have finally completed, after about four years of work, the

Behold Your God Seeking Him Early children's material. And we're going to talk about that later.

We've got one of the age group's material with us today and we're going to walk through that with the co -author.

Also this marks the 10th anniversary of the First Behold Your God study and as I am allowed to travel and preach in other places, there are times where I get to go places where I haven't been before.

And it's still really encouraging to meet people who talk about the impact of the study on their church.

Recently I met a man, it was just last weekend, that was the head of a new missionary organization and he talked about the fact that in Oklahoma his small church that he was a part of went through the study and it turned the whole church kind of upside down in a gracious way.

And we're also excited that the First Behold Your God study is being translated into Portuguese for those in Brazil.

And we're grateful that we're able to continue doing the Whole Council podcast. It's difficult for me to gauge how effective this is, unlike the sales of the books and the churches that are doing the study.

But as I have been able to travel, now we hear not only about the

Behold Your God study or the other things that Media Gratia has done, but we also hear about the podcast.

And it seems like it's always the pastor's wives, I'm not sure about the pastors, but the pastor's wives will say, we've been listening to the podcast and we send it to our friends.

Again, last weekend in Arkansas, one of the pastors there, a friend named

Adam, his wife is Katie, and Katie told us about how she's been giving the podcast out to her friends and how it's helpful.

So that's always encouraging. It's past the 600 ,000 download mark now. In the last quarter of this year, we hope to complete

Jordan Thomas' mini -study, and the topic is Treasuring Christ Within the

Local Church. Also, we want to publish the sermons from the Behold Your God, the

Weight of Majesty study. And I hope to finish working on a Psalm 119 mini -study, and that will be released in the next year.

Looking ahead in 2024 and 2025, we are very excited that there are a number of men who have agreed to help us with mini -studies.

It's difficult with my schedule to do more than one mini -study a year, and so the men that have agreed include

Joel Beakey, Ian Hamilton from Scotland, Jeremy Walker, south of London, Conrad Mbewe, Jordan Thomas, Albert Bisson, and Stephen Yule.

And if some of these names are not familiar to you, that's okay, we'll be doing podcasts with them in the coming days as we talk about the mini -study and their own ministries, and so you'll get to meet them then.

Now, if we come back to the children's material, Behold Your God, Seeking Him Early, we've got the co -author here, and she's under duress to be here, all right, but she's agreed to be here, and it's my wife,

Misty. So Misty, why don't you come, and we'll talk about the material, and you can run us through how the material is used, and I have a number of questions for you.

Misty, thanks for being willing to come on and to explain a little bit about the children's material.

So maybe we could just sum it up in three questions. And the first question would be, so what is the material about?

Well, the material is an adaptation of the content of Behold Your God and The Weight of Majesty, the important truths in those studies brought down on a child's level.

So the study comes in three different age levels, same content, but adapted to those ages.

The first is five to seven, the second is eight and nine, and the third age group is 10 and 11, and that's what we have with us today.

We have some samples of the third age group. The first is available for presale now.

It should be with us, we hope, this week or early next week, and then the second is being sent to the printers very soon.

So maybe another question we could answer is, why do children's material on a theme like this?

I mean, why not just do, you know, consecutive Bible stories? Obviously, we feel that walking through the

Scriptures is a really helpful and essential aspect of teaching children. So why would we add this kind of material?

Well, we're already aware that there are, you know, good curriculums out there that take children, you know, through the

Bible, Genesis, Revelation, and this material is to help them learn to, as they study their

Bible, to learn to focus on who God is and ask the right questions.

So as those people who've done Rethinking God Biblically know, a lot of that was written as a corrective to, you know, low and idolatrous views of God, and a lot of us were brought up with those.

And we want to start by teaching our children the loftiest, the highest, and the best views of God that we can.

And so that maybe they don't have to rethink as much as we did when they're adults.

But we also know that accurate information isn't enough.

They need to hear the gospel. They have a sinful nature, so they'll create idols in their heart, even if they have good teaching.

So the material is very saturated with the gospel, and the gospel is spelled out clearly in the material.

And the aspect of getting to know God as being the great adventure that there is and the best thing is there, and just specific teaching about the different attributes of God.

Yeah, oftentimes I think we would be guilty of thinking that children can't handle theological topics, which is not true.

Of course it has to be said on their level, and the books are full of exercises and games and things that allow them to kind of take those truths and grab hold of them.

But the doctrine of who God is, the perfections of God, these are things that can be taught to children.

And it reminds me of Hudson Taylor's parents, Hudson Taylor, the missionary to China.

His parents used to speak of the duty of parents to give truth to their children, even though at times you feel that, well,

I'm not so sure, you know, is this very practical? I mean, we're giving them all these great truths, but, you know, are they too young?

And they said, we give them truths and it becomes like kindling that is stored up, and as God works in the hearts of the children, you know, as their eyes are opened to see the beauty of Christ, then there is such an extraordinary advantage if you've grown up being told the truth about God compared, as you mentioned, kind of growing up with religion, but maybe the things that were said about God were not that careful, or maybe they were neglected because people thought, well, you're a child.

So that's the content of the material and the purpose. What are the elements of the study, the components?

Well, there's a teacher's kit, and in the teacher's kit, there's a manual, and then there are reproducible parent pages that you can copy or scan and print to give out each week so that the parents have a summary of what's being taught.

That's if this is used as Sunday school material. We hope, of course, that a lot of homeschool families will use it as well.

In the research kit, there are also word wall words and... What's a word wall word?

Well, they're the important words and definitions from the study. And so before you start the study, you'll hang this somewhere on a wall, and then as the weeks go by, you'll hang the important words and definitions, and they'll be there so that you can go back and review the previous weeks.

And then there are visuals, which are just pictures of different illustrations in the book just to help the children understand what you're talking about.

So that's all in the teacher's kit? That's all in the teacher's kit. And then there's the student workbook. Then there's a student workbook so that as the teacher's teaching, the students can follow along and there'll be different exercises to keep them engaged.

And then the lesson is taught in two parts. And when you teach the second part, there's word art for the kids to color.

And then also there are some word search, word puzzles in the back for extra time activities if kids arrive early or if you have a really longer period of time, maybe longer than an hour that you have to work with the kids, then those are in the back.

So Misty, some teachers might feel that they themselves have not sat down and worked through the different attributes of God at an adult level, and they may feel a bit nervous about teaching it on the children's level.

So how do you provide for that in the teacher's manual? Well, the teacher's manual has a lot of helps in it.

One of the first things that will be helpful to the teacher is for each week, there are scriptures listed that you can dwell on throughout the week because really the best preparation for teaching is to have your own soul full and for you to be living on these truths yourself throughout the week and thinking on them.

Then the lesson, the actual lesson itself is written as a script.

And of course, we would encourage you not to just read it to the children, but that makes it easy for you to put those truths down on their level.

There are questions for you to ask and they're marked so that you can find them easily.

And the manual tells you really every step to take, everything to do is right here.

And I know that teachers are very creative and resourceful and homeschool parents are very creative and resourceful, and people will have their own ideas how to use the material and we're excited to see what people will do with it.

But if you're new to teaching or you are a little nervous about it, it's laid out in a way to really help you to be able to teach it.

Early on, we were asked, did we intend to do a video element? So would

I teach? And so the teacher would just come in and turn on the TV and then it would be taught for them and then they could lead the children through questions or activities.

And we really felt that that was not the best way to do it. Because we do feel, as you mentioned, and that's how we came to design the teacher's manual in the way that we did, we do feel that it is invaluable that the teacher, that their own soul would be in the grip of those truths.

And even if you feel that someone else might be able to explain it better, there is nothing better than a child seeing an adult that they know love the

God of the Bible and to be captivated by these perfections of God, even if you feel that someone else might have said it better.

But to see normal people in love with God, normal adults, everyday people that live down the street from them, it's a great benefit for the young people.

They don't end up thinking that this is just what preachers say or people that get paid to talk this way.

As you say that, I just have faces going through my mind of people who have influenced me over my life because they were in love with God and they loved me and showed it to me.

Yeah, yeah. I have many faces that I think of gratefully.

And even after I was converted in the middle of college, I remember going back and trying to find those people to say thanks.

And I also remember being scolded for chewing gum in church a lot by Jimmy Buttrick, but she was right.

Well, Misty, thanks for being with us. And we hope that you will pray for us.

And as we look to produce the new mini -studies that are coming up, it's so many wonderful opportunities, but we do need wisdom.

And we are grateful, very grateful for everyone who has given toward these things without those gifts, really.

Humanly speaking, it wouldn't be possible for us to publish this. It was a very expensive venture. To publish three levels of children's material, far more expensive than we expected, and more work involved.

But there was a church in Guyton, Georgia, New Providence Church, and some of our members that gave sacrificially, and then just countless others who have helped throughout the year.

So we're very grateful for that. I'd also like to thank all the people that helped us with it from Christ Church, New Albany.

We had lots of people that helped us edit. And I want us to thank

Deborah Autry and Amy Autry, who helped us to adapt the younger level to five to seven -year -olds.

And my daughter, Sarah, who just put in tons and tons of hours helping me.

And our daughter -in -law, Sarah. Yeah, this kid's confusing at the house. Who has helped us with the design and the layout.

It's a joy to work with the people of Christ Church.

We love them, and we're thankful for them. And it's a joy to work with the Media Gratia team, with TJ and AC and Sarah.

Well, thanks, Misty. And again, thanks to those who have been praying for us and have given.

If you want to know how you can help with giving toward future projects, you can look at the information in the link below, or you can go to the website at mediagratia .org.