Talking with Your Kids about God: Pre-release Preview Part 1

Have you asked your kids “How do you know God exists?” lately? I’m not sure I’m brave enough to ask mine and share their answers here. I like to think my husband and I do a pretty good job of helping them think carefully about God… but we all know how kids have a way of humbling us. Often publicly. However, in the interest of encouraging you to continue/start talking with your kids about God, I’ll ask one of them and share their answer. Here we go.

(1 minute later)

Me: “If someone asked you “How do you know God exists?,” what would you say?”

Child #1, 10 years old, in a lecturing tone: “Let’s start with this, God made everything, right? But if people said He didn’t, it couldn’t just exist by itself! Only God can make everything by saying a word… and because He’s doing many miracles. (pause) And the Bible.”

Then he went back to eating his sandwich. So, yes, we’ve got a bit of work to do over here.

Now you go ask your kids the same and meet me back here.

How’d it go?

Part 1: The Existence of God

One of the reasons Natasha Crain’s Talking with Your Kids about God is such a refreshing and helpful teaching aid, is that it may very well teach you as it helps you teach your children. And by teach, I don’t mean lecture. That’s the beauty of it. She gives you practical discussion points and approaches, as well as applications at the end of each chapter. Opportunities to discuss the material will arise naturally if you’re on the lookout for them.

For example, in one of the first chapters of Part 1 The Existence of God, the topic is Where Did the Universe Come From. She provides everything from Bible references to quotes from respected scholars, and she presents it in a bite-sized way. If you’d like to dive in deeper, her footnotes should point you in the right direction. By the end of that chapter, if you hear a skeptic say “I don’t claim the universe came from anything at all and it didn’t appear. The universe just is.” (like the skeptic example does in Crain’s discussion notes), you’re likely to feel more confident to engage them and discuss than you did before you began reading.

Fostering Reasonable Faith

I appreciate that in Part 1, Crain explores the reasons why God’s existence can be reasonably believed. The discussion prompts at the end of each chapter will afford our family several targeted ways to start conversations that turn our own sons’ responses into deeper answers.

Available for Preorder

If you’re already intrigued by Part 1, Talking with Your Kids about God is available for preorder here http://christianmomthoughts.com/talkingwithyourkidsaboutgod/ with a release date of October 17, 2017.

Coming soon: Part 2: Science and God

We received a free preview copy of this book from the publisher, Baker Books. We already enjoyed Natasha’s existing work, so the free-ness isn’t influencing our perspective.