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Book Review: How Great Is Our God

/ bekoepke / Leave a comment

 

If you have read much at all of my blog posts, you will know that I have 3 little girls. At the current moment my oldest is 7 1/2, middle is 5, and youngest is 3 1/2. Now that 2 out of the 3 are in school (and number 3 will start preschool next fall!!!), I feel like there have been a lot of changes as far as my role as mom. Fortunately, my girls typically all sleep through the night, say for a bad dream or tummy ache every now and then. We are also not in diapers any longer (praise the Lord!!!). We sure are full of questions though. My 2nd grader is a very smart girl and always wanting to know about the world. My younger two also follow suit. I even had to try my hardest to help my 3 year old understand what caused the electricity to go out so that her lamp wouldn’t work the other day when it was particularly windy, that was a challenge.

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That’s why I am particularly excited to introduce you to this new kids book by Louie Giglio called How Great is our God. This book is such an amazing resource for those questioning minds! There are 100 short devotions that all teach scientific information from a Biblical viewpoint. There are devotionals about nature, such as why is the sky blue and how do seeds work. There are some about the human body like how do you smell a rose and why do we hiccup. There seems to be a devotional about just about everything a young mind could come up with including space, time, Earth, weather, animals, plants, and the human body (just to name a few). img_20191112_073915_8

The best thing for us parents is that if we aren’t sure, there is even an index to look up the information we need.

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I really hope that if you have young kids, or even grandkids with curious minds, that you will check out this book. If you would like to enter to win a copy go here.

Please also take a look at this video:

How Great is our God

Video Series Review: Healing the Healers

/ bekoepke / 1 Comment

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Tragedies strike communities far too often in the world that we live in. When they happen, everyone in the community is impacted in some way. So often, people turn to their pastors, bishops, or other faith leaders for comfort and answers. Pastors often wear many hats; counselor, teacher, and hospital visitation, just to name a few. Not to mention that many ministers also work full time jobs to supplement their incomes. It can’t be easy always pouring yourself into others. So who pours into the ministers? Who can they turn to if they need support or counseling? What can a church congregation do to help support their ministers?

Healing the Healers hopes to answer some of those questions. This series focuses on ministers who were impacted by the Sandy Hook School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut that happened in 2012. They address some of the hard questions faced by ministers of communities who deal with intense tragedies. They also talk about how the ministers themselves are affected by these tragedies.

This is a very interesting video series that deals with a subject that many people, myself included, often don’t think about. When tragedy does strike we tend to think about how evil the person who performed the act is, how sad we are for the families impacted, and how angry we are at the situation. However, we sometimes forget about the ministers who work with and counsel the people and how much they carry on their shoulders. You can check out this trailer of the video.

I want to start out with the one Con I saw in the series. They focused a lot on gun violence. One of the ministers talked about how he used to think he needed to learn how to shoot a gun before he could speak out against them, however he decided that he didn’t need to touch a gun to learn all he needed to know about them. If you know me, you know that shooting guns is a big part of my life. I know first hand the good side of guns, and have competed with them over the years. The anti-gun message bothered me simply because they talked about guns without bringing in the heart of the men who committed these acts.

Now to the Pros. First, I think that speaking out about what pastors experience is extremely healthy for the church as a whole. Ministers are often forgotten and just expected to be there no matter what. People often don’t think about what the ministers need. I also think that hearing from ministers themselves gives us good insight to know what they need from us.

I hope you will check out Healing the Healers for yourself. You can find more information about the series here. You can also enter to win a $50 Fandango gift card here.

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