Seven up…

1) ‘Gaming for God’ Podcast Episode for Parents – How should parents approach their kids playing computer games? Haven’t got to this yet, but heard really positive things and looking forward to tuning in as the Faith in Kids team speak with Andy Geers, CEO of Discipleship Tech, and Andy Robertson, author of Taming Gaming for parents. Or if you’re not an Apple listener, find Spotify and other links here.

2) Webinars – CPAS are running a Leading Well in 2022 webinar this week, whilst Christianity Explored and Rico Tice are introducing and unpacking their new Hope Explored resource. Why not invest in an hour or so?

3) A 100-Mile Radius Life – This is interesting… I wonder, if the author had been in a UK context, whether they would have dialled down to less than a hundred miles!

4) Loss and Scandal Led Me to Jesus: Why I’m Not ‘Deconstructing’ – There’s a lot of talk of people ‘deconstructing’ their faith of late, but this testimony offers a different story. Trigger warning: Ashley’s testimony involves the suicide of a family member.

5) How do I find a balance between pressing ministry needs and my personal and family life? – This is a brief (video) answer to this much-asked question, but I thought it was a really helpful starting point.

6) Cancel Culture is a scourge but it’s rooted in goodness – Excellent piece from Amy Orr-Ewing on cancel culture and how ‘the power to forgive may be the greatest gift that the Christian story can offer our age’. Excellent too to see this published in The Times.

7) Wordle – For something a bit different, I’m a bit late to the party, but enjoying discovering the Wordle craze. And this is a fun article about the story about how Josh Wardle created it!

Our little ones absolutely love these two books, Seek & Find: Old Testament stories and Seek and Find: New Testament stories.

The husband and wife Parker team have created two beautiful resources for toddlers to engage with. Vibrant and fun illustrations by André are framed with fab ‘seek and find’ challenges from Sarah that help re-tell the story.

From our experience, these books are especially engaging for 2-6 year-olds. We’ve had hours sat on the sofa searching for ‘ten bright butterflies’ in the garden of Eden or ‘five lost hats’ as Jesus calmed a storm. I particularly liked how in the New Testament book, in each story you have to find Jesus, but he’s always given a different adjective, e.g. ‘find one kind Jesus’ or ‘find one risen Jesus!’.

As with these ‘seek & find’ style books, they develop sorting, matching, and counting skills – and children learn to play with them independently. There’s not many types of books where you linger on one page for an extended period of time, but in these you definitely do!

The hard-back format is great to hold and makes them especially durable for repeated use. They’re nice and big too – a little wider and a little shorter than A4 for each page. Accompanying activity books with colouring and other challenges are also available.

You can take a look inside the Old Testament version here.

You can pick up these books from the publisher here.

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

New Year, New Habits? New relationship with your devices?

Here’s nine reviews of nine great apps that can form part of your daily/weekly rhythms:

1. Explore Bible Notes – rich daily bible reflections: http://thathappycertainty.com/…/app-review-explore…/

2. PrayerMate – curate your own daily prayer topics: http://thathappycertainty.com/book…/app-review-prayermate/

3. Five Psalms – helps you read 5 psalms a day: http://thathappycertainty.com/pub…/app-review-five-psalms/

4. Dwell Audio Bible – listen to the Bible being read: http://thathappycertainty.com/book-reviews/app-review-dwell/

5. Live From Rest – spoken word meditations: http://thathappycertainty.com/…/app-review-live-from-rest/

6. Daily Spurgeon/Ryle Readings – daily time-honoured bible reflections: http://thathappycertainty.com/…/app-review-daily…/

7. The Bible App for Kids – engaging younger kids with the bible: http://thathappycertainty.com/…/app-review-the-bible…/

8. Redeeming Time – helps you read the bible in small portions of time: http://thathappycertainty.com/…/app-review-redeeming-time/

9. Lectio 365 – join along with led prayers & daily reflections: http://thathappycertainty.com/publ…/app-review-lectio-365/