"The God Puzzle" by Valerie Ackermann

The God Puzzle is a colorful, easy to use tool to help you communicate to your child the rich truths about God, His ways, His will and His love. The God Puzzle will help you address doctrinal themes of the Christian faith in a kid friendly way, present Bible lessons in an interactive way that will hold the child's attention and deliver quality teaching with no preparation needed. 75% of children leave the church when they leave home. Something isn't working. Sunday School isn't doing it all. Kids need answers, good ones. And they need them from you, the parent. This book enables you to give them simple, clear answers.

What makes The God Puzzle unique?

• ready made discussion questions for parent to ask their child in each lesson
• can be done at any pace that works with your family . . . every night, once a week, 10 minutes here, 30 minutes there . . . it fits into realistic family life
• puts the pieces together for a child to understand God, the Bible, and the Christian faith
• in each lesson the responds to the truth so they understand their relationship to God is personal and life transforming
• any parent, whether they know nothing, or a lot about God can start teaching their child today with no prep
• deep theology put into language a child can understand
• deeply Biblical, each lesson points to Christ
• put in an order that starts with creation, and teaches the Bible as one story that all points to Christ
• child stays engaged by filling in blanks, crosswords, drawing, matching and using their Bibles as they learn

The premise of this book is an important one:  to teach kids about how the entire Bible fits together.  We often teach individual Bible stories to little ones, but do we show them how far and wide and intricate the love story of the Bible really is?  How it’s not a bunch of separate stories but our history as God’s created and chosen people and how He has been patiently loving us since the time of Eden?

With that goal in mind, the chapters in the book walk kids step-by-step through a study of the important beliefs of Christians, and that’s a distinct difference from what I expected: it’s not a walk through the Bible, it’s a walk through God’s love story to us.  There is a great deal of scripture in each lesson; some for the kids to look up, some to think about, some to pray about, some to ponder, some to copy.  The scripture references do not go in either Biblical or chronological order, but are pulled out according to the topic that they address.  I think that this trait alone bumps up the difficulty level of this book. 

The readers are not unpacking just one verse, but instead studying how various parts of the Bible all support God’s plan of salvation for His people.  If the kids are not familiar with their Bibles, these lessons will be a bit time-consuming  as there are lots of scripture references to find, but then again, becoming familiar with the Bible is also a very good thing.

Each chapter is a lesson and takes about four pages of the book.  There is an activity for the kids to do in nearly every lesson – something like a word puzzle or something to color.  There are also review or discussion questions located at the end of each chapter.

I have only one big concern with this book.  While the lessons come straight from scripture, we know that different people interpret those scriptures differently - and one of the biggest differences among Protestants is how baptism is handled.  The God Puzzle takes a decidedly Baptist view on the issue, which may be very confusing for Methodists or those with similar ideas.  For those people, I'd recommend being prepared with your views and scriptural basis for why you believe what you do and be ready to discuss it thoroughly.  Isn't that basically what we're supposed to do, anyway?

According to the author, this book is geared for ages 7 to 12.  My Big Helper is eager to get started, and she’s 8 – but I do think that the lessons are very meaty and deep.  That’s a good thing – but it may be too much to do one lesson in one sitting.  I can see this book being a great resource for an upper elementary or middle school youth group.  It could be fun to have different groups of kids looking up different scriptures and then sharing their thoughts with the whole group - think-pair-share style.  I also thought of many art and extension activities that might help the lessons to stick for visual or kinesthetic learners.

As a bonus, the back of the book contains a list of scripture verses according to topic that kids can look up to find out what the Bible has to say about given things.  Worrying?  Scared?  There's verses there for you.

The God Puzzle is a fantastic resource for parents at home and for young youth groups.  This book tackles the Bible in a way that even adults sometimes miss - and it shows how every piece of the Bible fits together like a puzzle to make up God's plan.  As adults, we need to be studying this.  As parents, we need to be teaching this to our children.  We cannot neglect the big picture look at the fine details of God's plan.

This is the perfect resource to help you do it.

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Valerie Ackermann has a BA in Theology and has been a full time Children's Ministry Director at Parkwood Community Church in California for over 10 years. She is also a weekly Sunday school teacher, wife, and busy mom of two boys ages 9 and 11. She has hands-on experience as a children's ministry professional, teaching and leading children of all ages. Growing up in a Christian family in the small town of Saskatchewan Canada, she has wonderful memories of knowing God from an early age. She has a passion for kids to know the deep truths of God. 

Find out more at LeadMeToGod.com.

I received a free copy of The God Puzzle from LitFuse Publicity in exchange for an honest review.