The Big Picture is a tiny pamphlet, a self-described “catechism” for children ages 6-10. It’s designed to help kids gain a base level understanding of the Bible. It does this by asking a series of 45 questions, each with a verse of scripture as the answer. It’s a great tool for teaching and learning scripture in order to gain an overview of key points in the biblical narrative. However, I’m not sure Id’ recommend this resource for children.
Like I said, it’s a great tool. However, I think the marketing misses the target audience. Marketing a tool like this to kids ages 6-10 is a bit unrealistic. It’s a lot to ask a 6-year-old to memorize the scriptures within the pamphlet. I think it’s doable, it’s just gonna be a lot of work. There’s also not much beyond the cover that is driven toward kids. I would sit down with a group of guys my age and this might be a good tool to use with them to increase their knowledge of scripture.
I sat down with my daughter, she’s 3, and I asked her the questions for a bit. We’ve been reading some key Bible stories to her and so she actually knew the answers to more of the questions that I thought she would. This is where this tool could redeem itself. A great starting point may be to simply ask the questions anticipating the answer to be in a child’s own words as opposed to word for word scripture passages.
After about 5 questions my daughter said, “Daddy, I don’t want to read [The Big Picture] book anymore. I want to read Elmo.” That furry little red monster could teach us a thing or two about how children enjoy learning. Maybe if we taught scripture like Elmo teaches everything, kids would actually enjoy the Bible. I believe, especially with children, that the methodology is just as important as the theology. What we say is just as important as how we say it.
[Tweet “Teach scripture like Elmo and kids would actually enjoy the Bible. @theMICAHANDREW @BraveReviews”]
The skinny on The Big Picture is that it’s a great tool unfortunately marketed at an age demographic that is too young for its content.
