Logos for Children

Logos, was originally intended for serious adult bible students, seminary students, church and home bible study leaders.

What is serious?

I've come to realise that we take a very casual view of the bible and its study as Christians.  Jews and those who have been discovering the Hebrew roots of Christianity, this was not always the case.

Even in Constantinople in the 15th century, it was said that one commonly heard people discussing and debating theology in the markets of the city.

Small wonder then that we don't know what the bible has to say about how to deal with life's problems.  For example, during the recession, how many people heard sermons from the pulpit about how to solve it?

Does the bible have nothing to say about Collateralized Debt Obligations, Subprime Lending, Fiscal Expansion or Land Monopolies?  It's there.  If Christianity can't meaningfully contribute to a discussion about these kinds of topics, then this is a clue as to why Christianity's relevance to a modern society is in doubt today.

I want my children to have a deep knowledge of the bible, be confident to investigate the bible whenever they meet a life issue they haven't encountered before, be confident and respectful in discussing life and society's issues from a biblical perspective and be a part of society's attempts to solve life's problems.

By this, I hope they will be able to be guided by the bible so that they meaningfully contribute toward setting government policy, ethically conduct themselves within their families, jobs, businesses and voluntary organisations.

Giving them a 21st century tool to be able to study the bible is a big step forward.

Faithlife, the producers of Logos, have an eBook store.  These eBooks can be purchased and they are automatically included amongst the resources in a given Logos account.

These resources are then indexed and searchable from within Logos.  Material from them will then appear in Passage Guides, and Topic Guides.  Terrific.

Their eBook store has an abundance of material intended for children.  Just use keywords such as "Kids", "Children" and "Student" to get you started.

As a way of introducing my children (aged 7-14) to Logos, I signed them all up for the free version of Logos, Logos Basic, which they can all access from their respective user accounts in Windows 10.

My 12 year old daughter has already set up her own prayer list and a reading plan.

I have set them up with some prioritized resources: Lexham English Bible, Lexham Bible Dictionary. 

They are OK for the 12 and 14 year old but not so much for the 7 and 10 year old.  

Each have their own favorite bible translations so I'm gifting them (oldest to youngest) ESV, CEV and for the two youngest, GNB.  

To make Logos more usable, attractive for them and to reduce the chance they would be overwhelmed, I: 

1. Changed all the fonts to san serif
2. Zoomed the program so that everything was 20% bigger.
3. Prioritized the Lexham Bible, Dictionary and Study Bibles
4. Modified one of the standard layouts to have two panels with the bible on the left and the Lexham Resources together with a Notes tab on the RHS.  Saved the layout.
5. Bought them suitable/preferred bibles
6. Set these as their preferred bibles
7. Cleaned up their home screens to reduce the stuff they wouldn't be interested in
8. Started looking in the Faithlife eBook store for suitable resources to add.

If you're a parent and you use Logos, I hope this blog entry is thought provoking.

Discipleship, Parenthood and Children

Over on the Logos.com forum, there is a thread that started this week about Logos for Children.

It touches on a subject dear to my heart:  how to raise my children in the ways of God?

Where I started with, was the thought, what would I like my children to have in their figurative "spiritual kitbag" by the time they were at an age where they might leave home to study, start a job or just to go flatting?  I thought 16 was a good target age.  They might stay home for longer, but from the age of 16, the risk they will leave home starts to go markedly up.

My answers to the question:

1. Be able to confidently find a church to join
2. Be able to join in with the youth ministry in that church.  
3. Know what a good church was from a bad one; and to reason that out
4. Know how to deal with pain and disappointment
5. Meeting God and talking to God through prayer, for themselves
6. Know how to discuss confidently and respectfully their beliefs with people who live different lifestyles or follow a different religion; eg LGBT community members, atheists, or Muslims.
7. Know his responsibilities as a parent to teach his children and his children's children to walk in the ways of God.
8. Know what are healthy relationships from unhealthy ones; such as relationships with the opposite gender based on respect and engagement rather than objectification and personal gratification.  

The list goes on but hopefully this conveys the idea.  

Then I started working backwards from there to find age appropriate material for my children, different stuff depending on their age and tweaking it for things that pop up through the course of their lives. 

A routine seems to work best so we put aside an hour or two each Saturday.  

When my children says how come nobody else can read Hebrew or study Leviticus, I just say "that's what we do in our family."