Jennifer Lambert

A Sacred Balance

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Beauty in the Heart Review

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Elizabeth and I completed this review of Beauty in the Heart: A Study of Godly Beauty for Young Women by Doorposts.

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My daughter is 12 and loved this Bible study on godly beauty. photo BeautyCover_zpsd1ccc789.jpg

We have often discussed how God looks at our hearts and not our outward appearance. This study is comprehensive and taught great Bible study technique. The study focuses on Sarah, Ruth, and Esther – and what the Bible says about humility, modesty, serving.

It’s a big girl Bible study!

Perfect for her age and aptitude. Just what I’ve been looking for. It fits right into my mother mission of raising servant leaders.

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Boxes in the margins help my daughter learn to use new Bible study methods. She’s learning how to do an Inductive Bible Study. She loves using different colored highlighters.

She’s learning how to use Bible commentary and a concordance – and apps on her iPad mini. One of the margins list online Bibles and apps for use. Super!

My little linguist loves the concordance. She almost got lost in that and had to be reminded to finish the lesson. She’s learning how to look up cross references and really study her Bible well during these lessons.

My baby girl is growing up. I am amazed every day how much she grows in beauty inside and out. I know she looks to me for everything and I must be a godly example to her. She analyzes me – how I mother them, how I treat their father, my husband, my interactions online and in real life. Under that magnifying glass, I strive to live with integrity and to be quick to apologize and ask forgiveness when I fail. Jesus forgives all. I want to respect her and extend her grace and mercy as she seeks her own path with God because I want my daughter to learn to be merciful and full of grace too. Inward beauty is more important, but appearances matter and we should try to look our best. It’s all a balance we must learn.

This Bible study is a step forward for Liz in growing up and learning how to be a godly woman. She has a quick mind and I love the discussion and questions that come from her lessons. I love homeschooling her and knowing that I can teach her God’s way and she’s not away at some government school learning the way of the world.

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What can you expect from this Bible study?

10 chapters of 5-14 days of lessons. {86 days of study plus 49 more suggested studies} The lessons consist of combinations of the following:

  1. Pray Read Memorize
  2. Observations and organizing
  3. Study words
  4. Interpret
  5. Application
  6. Conclusion

Beauty in the Heart is recommended for girls ages 10-12 and up. There’s also a chapter for boys so they “can encourage young women to grow in true, godly beauty.”

Check out my FREE Beauty and Makeup Unit Study.

Also, get my FREE Purim Unit Study.

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Bible Resources for Families

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I’ve compiled a list of Bible study resources for families.

For Parents:

1.We Make the Road by Walking: A Year-Long Quest for Spiritual Formation, Reorientation, and Activation by Brian D. McLaren

This book offers everything you need to explore what a difference an honest, living, growing faith can make in our world today. It also puts tools in your hands to create a life-changing learning community in any home, restaurant, or other welcoming space.

The fifty-two (plus a few) weekly readings can each be read aloud in 10 to 12 minutes and offer a simple curriculum of insightful reflections and transformative practices. Organized around the traditional church year, these readings give an overview of the whole Bible and guide an individual or a group of friends through a year of rich study, interactive learning, and personal growth.

Perfect for home churches, congregations, classes, or individual study, each reading invites you to

  • Cultivate an honest, intelligent understanding of the Bible and of Christian faith in 21st century
  • Engage with discussion questions designed to challenge, stimulate, and encourage
  • Reimagine what it means to live joyfully and responsibly in today’s world as agents of God’s justice, creativity, and peace

If you’re seeking a fresh way to experience and practice your faith, if you’re a long-term Christian seeking new vitality, or if you feel out of place in traditional church circles, this book will inspire and activate you in your spiritual journey.

2. Jesus, the Gentle Parent

Explains how to gently parent our kids and refutes some harsh Christian parenting manuals.

3. Lead Your Family Like Jesus
This is a great leadership book on how to raise your family to love Jesus. It uses Biblical teaching and leadership models. My husband and I taught our Sunday school class with this book last year and it was great!


4. You Can’t Make Me
A revolutionary book for our household. We used the methods laid out to change our communication and saw immediate results. We have strong-willed children and we don’t want to break those spirits because we know they will be leaders for Christ someday. A great help for taming the will and helping everyone appreciate differences in a positive way.

5. The Child Training Bible is a great resource.

As parents, I firmly believe that we should actively disciple our children and read along with kids even when they’re older and can read for themselves.

Keep the discussion open and always be available for the hard questions.

If you’re not open for conversation, where will your kids will turn?

For the Whole Family:

1. Our Place in Space and Glow in the Dark Fish by BJ Reinhard

These are delightful sciency books that teach lesson and Biblical truths. We all love the short devotionals and science facts each day.

2. Grapevine Studies

Lessons so the whole family can do the same study. Available: OT, NT, Birth of Jesus, Resurrection, Esther, Ruth, Joseph

Different levels: Traceables, Beginner, Levels 1-5, Multi-Level

3. We Choose Virtues

Great character education program.

4. Bible Study Guide

We reviewed the primary and intermediate levels. The girls love it. You can get complementary pages so the whole family does the same lessons together – preschool through adults.

5. Scripture memory system

A great meal time memory work and discussion tool.

Amanda has a printable to make pretty dividers for your memory box.

6. Inductive Bible Kids studies and All inductive Bible studies by Kay Arthur

These are great in-depth studies.

For Homeschool:

1. What We Believe Series by Apologia

The girls loved these and the notebooking journals. It’s a good foundation series.

2. Studying God’s Word series

We all love the simplicity of learning the Catechism and Bible stories and doing activities. Books for each level K-8th.

3. Hero Tales

A great study on missionaries from history. 4 volumes. Be sure to get this copywork!

4. My ABC Bible Verses: Hiding God’s Word in Little Hearts by Susan Hunt

Cute printables for ABC Bible Verses here.

5. Leading Little Ones to God

A study for parents to do with kids. Some of the hymns were difficult to find though.

For Teens:

By the time our kids hit their teenage years, the hope is that they have a firm understanding of the Word and Christian living. Parents need to model this while kids are young so we can release responsible young adults into the world to be radical world changers for Jesus.

1. Leading God’s Generation journals

My eldest daughter really likes these simple Bible study and prayer journals. 4 to choose from.

2. I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist By: Norman L. Geisler, Frank Turek

Be sure to get the to answer the tough questions “about absolute truth, postmodernism, and moral relativism” and train in apologetics.

3. Journey to Freedom by Elisa Pulliam

Identity study for teen girls.

4. Beauty in the Heart by Pam Forster

My eldest loved this study. My middle girls thought it was a lot of busy work.

5. Creed by Adam Hamilton

I also like The Call (which can be done as a whole family!) and Unafraid. This looks great for teens to examine faith.

What are your favorite Bible tools?

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Study Bible for Women

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B&H Publishing is excited to bring you The Study Bible for Women.

I am thrilled to receive a copy to review and a copy to give to my pastor’s wife and music director at our church!

I chose the Teal/Sage LeatherTouch cover.


Look! It’s my favorite color! Gorgeous!


Edited by Rhonda Harrington Kelley, and with a lovely introduction by Dorothy Kelley Patterson, The Study Bible for Women is complete with a pretty presentation page (love the font!) and room to write all the family tree info and life’s events and milestones.

I especially like the pages for Spiritual Mothers (a list to write mentor info and verses referencing spiritual gifts) and The Ketubah (The Jewish Marriage Contract).


While Christine (my pastor’s wife) and I were looking for the translation info on the title page, Neal (our pastor) sauntered over and was impressed that it’s a Holman. His go-to Bible is a Holman, so he approves! yay!

So, apparently the HCSB, Holman Christian Standard Bible, is a fairly new translation – the first full edition was completed in March 2004. Info about the translation are in the introductory pages. I am interested in comparing it to the ones I have on hand.

Textual base for the New Testament is the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece, 27th edition, and the United Bible Societies’ Greek New Testament, 4th corrected edition. The text for the Old Testament is the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, 5th edition.

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And the How to Use Guide lists grammatical tools – such as diagramming sentences – can help in personal Bible study. Oh, I am so doing this more! Liz and I already do this together in Latin and English grammar. Love this so much!

Throughout the Bible, there are sections for Word Study, Character Profiles, Biblical Womanhood, Hard Questions, Doctrine, maps, and many other tools.

I love the Word Study!

Character profiles are always helpful while reading.

Hard questions help me to think about myself and apply the Bible lesson to my actions, heart, feelings, thoughts…

The Doctrine lessons are very educational and I love the background info on various issues and people.

At the end of each book of the Bible is a great little section called “Written on my Heart” which is a few sentences about why that book is important and makes the lessons personal to YOU. I love it!

I love the perfect timing of receiving such an intellectual study Bible just in time for the Lenten season. God surely knew I needed something to boost my spiritual life – in our time of upheaval with preparing for a PCS move. Thank you, Jesus. I can’t wait to read this as my devotions and I plan to share it with my daughter so she can glean from it too! (I may get her the pink one of her very own as a gift!)

This is sure to be a treasured Bible to use as a resource for the rest of my life.

Also available in Chocolate Genuine Leather, Sky Blue/Deep Red LeatherTouch, and Brown/Pink LeatherTouch

Suggested Retail Price: $59.99

Purchase yours now or give it as a gift to a friend!

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Celebrating Purim

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I am pleased to offer a unit study on the holiday celebrating Esther and Purim.

My girls and I love to read about Esther. We love the story of a real-life princess who did wonderful things for her people and for God.

A list of Books, Videos, Music, Activities, and Crafts to go along with an Esther and Beauty Bible study.

My kids love to celebrate Purim and retell the story of Esther, complete with costumes and props and much noise.

We still love dressing up and reading the story of Esther in the Bible. We have noise makers and hiss whenever the name of Haman is said.

We listen to the Maccabeats and watch the video on YouTube.

We read the Bible story and recite the blessings and prayers in English and Hebrew. The holiday is usually in early March. And we eat.

Resources:

Sign up by email to receive my FREE Esther Unit Study:

ProSchool Membership - Productive Homeschooling

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Grapevine Bible Studies Resurrection Lesson

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I’m teaching our Wednesday night class at church on the Resurrection. I have students ages 2.5 to 12 and it’s a challenge to keep them all engaged.

I recently taught a lesson about Passover and Mardi Gras.

We’re using Grapevine Studies as our core Bible lesson. Here’s my board for the second page of the lesson. Jesus explains about being a servant leader, accuses Judas, and talks about Communion.

I’m loving these new Traceables for the little kids. My son, Alex, is a huge fan!

The second part of the lesson was a Mardi Gras story. I love the lesson in The Greentail Mouse by Leo Lionni. I focused on how God looks at our hearts and we shouldn’t fear. Judas and the Jewish leaders feared Jesus like the mice in our story feared truth.

We listened to track 12 of Songs for Saplings.

Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. 1 Samuel 16:7b

Then the students made masks with feathers, sequins, and tissue paper.

Here are our our ferocious masks:

How are you preparing your heart for Lent?

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Epiphany: Grapevine Studies in a Classroom

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I love using Grapevine Studies in our home as part of our homeschool curriculum and personal Bible study.

I was recently asked to lead the children’s program during our new Wednesday family nights at church. I immediately thought that I could incorporate stick figuring through the Bible! I contacted Dianna and received her blessing. I do love her!

 For our first lesson, I chose to teach on the Three Kings, or Magi. Epiphany had just been last Sunday and I thought this would be a fun topic. The adults “de-greened” the church (took down all the holiday decorations) while I kept the kids occupied.

I began with a story about the “other” wise man that follows a lost fourth Magi through the crucifixion of Christ. It is so beautifully written and illustrated and I got all choked up in front of the kids!

I showed the kids pictures of the gifts the Magi brought baby Jesus. I brought some frankincense essential oil to let the kids apply to their wrists. They thought that was the coolest thing ever.

I divided the white board in the classroom into 4 quadrants and taught the lesson from the Bible and Grapevine Studies text. The kids weren’t sure about it all at first.

Epiphany Grapevine Studies

I had the kids at two tables. I taught students ranging from age 3 to 10. The three older girls were “helpers.”

One table ended up being almost all girls. I had one helper at this table. Katie and Tori knew what to do!

The three older girls were primarily in my classroom as “helpers.” They sheepishly asked me for pages to do while I taught the lesson. I think that is the perfect testimony to how great Grapevine Studies are! The big kids wanted in on the fun too!

The other table got the boys and two helpers.

Those boys really enjoyed drawing their stick figures. I know this was a new concept for them. That’s my Bubba there with his new Traceable page too!

Katie modeled what to do with her Traceable page. She loves this new concept! It helps her focus.

Drawing Grapevine Studies

I gave the boys different pages according to their ages and abilities. One Traceable and one regular page.

For this lesson, the Traceable page only has two scenes whereas the older kids had four scenes on their pages.

I handed out some take home Bible verse pages about the Wise Men. After the lesson, we did this really fun 3 Kings paper chain craft. I prepped it all by tracing them out and all the cutting. The kids just colored them. It saved time and was still fun. Most didn’t even finish and had to take them home to complete them.

I’m pretty excited about using Grapevine Studies to teach the Bible to these kids every Wednesday night! I can’t wait to gather materials for my weekly themes.

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Child Training Bible

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I make sure I supply various Bible study options for my children.

We have devotionals and curriculum and concordances and commentaries.

We have several different translations of the Bible and apps on our devices.

It warms my heart to see my kids reading the Bible on their own!

Bible Reading

Liz is reading the Child Training Bible to Kate.

There were no disciplinary issues.

Just reading together. I love it.

When Katie knows she’s done something wrong, she will get convicted and often bring it to me to read the appropriate verses to her so we can pray. 

We don’t use this as a weapon, but as a tool in more gentle parenting.

There’s also a Virtue Training Bible!

What you need to make a Child Training Bible:

  1. CTB Charts
  2. A 9” by 6” Bible
  3. Highlighters
  4. Tabs
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Grapevine Bible Studies Old Testament Survey Review

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We’re loving the Old Testament study from Grapevine Bible Studies!

This study has the typical catechism layout with questions and answers. We go over one page each day with two questions. I ask and explain if the girls aren’t familiar. We read the Bible passages that pertain to that lesson. We draw stick figures!

Here are my lovely drawings of the story of Moses.
Grapevine Bible Studies Catechism
Tori and Katie wake up and immediately rush to the living room to do their drawings and copywork. Before breakfast! They really love this format and that it’s different every week. The catechism is a great review for us to make sure we know our Bible stories!
Catechism Study
Answering the Catechism Questions

The only suggestion the girls have is they wish that the student pages had lines  instead of blank space for them to write their answers to the catechism questions. This might not be an issue for older students, but they struggle to keep their writing neat and straight.

We love the review of the Old Testament to go along with our Bible history and worldview studies!

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Grapevine Studies Ruth Review

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We were SO excited to get our Ruth Bible study books in the mail from Grapevine Bible Studies.

I met Dianna Wiebe and her friend, DeeDee, at the Utah Homeschool Convention down in Provo.

Liz and I went out to dinner with them and then joined them at their hotel and hung out in the pool. It was a great evening.

I also recently reviewed the Esther Bible study. It was awesome. A fairy tale!

My drawings. I never said I was an artist. I did figure out if I draw a grid to make four squares on the board, it makes it easier for the kids to follow along. It matches the 4 square grids on their papers. Tori especially was mixing up the drawings on her paper. She’s a perfectionist and her stick figures are awesome.
Drawing Ruth

Liz relaxing while she draws her stick figures.
Drawing Moab

Tori and Katie act like they compete to finish the quickest.

Coloring Stick Figures
Colorful Ruth Study

The teacher book has everything drawn out for me to copy onto the white board. I alternate between reading the Bible story, drawing the stick figures, and summarizing the lesson. Some of the drawings crack the girls up. They love it. And they remember it.

 

The student books have the blank grids for the kiddies to draw in the stick figures like mine. It was an important moment when I had that revelation to draw a grid on my white board to match theirs. No more tears or questions about where we were in the lesson! My three girls are always on a different picture from each other. Of course, nothing is ever easy.

Then our favorite page: Draw your favorite part of the lesson. The girls love this one. And then they write their memory verse.

Alex’s favorite part was when I drew Boaz sleeping. He kept pointed to the stick figure on the board and telling me, “He’s sleeping!” He recognized that. Precious. I told him the man’s name is Boaz. “He’s sleeping!” Then for the next stick figure, I drew Boaz finding Ruth at his feet. They’re both sitting on the threshing floor. Alex’s reaction: “He’s up now!” Glad he’s part of our Bible studies!

Check out my other Ruth review. Liz Curtis Higgs raps the book of Ruth!

Liz and I got a little crazy and rewrote The Lion Sleeps Tonight. Come on, you know every time you hear the name Elimelech, you want to sing it.

We’re very excited to start Old Testament Basics next month. Look forward to that review in a while though. It’s a much longer text! A great big thanks to Grapevine Bible Studies for providing the Ruth study free for an honest review.

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Grapevine Bible Studies Esther Review

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I’ll have to tell you: I’ve seen reviews of Grapevine Bible Studies for a couple years now and it just did not look appealing to me.

Then I had an epiphany: maybe it’s not appealing to me, but it’s really designed for my children, so shouldn’t they be the judge? I’ve been looking for a multilevel Bible study that we can all do together. This was totally what I was looking for and we love it!

And it certainly helped that I actually met Dianna Wiebe at the Utah Homeschool Convention. See my post about when I met Dianna. LOVE HER! She really knows her Bible and Bible history.

We got to review the multilevel Esther study and it was great with three girls! A Biblical fairy tale!

Here’s the info from the website:

Take your students back to the ancient Persian Empire and see how God used a young woman to save an entire group of people. This chronological study of the book of Esther will engage your student’s intellect and imagination!

Study the People:

  • King Ahasuerus
  • Queen Vashti
  • Mordecai
  • Esther
  • Haman
  • The Jews
  • Learn how Purim became a yearly celebration. Select a study for your students today.

My review:

Of course, Alex just wanted to draw on the board, but he was quiet and kind of listened and sometimes even answered questions in his cute little toddler way: “Je-shush!”

Isn’t Jesus always the answer?

White Board Play
Drawing Esther
Studying Esther
Drawing the Book of Esther
I’m very impressed with how these lessons forced encouraged Tori to be more independent. She is such a perfectionist! I kept telling her it didn’t matter; they are stick figures! There were moments when she cried that she couldn’t possible draw a horse or the star of David and I helped her out of pity, but mostly, she drew everything right well.
Little Princess
Book of Esther
I just copied the drawings from the teach manual, whew!
My Stick Figures
Katie is our special girl. She likes to draw while laying down. Better perspective, I guess.
Funny Girl
Drawing Stick Figures
Stick Figuring
I love their concentration on their drawings.
They really love the page at the end of each lesson: Draw your favorite scene. They would even add fun details to those.
Timeline Review
Drawing Favorites
Alex liked watching big sister Lizzie drawing. He was so snuggly.
Siblings
Little Brother

I liked that we were asked at the end of each lesson: How do we see God in this? Made us think! It’s good to think.The girls loved the drawing. It really helped them learn the lessons and remember it. The review questions were spot on: not too difficult but made them think. Again, thinking is good.The timeline helped us all put it together and understand it. Very thorough and comprehensive lesson about a well-loved Bible story.

So, we absolutely love Grapevine Studies. Bible study for the whole family!
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