0:08

( MUSIC PLAYING) I have a heart full of questions quieting all my suggestions. What is the meaning of Christian in this American life? I'm feeling awfully foolish spending my life on a message. I look around and I wonder ever if I heard it right. (MUSIC STOPS)

0:28

Welcome to the (A)Millennial podcast, where

0:30

we have theological conversations for today's

0:32

world. I'm your host, Amy Mantravadi,

0:35

coming to you live from Dayton, Ohio,

0:38

home to a factory that was bought by a Chinese

0:40

billionaire who started coming to town regularly

0:42

and ringing up large bills for business lunches.

0:45

It really is a small world after all.

0:47

Today I have the distinct pleasure of welcoming

0:50

two guests onto the program, Daniel

0:52

Hitchen and Jessica Blanchard. They

0:55

are the author and illustrator, respectively,

0:57

of the Baby Believer series of children's

0:59

books that attempt to teach basic

1:01

spiritual concepts to the next generation

1:04

through scripture references and colorful

1:06

illustrations, all of which are presented

1:08

in the form of primer books. They

1:10

have a numbers primer, an animals

1:12

primer, an emotions primer, an

1:15

opposites primer, and others, all

1:17

of them helping parents to teach scripture to their

1:19

children in a fun way. I'll be talking

1:21

to them about how they develop these books and

1:24

what they hope families can get out of them. This

1:26

is a particularly relevant topic to me, since

1:28

I'm raising a little one of my own. When

1:31

the people of Israel were preparing to enter

1:33

the Promised Land, God said to them,

1:35

"Hear oh Israel! The Lord is our God.

1:38

The Lord is one. You shall love the

1:40

Lord your God with all your heart and with all

1:42

your soul and with all your might. These

1:44

words which I am commanding you today shall

1:46

be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently

1:48

to your sons and shall talk of them

1:51

when you sit in your house, and when you walk

1:53

by the way, and when you lie down, and when

1:55

you rise up. You shall bind them as

1:57

a sign on your hand and they shall be as

1:59

frontals on your forehead. You shall

2:01

write them on the doorposts of your house and on

2:03

your gates." That's from Deuteronomy

2:05

6:4-9. The

2:08

point God was making was not about interior

2:10

decorating or fashion, but how we

2:12

are to encourage our generation and the next

2:15

in faithfulness by continually

2:17

reminding them of what the Lord has done and

2:19

what he expects of us. The things

2:21

of God ought to take first place in our lives

2:23

or something else will . This

2:25

is why Paul wrote to the Ephesians,

2:28

"Fathers, do not provoke your children to

2:30

anger, but bring them up in the discipline

2:32

and instruction of the Lord." That's from

2:34

chapter six, verse four. Those

2:36

words are certainly applicable to mothers as well.

2:39

Keeping those scriptural admonitions in mind,

2:42

let's head on to the interview where the three

2:44

of us will be discussing some ways we can do this

2:46

with our children.

2:47

(MUSIC

2:47

PLAYING)

2:58

And I'm here with Danielle Hitchen

3:00

and Jessica Blanchard, the

3:02

author and illustrator, respectively,

3:04

of the Baby Believer series of

3:06

books. Starting with Danielle, she was

3:09

a student at the Torrey Honors

3:11

Institute at Biola University.

3:14

Her professional background includes

3:16

communications consulting, radio production,

3:19

event planning, and non-profit

3:21

and church administration. She enjoys

3:23

a good story with her husband, local playgrounds,

3:25

serving at her Anglican church, wine

3:27

tasting, reading to her kids, and

3:29

her adult coloring book. And

3:32

the website for Catechesis Books, the

3:35

company that she started, is www.catechesisbooks.com

3:39

. And then Jessica was educated

3:42

at James Madison University and

3:44

the Corcoran College of Art and Design.

3:46

Her professional background includes designing

3:48

websites, print publications, logos,

3:50

and marketing materials. She enjoys

3:52

trying the newest and best restaurants in the area,

3:55

cooking, and spending quality time with her

3:57

family, particularly outdoors or hiking.

3:59

And you can visit her website at www.jessicablanchard.com.

4:06

Well, ladies, I'm so happy to have you here on

4:08

the program. Thanks for taking the time.

4:11

I really appreciate it. I wanted

4:13

to get started with a little

4:15

bit of a deep theological

4:18

question. I'm not sure

4:20

if you've ever heard of this

4:22

fancy theological term,

4:24

the sensus intermissio. This

4:29

is a Latin term for the sense by which

4:31

a young child always knows

4:33

the worst possible time to interrupt

4:35

you. And of

4:39

course, that's one that I just made up, but I was

4:41

wondering, do you think that this occurred

4:43

- it was in existence

4:45

before the Fall? Or do you think

4:47

this uncanny ability children have

4:49

to always interrupt you when

4:51

you're at the point in cooking when you can't possibly stop

4:53

- Do you think that came after

4:55

the Fall or before the Fall?

4:59

That is quite a question to open with.

5:01

That definitely seems like

5:03

a post-Fall situation

5:06

to me, because it's the sort of thing that

5:08

would bring about frustration and

5:10

impatience, which both seem like post-Fall

5:13

situations.

5:15

I agree .

5:18

Well, that's good. I wanted to make sure we were all

5:20

on the same page before we started

5:22

so that we

5:24

make sure that we're coming from the same place, and

5:27

I'm glad that we've gotten to the bottom of that very

5:29

important theological issue. So

5:32

skipping to the real topic we're going to talk

5:34

about today, I'm wondering,

5:37

and either of you can answer this, how did

5:39

the concept for the Baby Believer

5:41

series take shape and what

5:43

were you hoping to achieve with these books?

5:46

This is Danielle and I'll start

5:48

taking that. The book

5:51

ideas came from when somebody asked me if my

5:53

then 18 month old daughter - I was doing

5:55

anything for her spiritual development. And

5:58

it's like, well, I'm keeping her alive.

6:00

What else should I be doing at this

6:02

point in her life? But I

6:04

had a book series that I really loved. I still enjoy it:

6:07

the Baby Lit classics, which reformat classic

6:09

literature into a primer style

6:12

format book. And I was like, "Oh, somebody should do

6:14

those with theology. Wouldn't that be funny? Ha ha

6:16

." And I kind of let it go. And then that

6:18

idea just resurfaced later that

6:20

week and I thought, "Well, that's a good idea. Somebody

6:22

should do that. I bet somebody's done it." And I looked

6:24

and I looked and I looked and I couldn't find anything like it.

6:26

And I was like, "Oh, you know what? I bet I could do this."

6:29

That is how the idea really got started.

6:31

My first order of business was to write

6:34

a few manuscripts

6:36

and then find an illustrator, and

6:39

I knew that this project could be dead on arrival

6:41

for lack of an illustrator pretty early on. But

6:44

I've always thought that Jess was God's

6:46

great provision to this project and we decided

6:48

to move forward and self-published together

6:50

via Kickstarter. And when

6:53

we got started, we thought, "Please, Lord, just let us break even on this Kickstarter.

6:56

Maybe we have a couple copies of this

6:58

book we really like for ourselves." And lo

7:01

and behold, here we are four years later

7:03

with seven books published and

7:06

the accompanying products. And it's been really exciting to

7:08

see how God has been working through

7:10

this project.

7:11

That's awesome. So did you guys know

7:14

each other before this then, or did

7:16

you get connected as a

7:18

result of just wanting to do

7:20

the project?

7:22

Danielle used

7:25

to work at a church where

7:27

my old pastor was pastoring, and

7:30

so he knew that I was an illustrator

7:32

and an artist and - actually,

7:35

at the time I wasn't even an illustrator yet. I was a graphic

7:37

designer. And so he recommended

7:40

that Danielle contact me, and so

7:42

when she did. She planned her

7:44

idea and asked me if I'd be interested in illustrating

7:47

and I responded, "I actually

7:49

am really not an illustrator. I've never

7:52

really illustrated any

7:55

books before. And so if you're willing

7:57

to take a gamble on me, we can do

7:59

it." But she

8:01

had seen some of my portfolio

8:04

and the work I had done in the graphic design world

8:06

and liked my style. I

8:09

think that really helped that we had a

8:11

very similar vision for what the art

8:13

could look like. So I'm

8:15

really excited and just really

8:17

grateful that she did take that risk, and it's

8:20

been such a blessing, and I'm actually grateful that I

8:22

even took the risks. I think so often we can

8:24

turn down opportunities if we're scared

8:28

that we might fail, so I'm really glad

8:30

that the Lord led me to say

8:32

yes to this.

8:34

Yeah, I totally feel

8:36

everything that you're saying about

8:38

that fear of failure and

8:40

the risk taking, because although

8:43

I'm not a well-known novelist, I have published

8:46

some novels and the

8:49

sort of fear of, "Will

8:51

this make any money? Not that I'm going

8:53

to really make money off it , but make enough to

8:55

at least recoup the costs I'm putting into

8:57

it. And will anybody read this?"

9:00

Yeah, that's a really scary thing, but I just

9:02

think it's so great that the two of you

9:04

were willing to take that risk and

9:07

that it's developed into a whole series of

9:09

books. And Jessica, I would

9:11

have never known that you didn't have a history

9:13

of illustration, because I

9:15

have the several of the books and

9:18

read them to my son and the illustrations

9:20

are just such a great, beautiful accompaniment

9:22

to the text. So

9:25

what was the process for

9:28

creating these books once you had decided

9:30

to do this project together? How were

9:32

you able to work together to complete

9:35

them?

9:36

One thing that I really loved about working with Jess

9:38

and about starting with self-publishing is

9:40

that this has been able to be a really collaborative

9:42

process. Jess has had a lot

9:45

of input and feedback on the manuscripts

9:47

and she is gracious enough to let

9:49

me have input and feedback on the art.

9:51

And we sit down together at

9:53

the beginning of the art development process

9:55

and kind of look through - we used to look through

9:58

like Pinterest boards and just kind

10:00

of brainstorm what art might look

10:02

like, what layouts could possibly look like.

10:04

And then she usually shows me some sketches

10:07

and I say, "Bhese are amazing. Keep up

10:09

the amazing work." So it's

10:11

been a really great process in that sense.

10:13

I like that we both have a lot of

10:16

input and control over both sides.

10:19

So I think a lot of times in children's book publishing,

10:21

especially an author will write a manuscript

10:23

and then it just gets handed off to the illustrator, and while

10:26

you might have some input on the

10:28

general aesthetic feel of it, you don't

10:30

get to go illustration by illustration and

10:32

say, "Well, I think this should look this way, or this should change

10:34

this way." And even in the course

10:36

of illustration, on occasion

10:39

we will change the manuscripts . Sometimes

10:41

Jess is able to draw things out

10:43

with her art that I didn't even think of

10:45

when I was working on a manuscript. And so there've been times

10:47

when I've shifted the way the words

10:49

are arranged or changed whole Bible verses or things

10:51

like that, because I've been able to see her

10:53

vision and allow that to influence what

10:56

the book is communicating.

10:58

Yeah, that's , that's exactly what I would have said.

11:00

Just that we've been able to collaborate.

11:02

That's been such a gift. And

11:05

when we give feedback to each

11:07

other, we've never really encountered

11:09

any huge roadblocks. I mean, it's more

11:13

just been like helping guide each other

11:15

to a solution, and there's

11:17

really been just great

11:19

collaborative effort to make the books

11:21

what they are. And I'm just really grateful

11:24

for Danielle's feedback, and she's always

11:26

so encouraging. I've just

11:28

been so blessed that we've had such a similar

11:30

vision and that we can just arrive together

11:32

as a team. And then it really makes

11:35

the end result all the more sweet,

11:37

because we can celebrate together

11:40

that we came to it as a

11:42

team and with a joint vision.

11:46

Yeah, I think that's totally accurate, and one of the things I would say on this point is

11:48

that Jess and I both have a

11:50

heart and a vision for making

11:52

sure that the books are beautiful. Books about

11:55

a beautiful God should be beautiful, and

11:58

there is a certain look and feel

12:00

to certain Christian children's books - not all

12:02

of them, but even 10 years ago, I would

12:04

say that this was more prevalent. They're getting more beautiful

12:06

now, but we don't want anything cheesy

12:09

or dopey or sentimental.

12:11

We wanted to make sure that the books were really

12:14

just [a good representation] of who God is and

12:17

what his Word says.

12:19

Yeah, that's a good point because you

12:22

know, sometimes people will ask the question,

12:24

why put so much effort into

12:27

either something like this or into elaborate

12:29

decoration, or why do all this? And I

12:31

think part of that's because anything

12:33

you're doing for the glory of God you want to do with excellence,

12:36

but also because beauty does

12:38

draw us to the biblical truths,

12:40

and like anything there's a happy

12:43

medium. You don't want to spend everything

12:45

on the decoration and none on the substance,

12:47

but when they can work together like

12:49

that, that's always a wonderful

12:52

place to get to to communicate spiritual

12:54

truth, especially because

12:56

children who can't read yet - the illustrations

12:59

are going to be the primary way that they're

13:01

able to communicate with the

13:04

text . So I think that's probably

13:06

a very good strategy that you had. You put

13:09

this series of books together

13:11

to help Christian parents who

13:13

are raising young children.

13:15

I definitely

13:17

have felt in the past year, the tension

13:20

of the difficulties

13:22

of raising a child in the Christian

13:24

faith. There are difficulties

13:27

in any age, but I think there may be some particular

13:29

difficulties in this one. So what

13:31

challenges do you see parents facing

13:34

today in raising their children in

13:36

the nurture and admonition of the Lord and

13:38

how might the Church come alongside parents

13:41

to help meet them? Obviously you've

13:43

found one way in putting out these

13:45

books, but I just wonder how you see

13:47

these books fitting into a

13:50

general plan.

13:53

There are a lot of challenges I think that are facing parents

13:55

in raising children in the knowledge

13:57

and admonition of the Lord. I think that

14:00

there's definitely a shifting cultural

14:02

landscape. I think the Church needs to focus on

14:04

making disciples, and I think that means discipling

14:07

parents, as well as children. I

14:09

have a little card tacked up on

14:11

my bulletin board above my desk and it says, "Mama, this

14:13

is your purpose," and it quotes Matthew

14:16

28: "And Jesus came to them and said, 'All authority

14:18

in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go

14:20

therefore and make disciples, baptizing them

14:22

in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit and teaching

14:24

them to observe all that I've commanded you.'" And

14:26

it's always struck me that Jesus says, "Go therefore and make

14:29

disciples," not, "Go therefore and make converts,"

14:31

or, "Go there for make theologians." The

14:34

point of this project has been to help parents

14:36

make disciples, but it's really hard to be a

14:38

disciple maker if you are not a disciple

14:40

yourself. And so I think the best thing that the Church

14:42

can do in this particular season

14:45

and always is to focus on

14:47

making disciples of the people who are already

14:49

within the Church. I think you should come along parents and

14:51

make sure that they've got the resources that they need

14:54

to be growing and deepening their spiritual

14:56

life and to be constantly

14:58

preaching the gospel and pointing people

15:00

back to Jesus. And that's not to say that

15:02

we shouldn't be doing missions and outreach.

15:04

We absolutely should. But we also need

15:06

to be focused internally as well on making

15:08

sure that the people who are within our Church - that people who are

15:10

converted are becoming disciples and not

15:12

just converts. So does that make

15:14

sense? Sorry.

15:16

Yeah, that seems like a really good

15:18

point. And especially when you have very

15:20

young children - and as

15:22

I learned this year, all your energy

15:25

is going to taking care of them - it

15:27

can be very easy to even

15:29

put on hold your own spiritual

15:32

life, just because you don't have the time

15:34

to do it all, or simply

15:36

that you're focusing so much on

15:39

children that you have to leave

15:41

something behind, And churches

15:43

in general will focus a lot on children's

15:45

ministry, but I think you're correct

15:48

that if we don't have also that strong adult

15:51

ministry, it's not gonna be

15:53

passed on to the children,

15:55

even if we do [children's] ministry. So yeah,

15:57

that's a really good point.

16:10

I do have something to add to that.

16:10

Sure.

16:10

To talk a little bit more to the point that Danielle brought up is just making disciples that are followers of Jesus. I think when I thought

16:12

about this question, I was thinking really

16:15

in our culture right now - culture

16:17

is just really so divisive right now. And I think

16:20

people are so fixated on issues and

16:22

opinions and politics. We're really forgetting

16:25

that we are to love one another, regardless

16:27

of our differences, and celebrate the

16:29

unique ways God made us, and he's

16:32

given us different gifts and talents

16:34

and and viewpoints and abilities. And

16:37

as we come together - and that's what makes

16:39

up the body of Christ doing his

16:41

work. And so I think we,

16:44

as the Church could do a lot better job

16:46

loving one another and showing

16:49

the world what love means

16:51

when it comes from the Lord. And

16:53

I think one way the books that

16:55

we've created - has done that

16:58

is really celebrating God's

17:00

creation, celebrating the unique way he's

17:02

made us and like the Songs of

17:04

Praise book, "I'm fearfully and wonderfully

17:06

made," and really celebrating the ways

17:08

he's made our bodies, celebrating

17:10

the emotions he's given us through

17:12

the Holy Week book and so on.

17:14

And so I think just introducing

17:17

children to the love of God

17:19

and the love of Jesus at this young

17:21

age, hopefully we can

17:24

help teach them how to love others as well.

17:27

Yeah, those are really good points. Jessica,

17:30

I have a question specifically for you.

17:32

There's such a rich tradition of Christian

17:34

art, not only in the West, but

17:36

all around the world. Are there any

17:38

particular artists or works that

17:40

have inspired you as you pursued a

17:42

career in the Arts?

17:45

I would say I've found

17:48

inspiration from many sources.

17:50

I think I've always been captivated

17:53

just by nature, and I've

17:56

loved lettering and calligraphy, and even

17:58

illuminated manuscripts have been really

18:00

a source of inspiration to me. Even architecture, kind

18:04

of specifically thinking of the work

18:06

of Gaudi and Barcelona and his

18:09

cathedral, and just his whimsical design.

18:12

In terms of other artists, I've always loved

18:14

Van Gogh, Matisse. Georgia

18:16

O'Keefe: she does amazing work with nature

18:20

and color. Monet:

18:22

the amazing use of color and

18:24

shapes to bring out the beauty of nature. And

18:27

I think in terms of other - if there's any other

18:29

children's book illustrators I love, especially

18:32

there's two that come to mind and one is Eric

18:34

Carl. He's done

18:37

The Hungry Caterpillar and other

18:39

books. And then Ezra Jack Keats who

18:41

did The Snowy Day. Both have

18:44

such brilliant uses - shapes and textures

18:46

and patterns and rich colors. And that's some of the inspiration that led me to create the illustrations of the Baby Believer books.

18:48

Well, I

18:55

can tell you that in the past year I've become something

18:57

of an expert on The Very Hungry Caterpillar, so

19:00

I'm definitely feeling you there.

19:02

And as someone who writes about the 12th

19:04

century, when you said "illuminated manuscripts," that

19:07

really got me excited as well. There

19:11

are so many different sources

19:13

of art to look to for inspiration, and

19:16

even as you said, nature - which is God's

19:18

great work of art. So yeah,

19:20

I love how you're thinking about tying

19:24

your work in with your faith in that

19:26

way. Danielle, you've also

19:29

teamed up with Erin Hawley to produce

19:31

the Sacred Season podcast

19:33

. Could you tell us a little about that?

19:35

Sure, and so kind of you to bring this up since we

19:37

haven't produced an episode since early in

19:39

COVID. Erin and I are both work at home moms,

19:41

so once we became work

19:44

at home homeschool moms, all bets were off in

19:46

terms of additional podcast projects.

19:48

But Sacred Season is a podcast

19:51

that was designed to talk about

19:53

the Church calendar to come alongside of parents

19:55

in whatever season of life they were

19:57

in and talk about how the life of Christ, as

19:59

you do the traditions of the

20:01

Church calendar, should affect

20:04

parenting and just more

20:06

or less being human in

20:08

the course of a year.

20:11

So we have episodes for about the first six

20:13

seasons of the calendar year, and then COVID shut everything

20:15

down right before Holy Week. So we

20:18

have yet to finish out our first season, our first

20:20

calendar year, but we're hoping to get back to that in

20:22

2021.

20:24

Well, I'll definitely be looking forward to that because I

20:26

listened through all the episodes you were able to

20:28

produce before COVID shut everything

20:30

down, and you had a

20:32

Fat Tuesday episode that was really

20:35

fun talking about some of the great

20:37

food traditions. And I

20:39

thought it was particularly interesting because

20:41

a lot of Protestants - not so

20:43

much in your tradition, the Anglican

20:45

tradition that you're in, but some of the other

20:47

traditions have sort of backed away from that

20:49

liturgical calendar a lot, because

20:52

I think historically it became very legalistic

20:54

for a lot of people. And

20:57

I personally feel that there's

20:59

great value to finding non-

21:02

legalistic ways to incorporate

21:04

it into our lives , because it's

21:06

been such a meaningful part of Christian history

21:09

and has a way of bringing

21:11

the sacred into all aspects

21:14

of our lives. And I would recommend

21:16

that people go and actually listen to the episodes

21:18

you produced on them. But with Advent

21:21

and Christmas coming up - by the

21:23

time this podcast airs, it'll be right in

21:25

the Advent season - what are some

21:27

ways that families can

21:29

incorporate the biblical truth into

21:31

the holiday season? If you just want to mention

21:34

a few things that you talked about

21:36

on those particular podcasts that you did, and

21:38

hopefully people will go listen to the whole

21:40

episodes that you've produced.

21:43

I mean, first of all, I would say that if you want to observe

21:45

the Church calendar, to your point about legalism

21:47

- One, it's a spiritual discipline, and

21:49

like all spiritual disciplines, it's not

21:52

a requirement for salvation. It's

21:54

just a way of discipling your heart and discipling

21:56

your time and orienting your

21:58

year around the life of Christ rather than

22:00

around a season of finance

22:02

or around the academic calendar or the calendar

22:05

year. So I think it's a really lovely way

22:07

to think about your time , in terms

22:09

of the upcoming Advent and Christmas

22:11

seasons. Those are two of my favorite seasons

22:14

in the Church calendar. I think for Advent

22:16

, one great way to

22:18

observe it with your family is to just take

22:21

a slow Advent: you know, decorate your tree

22:23

slowly, get it one week, light it the next,

22:26

decorate it the next, and that way you're adding a little bit

22:28

of light to your life on a weekly basis

22:30

and helping your kids understand how long

22:33

God's people waited for Christ's coming and

22:36

how wonderful would it be to put your star on the tree

22:38

on Christmas day and to talk about Christ's inbreaking on

22:41

Christmas and the incarnation? And that's really

22:43

the point of an Advent wreath as well:

22:46

that you add one candle's

22:48

worth of light every Sunday during Advent,

22:50

just to be adding more light to your life and more light

22:52

to your home and to think about Christ coming.

22:55

One other advent tradition I'm excited to start

22:57

with my kids this year is a Jesse Tree, and

22:59

you do one ornament or symbol

23:01

per day on your Jesse Tree, and it starts with Creation

23:04

and then of course it ends with Christ's coming. There's

23:06

24 little symbols. So you go through all the stories

23:08

of the Old Testament and the prophets and then

23:11

the Annunciation and the journey to

23:13

Bethlehem and also John the Baptist. And

23:15

it's just a great way to orient kids to

23:17

the whole arc of the biblical narrative

23:20

from Creation all the way to the Incarnation.

23:22

Those are great ways to help your kids understand that the

23:24

Advent season is not, in fact, an elongated

23:27

Christmas season. It's actually a time when we

23:29

think about and remember the waiting

23:31

periods and to remind them that we're in a second Advent,

23:34

we are in a time where we are waiting for Christ's

23:36

second return. Then for

23:38

Christmas, there are all kinds of wonderful things you can

23:41

do to celebrate the season of Christmas: the 12

23:43

days from December 25th, all the way to Epiphany on

23:46

January 6th. But those days should be a celebratory

23:48

as possible, and I think that perhaps

23:50

spreading out gifts between Christmas and Epiphany

23:52

or planning fun family things to

23:55

do between Christmas and Epiphany, not taking

23:57

your tree down until Epiphany. All o f those things

23:59

are great ways to remember the Christmas

24:01

season, to remember the Incarnation, and to

24:03

set you up for your new calendar year in a really wonderful and celebratory way.

24:08

Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that about the 12

24:11

days of Christmas. First, so that people

24:13

who didn't realize where the song came from will know,

24:16

there used to be and still are 12

24:18

days of Christmas, but there could

24:20

be that sense of not wanting the whole

24:22

Advent season to be about waiting

24:25

and just gradually doing everything because

24:27

then you only get one day of Christmas. No, you have 12

24:29

days of Christmas: that was the whole point. It was the

24:31

waiting period and then you had the whole 12

24:33

days of Christmas. So I think

24:36

as you said , it's

24:38

a matter of again doing everything with

24:40

discernment and moderation, but I think those

24:43

traditions can be great things

24:45

to incorporate into family life and use them

24:47

to tell the biblical stories

24:49

like you mentioned. So you

24:52

guys have put out - you said now seven Baby

24:55

Believer books. What project

24:57

or projects are you working on for the future?

24:59

Will there be more of those books? Are you going

25:01

to collaborate on something else?

25:04

Yes. I'm actually currently

25:07

starting to get near the

25:09

finish line for the eighth book and

25:11

the art for the eighth book. Danielle's probably like,

25:13

"What have you been doing?"

25:15

No , I know what you've been doing. We're also putting out

25:18

the Apostle's Creed memorization cards as

25:20

a discipleship tool, which she's worked very hard on,

25:23

and we're putting out a 2021 calendar with her

25:25

beautiful art. So definitely

25:27

that's what Jess has been working on.

25:29

So yeah , my due date is

25:32

December 1st, so I'm starting to

25:34

feel a bit of the pressure. So that's our eighth

25:36

book . I think we're holding off on sharing

25:38

what that is going to be about. And

25:41

then for me personally, I'm hoping

25:43

to work a little bit more on my own art

25:45

prints that I sell on jessbstudio.com. I

25:50

haven't really been able to devote a lot of time to that

25:52

since because it's COVID

25:54

and homeschooling and all the things, but that's

25:56

another personal thing I've been working on, but yeah,

25:58

we do hope to do a couple more books even after

26:01

this eighth one .

26:03

Yeah, it's definitely been a tough year for

26:05

all moms with COVID rearranging

26:09

everyone's lives. So I

26:11

understand that the need to keep some mystery

26:14

over what's going to happen,

26:16

but I appreciate you giving us a little hint of

26:18

that. Well, ladies, thank you so much for

26:20

joining me today, and I would

26:22

encourage everyone to visit

26:25

catechesisbooks.com and check

26:27

out the Baby Believer series of books. I think

26:29

they could be a great [way] to teach

26:31

Christian truths to your children. Jessica and

26:34

Danielle, thank you so much.

26:36

Thanks Amy.

26:37

Thank you, Amy.

26:37

(MUSIC PLAYING)

27:06

I very much enjoyed my conversation with Danielle

27:08

and Jessica. The Baby Believer books

27:10

are available for purchase at www.catechesisbooks.com.

27:15

That's C-A-T-E-C-H-E-S-I-S-B-O-O-K-S.com, where

27:22

you can also find information about some of their

27:24

other projects. The Sacred Season

27:27

podcasts that we mentioned should be available wherever

27:29

you managed to find this one, and if you're looking

27:31

for someone to help with graphic design or illustration

27:34

for your project, be sure to check out samples

27:36

of Jessica's work at www.jessicablanchard.com.

27:41

That's J-E-S-S-I-C-A-B-L-A-N-C-H-A-R-D.com. A

27:47

quick word for my friends who belong to a Reformed

27:49

Christian tradition. I know that some

27:51

of you wish to avoid children's books that have

27:54

images of Jesus in them. A few of

27:56

the Baby Believer books include these, but

27:58

certainly not all. If you have any questions

28:00

about this or anything else related to the

28:02

podcast, feel free to email me at theamillennialpodcast@gmail

28:07

.com . The music you've been listening to is

28:09

the song "Citizens" by John Guerra off

28:11

his newest album, Keeper of Days. He

28:14

also has a Christmas album, It's Almost Christmas,

28:16

that he released with his wife, Valerie. Give

28:19

it a listen and perhaps you like me will make

28:21

enjoying it one of your Christmas traditions. Let

28:24

me close us out with the simple blessing that

28:26

Peter offered at the end of his first epistle:

28:28

"Peace be to you all who are in Christ."

28:31

Thank you for listening and have a great week.

28:34

(MUSIC PLAYING) Is there a way to love always

28:37

living in enemy hallways? Don't know my foes from

28:41

my friends and don't know my friends

28:43

anymore. Power

28:47

has several prizes. Handcuffs can come in

28:49

all sizes. Love has

28:51

a million disguises,

28:53

but winning is simply not

28:56

one . (MUSIC STOPS)