Adam

Kind of got off to a shaky start with this first lesson. I think I had a tough time trying to figure out what to say about Adam. Adam isn't on that list in Hebrews 11 of men and women who lived by faith. The chapter skips him and starts with his son Abel. I think that made it a bit more difficult.

That difficulty, combined with the fact that it was the first night back, made the lesson long and labored, but somehow it resonated with these kids (mostly boys). Adam failed to take responsibility for himself and his family, twice. He failed when he and his wife ate the fruit God told them not to eat. Then Adam failed again when God called him to answer for his actions, and he passed the blame. In the words of one young fellow in my group, “Adam should have been a man.” The consequences of Adam's sin brought sin and death to all mankind. It affected Adam's children far more than I'm sure he could have imagined. One child murdered another. I'm not sure it could get worse.

Of course, no lesson on Adam would be complete without the Gospel. Sin enters the world, and death by sin, then God points Adam and Eve forward to the day when Christ would provide the way of salvation (see Genesis 3:15). This NT verse puts it nicely: “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.” (I Cor. 15:22)

When I thought about drawing Adam, I definitely wanted to convey the sorrow and the impact of his sin. So here he is, presumably after a hard day of work, wiping the sweat off his brow—or maybe those are tears, perhaps some of both. I think I drew him a bit too gaunt and stiff, but thinking about it, I'm sure he was exactly that in those early days after the Fall. Adam also looks kind of shaky to me—just like the lesson about him was. Maybe God will use this drawing like He used that lesson.

New Year, New Post

Every year, I pack up the car and drive home for Christmas. Home happens to be 1,000 miles away, so I find I have a lot of time to spend with God and pray. I also get a lot of time to think about the year behind me and plan the year ahead of me. It is always a profound blessing. This time, most of what I thought about was this blog. It is challenging to regularly post compelling Bible animation, especially since animation takes a considerable amount of time, and Biblical subject matter requires a considerable amount of care.

There are a lot of different things involved in the process of doing Biblical animation that could also serve an independent purpose. One of them is character studies. I've been doing a lot of those lately. I'm interested in how these people thought and acted—their hopes, their fears, their strengths, their weaknesses. I'm most interested in how they lived by faith and served God....or how they didn't. Their lives are examples for us—challenges to live for Christ.

This is a great challenge. The age group of the ministry I'm involved with at my church thought so too when planning out this year's lessons. The ministry serves the kids in the neighborhood around my church. Our idea was based on Hebrews 11, where we have a list of men and women who lived by faith and were examples for us. We decided to talk about these men and women who lived by faith and throw in a few that didn't—let the kids discern the difference. It has made a difference in them and in us, their leaders.

This is a Biblical animation blog, so I'd like to add some artwork to the character studies. It's been refreshing to spend a few hours studying a person and turning it into a 15 minute lesson—immediate application. This is such a difference from the couple of years I usually spend studying one guy and the people around him (like Nebuchadnezzar). It's also quite beneficial, though it will definitely be less in depth.

When that ministry started up last fall, we began by talking about Adam. My plan is to share some of what I learned, what we talked about with the kids, the things that resonated with them, and add some artwork to it as well. Character sketches are the most obvious thing to add to character studies. Beyond that....we'll see what happens.

The most important part of each lesson with the kids is to point them toward Christ through that person's story. That's also the most important part of this blog.

So, Happy New Year! I hope this year is off to a great start for you. I hope it's even better by the end, and if this blog can be a part of that, well, then it'll be even better for me too.