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Interview with John Hendrix, author of Miracle Man: The Story of Jesus

Adam Walker Cleaveland 1 Comment

Miracle Man

John Hendrix is an illustrator from St. Louis; he’s done some great work over the years and you can check out his portfolio here. Most recently, he has written and illustrated an amazing picture book, Miracle Man: The Story of Jesus. I shared about it in our email newsletter a few weeks ago, and I’m grateful to John for taking some time to have a Q&A with Illustrated Ministry.

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JohnHendrixIllustrated Ministry is trying to provide children with creative ways to engage Bible stories through illustrations and the chance to create art. When was one of the first times you experienced the interaction between your faith and art?

This is a good question. I think that the very first time I experienced art and faith together was in the wonderful stained glass windows in the church I grew up in. My home church, Kirkwood United Methodist in St. Louis, was a very interesting piece of architecture that was not a traditional ‘cathedral’ style church. Looking like an upside-down ark, it was very Avant grade, built in the modernist period of the 1950s. So, the designers commissioned these really strange, graphic/modernist stained glass windows that I just love to this day. Sadly, I never had a kid’s Bible that was of much value to me; I wish I had one! The only images I really saw of Jesus were the classic “bearded lady” paintings of him. In many ways, that is why I made Miracle Man. To give children some wonderful images to think about when learning about Jesus.

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What are some ways that you think the church today should be engaging children with art, as a way of exploring their faith?

Miracle ManWell, unfortunately, when the reformation happened, the Protestants threw out the imagery of the Catholic Church (with many good reasons for doing so…) but, they never re-corrected the error and an entire wing of faith was turned into an entirely mental experience. To this day, I think many evangelicals are very uncomfortable with faith/bible imagery that is not intensely literal. Some of it may be a fear of doing something blasphemous, or not representing the Bible accurately.

Of course, this is a good thing to want to represent ideas and stories “faithfully”… but what does that idea really mean? We need more visual metaphors, just like the Renaissance painters used. I often think about this quote: “Painting is the literature of the laity” … now, this was from a time when the people in the pews couldn’t read the Bible. They didn’t have Bibles in their house, and they couldn’t read them! They needed the images to tell the story. I’d like to think our adults in the pews need just as many images as the children!

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You’ve clearly done a lot of work as an illustrator and author; what inspired you to begin to work on Miracle Man: The Story of Jesus?

It is a story I’ve always wanted to tell, I just figured I’d wait until I was 70 years old and had figured out all of my work and could really apply some life lessons to it. Ha. Well, my dream project came a bit earlier than I imagined. It is the perfect pitfall of the ‘dream project.’ There is so much enjoyment in doing this story, but so much you can get wrong! Beyond what you want to put in, even harder, is what you choose to leave out! As I did the research before I started, I was looking at books that exist about Jesus. I was astonished about how little license people took with the visual metaphor of his life. The best book I found, visually, about Jesus was this thin little book by Moebius of all people (the famous comic artist) called Apres Jesus Christ. But, I don’t think he was a believer, so I wanted to make a book, as a follower of Christ, that was full of evocative imagery.

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One of the most striking aspects of this book, for me at least, is your use of drawn type and hand lettering. How do you go about deciding how you’re going to convey parts of the story through your drawn type?

Well, the basic visual concept of the book is that when Jesus comes on the scene, he injects life and color in the drab landscape. Part of that metaphor is that his words come to life as well… so I really tried to make his words important. Both in what text I selected, to how I chose to pull that text out of the image itself. So, the text becomes very important to the story (and kids love ‘finding’ the letters scattered throughout the pages). It is a kind of embodiment of “word made flesh” but, instead, “words made environment.” I think it sort of visually represents how those people who experience Christ on earth were surrounded by his words, his ideas. The incarnation of Jesus changed their landscape into his own.

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What’s next for you? What projects are you working on now that you can share with us?

My next project is a kind of long format graphic novel about Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German pastor, and spy with the resistance against the Nazis. He worked with the plotters who tried to assassinate Hitler and was executed for his role in helping Jews escape Germany. Will be out fall 2017!

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Win a FREE Copy of Miracle Man

I have two signed copies of John’s book, Miracle Man, to give to two lucky members of our Illustrated Ministry community! To enter, simply share the Facebook status below or retweet the tweet below. Make sure you include the hashtag #MiracleManStoryofJesus in both the Facebook post and tweet, because that’s how we’ll search for our winner. We’ll pick two winners at the end of the day on Tuesday, April 19. So start sharing!

Check out this great interview with John Hendrix, author of Miracle Man: The Story of Jesus. It’s a beautifully…

Posted by Illustrated Ministry on Monday, April 18, 2016

Come read a great interview with @hendrixart, author of Miracle Man. #MiracleManStoryofJesus https://t.co/MY91WRbQ4B

— Children’s Ministry (@IllustratedCM) April 19, 2016

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An Illustrated Earth for Summer Sunday School & VBS

Adam Walker Cleaveland 2 Comments

As we discussed last week, many churches haven’t figured out the solution to the problem of summer Sunday School. Well, actually, there are many problems tied up in this one program:

  • Who will teach? Many churches want to give their teachers a well-deserved break from teaching, since many will do it throughout the school year. Many churches have their Christian Education hour during worship (which we are not fans of – but we know it’s a reality for so many churches), and so teachers enjoy having the chance to actually be in worship during the summer. And some churches believe they have a very small pool of potential teachers; if the regular teachers don’t teach in the summer, who will?
  • Who will come? Will anyone come? Everyone knows we’re not in the Field of Dreams-era of church and program life anymore. In the past, you could build a program, and the people would come. That’s simply not our reality anymore. Will young families come to worship in the summer? Some will. Some won’t. And it’s quite possible that even fewer will come if there are no options for their kids. Regardless of the theological implications, many parents covet those 45 minutes when their kids are in Sunday School and they get to feel like adults again, sitting in worship, singing, praying, and hearing a sermon.
  • What will we teach? So what do we teach in the summer if we’re going to go ahead and try it? Do we invest in expensive church curriculum, some that are over $300 just for the summer months, when we don’t have a guarantee of how many children will show up? How do I order pamphlets/lesson sheets for the children when we have no idea what our numbers are going to be?

It’s not an easy decision.

But…

Illustrated Ministry is trying to make that decision a little bit easier for you this summer with our new product, An Illustrated Earth: Celebrating God’s Creation.

An Illustrated Earth: Celebrating God’s Creation

Summer Sunday SchoolWe wanted to create a resource that could work for you in a variety of settings, with any number of children participating. We wanted it to be flexible, adaptable and fun. But more importantly – we wanted it to involve little to no prep time. With An Illustrated Earth, if you have children that show up for Sunday School, you will have a quality resource you can use to have a fun and engaging Sunday School class with them, and you won’t have had to put any time into the preparation of it. Likewise, if no one shows up next Sunday, you don’t feel frustrated or bitter, because you didn’t have to spend any prep time on the class, and so you can just save that lesson for next time.

An Illustrated Earth can be used throughout the entire summer as a summer Sunday School program. However, because of the way it is structured, it could also be used if you’re creating your own Vacation Bible School and are looking for content and activities. It could also be used as an intergenerational activity throughout the summer as well. There are many possibilities.

Below are a few details about An Illustrated Earth, but for all of the information, including a list of the stories that will be used, be sure to check out the product page for An Illustrated Earth: Celebrating God’s Creation.

Summer Sunday School Solution: An Illustrated Earth

An Illustrated Earth includes three modules of four lessons each. The theme is celebrating God’s Creation, and so you will find stories about creation, food, plants, water, and animals. Each lesson includes the following:

  • Opening Gathering Activity
  • Bible Story
  • Questions for reflection
  • Coloring (either small sheets or large posters)
  • Short prayer

Coloring Options: There will be a coloring component for each week (12 different designs), and you will have the option of just having kids color a small version, or order large coloring posters. The digital downloads of An Illustrated Earth‘s modules will come with 8.5×11 versions of the coloring designs. But you will also have the opportunity to purchase large 36″x24″ coloring posters as well. If you know you will have multiple classrooms, you may want to purchase more than one set of the posters, or make sure you also purchase the digital files so you can print more of them.

To learn all of the details about An Illustrated Earth, please be sure to check out the product page, which will include a listing of the Bible stories the curriculum focuses on, as well as to learn about the different ordering options for the resource. We are really excited to share this product with you, and we are confident this will be a very strong curriculum option for both churches that regularly have a summer Sunday School program, and for those who have been thinking about it, but haven’t yet figured out how to pull it off in their context.

Please Share!

We would love your help getting the word out about An Illustrated Earth. Please just take a few seconds and share about this on Facebook and Twitter. Thanks!

An Illustrated Earth is your summer Sunday School solution. This 3-module, 12-week curriculum celebrating God’s creation…

Posted by Illustrated Ministry on Tuesday, April 12, 2016

An Illustrated Earth is a new resource for summer Sunday School or VBS programs. 3 modules, 12 weeks and coloring! https://t.co/Ub66gtSv7u

— Children’s Ministry (@IllustratedCM) April 13, 2016

Join Illustrated Ministry at Faith Forward in Chicago

Adam Walker Cleaveland Leave a Comment

Faith+Forward

We are one of the sponsors of Faith Forward, a conference that is reimagining children’s and youth ministry through theology, relationships and practice. The conference is next week, here in Chicago, and we will be there. We are excited to share with everyone the work that we’re doing to help create illustrated faith resources for churches and families.

While the conference is just one week away – we do have a pretty special opportunity for one of you out there. We have a free registration that we are going to give away to someone for someone to go to the Faith Forward conference next week. You’ll get to attend the conference for free, and the only thing that we ask is that you come hang out at the Illustrated Ministry booth a little bit during the conference.

This is a really great opportunity to get a $325 registration* to a conference with some really exciting and engaging speakers FOR FREE.

You’re probably wondering how you can win this free registration right? So, all we want to know is why you want to attend the conference. Tell us why going to this conference would be a real benefit to you and your ministry, and we’ll choose one lucky winner to attend the conference.

How to Enter

  1. Email us here with no more than 100 words explaining why you really want to win this free registration.
  2. Email us before 5pm Central Time TUESDAY, April 12, to get your entry included in the contest.
  3. The winning entry will be picked and notified by Tuesday evening, and the first two runners up will get a 25% off code to use for our summer resources coming out next month.

We look forward to hearing from you!

*Just to clarify, this is only for a registration for the conference. Ideally, this is for someone local (Chicago area), or someone who can cover all of the other expenses.*

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