Title: the life book
Author: Carl Blunt
My thoughts: This little book (4" x 4" x 1/4" - approximately) packs a powerful punch. It is separated into 4 parts. The first part is a summary -perfect for teens - of the Old Testament. They refer to it as God's story before Jesus shows up on the scene. Part two is the largest part of the book and comes straight from the Bible. It's Jesus's story while he was on Earth. Part three relates what you have learned to your own life - teen perspective. Part four gives some Biblical guidance to some of teen's biggest questions - sex, peer pressure, self-esteem.
In addition to the actual typed text are footnotes scrawled throughout the entire book - like a teen taking notes on a book in class. These note makers are 17-year old Dylan, 16-year-old Taylor, 16-year-old Vanessa and Pedro who is a freshman. Adult notes are left by Gideon Williams. They provide some nice insights to how a teenager perceives things from the Bible and even had me thinking twice about what I knew and what I was learning.
I have included information below about the life book and the life book movement that was provided to me by TBB Media. It sounds like a great movement and one that I will be sharing with my daughter's youth pastor.
Become a fan at www.facebook.com/carlblunt and follow the movement at www.twitter.com/carlblunt.
~I was provided a complimentary copy of this book for review from TBB Media.~
Bible Smuggling 101
Legally Saturating High Schools with God’s Word
In today’s divisive culture-war society, when news stories about separation of church and state thrive with controversy, one cutting-edge Christian ministry is having remarkable success spreading the Word of God. What makes it remarkable? They are doing it by distributing Bibles in public schools—legally.
Carl Blunt is the president and CEO of The Life Book Movement, a Christian mission centered on Blunt’s own contemporary, youth-oriented edition of a portion of the Bible called The Life Book, a unique presentation of Scripture designed to engage high school students with the truth of God’s Word. The Life Book presents a brief overview of the Old Testament and the Book of John using an interactive format with honest student comments and real-life questions in the margins. Readers are drawn into the only story that can change their lives forever.
Founded by The Gideons International as an innovative strategy to reach high school students with God’s Word, The Life Book Movement works in collaboration with churches throughout the country to provide the books for free to high school students. Blunt’s organization brilliantly threads a separation-of-church-and-state loophole by getting his publication into the hands of Christian high school students and having them pass the books out to classmates at school—a practice that is entirely legal, as long as the books are not distributed by school staff or other adults. Blunt says, “It’s like we’re helping students smuggle God’s Word into a closed country (public high schools) to reach an unreached people group because studies show that only 4% of today’s teenagers are Bible-believing Christians.” The goal is to ensure that every student in every high school in the United States has an opportunity to receive the gift of The Life Book. This approach presents a phenomenal opportunity to impact a generation with the good news of Jesus Christ.
The Life Book Movement is best described to students as a week-long mission trip to their local high school. Local churches work together in targeted areas to ensure The Life Book is offered to every student in each chosen high school. All churches involved receive the books at no cost from The Life Book Movement and provide the books, along with some evangelism training, to the students in their youth groups. The students then spend a week passing them out to their friends and classmates at school. One student who received the book said, “I got one today. I read it in almost every class today. I like it. It’s pretty neat and other people asked to look at it and then asked where to get one.”
Flying under the radar since its inception last fall, The Life Book Movement is rapidly closing in on distribution of more than 300,000 copies in public high schools across 21 states and even the British Virgin Islands. A quiet success, indeed, but extremely ambitious, The Life Book Movement has an ultimate goal of distributing The Life Book to nearly 18 million high school students when all is said and done. And, so far, the outlook is extremely promising.
