So many Christian parents want to know how best to raise their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. (Ephesians 6:4) Yet with the dizzying array of resources out there and strategies being promoted, it can be difficult to know where to start. Today's two guests have taken it back to basics with their Baby Believer series of primer books, which teach basic concepts of the Christian faith to children in relatable ways. Hear Danielle Hitchen and Jessica Blanchard talk about how they developed the concept for the series and what other projects they have planned. Also in this episode: We consider the nature of the sensus intermissio, a new theological term created by Amy.
Links related to today's guests:
So many Christian parents want to know how best to raise their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. (Ephesians 6:4) Yet with the dizzying array of resources out there and strategies being promoted, it can be difficult to know where to start. Today's two guests have taken it back to basics with their Baby Believer series of primer books, which teach basic concepts of the Christian faith to children in relatable ways. Hear Danielle Hitchen and Jessica Blanchard talk about how they developed the concept for the series and what other projects they have planned. Also in this episode: We consider the nature of the sensus intermissio, a new theological term created by Amy.
Links related to today's guests:
( 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)
Amy Mantravadi:Welcome to the(A)Millennial podcast, where we have theological conversations for today's world. I'm your host, Amy Mantravadi, coming to you live from Dayton, Ohio, home to a factory that was bought by a Chinese billionaire who started coming to town regularly and ringing up large bills for business lunches. It really is a small world after all. Today I have the distinct pleasure of welcoming two guests onto the program, Daniel Hitchen and Jessica Blanchard. They are the author and illustrator, respectively, of the Baby Believer series of children's books that attempt to teach basic spiritual concepts to the next generation through scripture references and colorful illustrations, all of which are presented in the form of primer books. They have a numbers primer, an animals primer, an emotions primer, an opposites primer, and others, all of them helping parents to teach scripture to their children in a fun way. I'll be talking to them about how they develop these books and what they hope families can get out of them. This is a particularly relevant topic to me, since I'm raising a little one of my own. When the people of Israel were preparing to enter the Promised Land, God said to them,"Hear oh Israel! The Lord is our God. The Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. These words which I am commanding you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates." That's from Deuteronomy 6:4-9. The point God was making was not about interior decorating or fashion, but how we are to encourage our generation and the next in faithfulness by continually reminding them of what the Lord has done and what he expects of us. The things of God ought to take first place in our lives or something else will. This is why Paul wrote to the Ephesians,"Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord." That's from chapter six, verse four. Those words are certainly applicable to mothers as well. Keeping those scriptural admonitions in mind, let's head on to the interview where the three of us will be discussing some ways we can do this with our children.
Jon Guerra:(MUSIC PLAYING)
Amy Mantravadi:And I'm here with Danielle Hitchen and Jessica Blanchard, the author and illustrator, respectively, of the Baby Believer series of books. Starting with Danielle, she was a student at the Torrey Honors Institute at Biola University. Her professional background includes communications consulting, radio production, event planning, and non-profit and church administration. She enjoys a good story with her husband, local playgrounds, serving at her Anglican church, wine tasting, reading to her kids, and her adult coloring book. And the website for Catechesis Books, the company that she started, is www.catechesisbooks.com. And then Jessica was educated at James Madison University and the Corcoran College of Art and Design. Her professional background includes designing websites, print publications, logos, and marketing materials. She enjoys trying the newest and best restaurants in the area, cooking, and spending quality time with her family, particularly outdoors or hiking. And you can visit her website at www.jessicablanchard.com. Well, ladies, I'm so happy to have you here on the program. Thanks for taking the time. I really appreciate it. I wanted to get started with a little bit of a deep theological question. I'm not sure if you've ever heard of this fancy theological term, the sensus intermissio. This is a Latin term for the sense by which a young child always knows the worst possible time to interrupt you. And of course, that's one that I just made up, but I was wondering, do you think that this occurred- it was in existence before the Fall? Or do you think this uncanny ability children have to always interrupt you when you're at the point in cooking when you can't possibly stop- Do you think that came after the Fall or before the Fall?
Danielle Hitchen:That is quite a question to open with. That definitely seems like a post-Fall situation to me, because it's the sort of thing that would bring about frustration and impatience, which both seem like post-Fall situations.
Jessica Blanchard:I agree.
Amy Mantravadi:Well, that's good. I wanted to make sure we were all on the same page before we started so that we make sure that we're coming from the same place, and I'm glad that we've gotten to the bottom of that very important theological issue. So skipping to the real topic we're going to talk about today, I'm wondering, and either of you can answer this, how did the concept for the Baby Believer series take shape and what were you hoping to achieve with these books?
Danielle Hitchen:This is Danielle and I'll start taking that. The book ideas came from when somebody asked me if my then 18 month old daughter- I was doing anything for her spiritual development. And it's like, well, I'm keeping her alive. What else should I be doing at this point in her life? But I had a book series that I really loved. I still enjoy it: the Baby Lit classics, which reformat classic literature into a primer style format book. And I was like,"Oh, somebody should do those with theology. Wouldn't that be funny? Ha ha." And I kind of let it go. And then that idea just resurfaced later that week and I thought,"Well, that's a good idea. Somebody should do that. I bet somebody's done it." And I looked and I looked and I looked and I couldn't find anything like it. And I was like,"Oh, you know what? I bet I could do this." That is how the idea really got started. My first order of business was to write a few manuscripts and then find an illustrator, and I knew that this project could be dead on arrival for lack of an illustrator pretty early on. But I've always thought that Jess was God's great provision to this project and we decided to move forward and self-published together via Kickstarter. And when we got started, we thought,"Please, Lord, just let us break even on this Kickstarter. Maybe we have a couple copies of this book we really like for ourselves." And lo and behold, here we are four years later with seven books published and the accompanying products. And it's been really exciting to see how God has been working through this project.
Amy Mantravadi:That's awesome. So did you guys know each other before this then, or did you get connected as a result of just wanting to do the project?
Jessica Blanchard:Danielle used to work at a church where my old pastor was pastoring, and so he knew that I was an illustrator and an artist and- actually, at the time I wasn't even an illustrator yet. I was a graphic designer. And so he recommended that Danielle contact me, and so when she did. She planned her idea and asked me if I'd be interested in illustrating and I responded,"I actually am really not an illustrator. I've never really illustrated any books before. And so if you're willing to take a gamble on me, we can do it." But she had seen some of my portfolio and the work I had done in the graphic design world and liked my style. I think that really helped that we had a very similar vision for what the art could look like. So I'm really excited and just really grateful that she did take that risk, and it's been such a blessing, and I'm actually grateful that I even took the risks. I think so often we can turn down opportunities if we're scared that we might fail, so I'm really glad that the Lord led me to say yes to this.
Amy Mantravadi:Yeah, I totally feel everything that you're saying about that fear of failure and the risk taking, because although I'm not a well-known novelist, I have published some novels and the sort of fear of,"Will this make any money? Not that I'm going to really make money off it, but make enough to at least recoup the costs I'm putting into it. And will anybody read this?" Yeah, that's a really scary thing, but I just think it's so great that the two of you were willing to take that risk and that it's developed into a whole series of books. And Jessica, I would have never known that you didn't have a history of illustration, because I have the several of the books and read them to my son and the illustrations are just such a great, beautiful accompaniment to the text. So what was the process for creating these books once you had decided to do this project together? How were you able to work together to complete them?
Danielle Hitchen:One thing that I really loved about working with Jess and about starting with self-publishing is that this has been able to be a really collaborative process. Jess has had a lot of input and feedback on the manuscripts and she is gracious enough to let me have input and feedback on the art. And we sit down together at the beginning of the art development process and kind of look through- we used to look through like Pinterest boards and just kind of brainstorm what art might look like, what layouts could possibly look like. And then she usually shows me some sketches and I say,"Bhese are amazing. Keep up the amazing work." So it's been a really great process in that sense. I like that we both have a lot of input and control over both sides. So I think a lot of times in children's book publishing, especially an author will write a manuscript and then it just gets handed off to the illustrator, and while you might have some input on the general aesthetic feel of it, you don't get to go illustration by illustration and say,"Well, I think this should look this way, or this should change this way." And even in the course of illustration, on occasion we will change the manuscripts. Sometimes Jess is able to draw things out with her art that I didn't even think of when I was working on a manuscript. And so there've been times when I've shifted the way the words are arranged or changed whole Bible verses or things like that, because I've been able to see her vision and allow that to influence what the book is communicating.
Jessica Blanchard:Yeah, that's, that's exactly what I would have said. Just that we've been able to collaborate. That's been such a gift. And when we give feedback to each other, we've never really encountered any huge roadblocks. I mean, it's more just been like helping guide each other to a solution, and there's really been just great collaborative effort to make the books what they are. And I'm just really grateful for Danielle's feedback, and she's always so encouraging. I've just been so blessed that we've had such a similar vision and that we can just arrive together as a team. And then it really makes the end result all the more sweet, because we can celebrate together that we came to it as a team and with a joint vision.
Danielle Hitchen:Yeah, I think that's totally accurate, and one of the things I would say on this point is that Jess and I both have a heart and a vision for making sure that the books are beautiful. Books about a beautiful God should be beautiful, and there is a certain look and feel to certain Christian children's books- not all of them, but even 10 years ago, I would say that this was more prevalent. They're getting more beautiful now, but we don't want anything cheesy or dopey or sentimental. We wanted to make sure that the books were really just[a good representation] of who God is and what his Word says.
Amy Mantravadi:Yeah, that's a good point because you know, sometimes people will ask the question, why put so much effort into either something like this or into elaborate decoration, or why do all this? And I think part of that's because anything you're doing for the glory of God you want to do with excellence, but also because beauty does draw us to the biblical truths, and like anything there's a happy medium. You don't want to spend everything on the decoration and none on the substance, but when they can work together like that, that's always a wonderful place to get to to communicate spiritual truth, especially because children who can't read yet- the illustrations are going to be the primary way that they're able to communicate with the text. So I think that's probably a very good strategy that you had. You put this series of books together to help Christian parents who are raising young children. I definitely have felt in the past year, the tension of the difficulties of raising a child in the Christian faith. There are difficulties in any age, but I think there may be some particular difficulties in this one. So what challenges do you see parents facing today in raising their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord and how might the Church come alongside parents to help meet them? Obviously you've found one way in putting out these books, but I just wonder how you see these books fitting into a general plan.
Danielle Hitchen:There are a lot of challenges I think that are facing parents in raising children in the knowledge and admonition of the Lord. I think that there's definitely a shifting cultural landscape. I think the Church needs to focus on making disciples, and I think that means discipling parents, as well as children. I have a little card tacked up on my bulletin board above my desk and it says,"Mama, this is your purpose," and it quotes Matthew 28:"And Jesus came to them and said,'All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit and teaching them to observe all that I've commanded you.'" And it's always struck me that Jesus says,"Go therefore and make disciples," not,"Go therefore and make converts," or,"Go there for make theologians." The point of this project has been to help parents make disciples, but it's really hard to be a disciple maker if you are not a disciple yourself. And so I think the best thing that the Church can do in this particular season and always is to focus on making disciples of the people who are already within the Church. I think you should come along parents and make sure that they've got the resources that they need to be growing and deepening their spiritual life and to be constantly preaching the gospel and pointing people back to Jesus. And that's not to say that we shouldn't be doing missions and outreach. We absolutely should. But we also need to be focused internally as well on making sure that the people who are within our Church- that people who are converted are becoming disciples and not just converts. So does that make sense? Sorry.
Amy Mantravadi:Yeah, that seems like a really good point. And especially when you have very young children- and as I learned this year, all your energy is going to taking care of them- it can be very easy to even put on hold your own spiritual life, just because you don't have the time to do it all, or simply that you're focusing so much on children that you have to leave something behind, And churches in general will focus a lot on children's ministry, but I think you're correct that if we don't have also that strong adult ministry, it's not gonna be passed on to the children, even if we do[children's] ministry. So yeah, that's a really good point.
Jessica Blanchard:I do have something to add to that.
Amy Mantravadi:Sure.
Jessica Blanchard: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 about this question, I was thinking really in our culture right now- culture is just really so divisive right now. And I think people are so fixated on issues and opinions and politics. We're really forgetting that we are to love one another, regardless of our differences, and celebrate the unique ways God made us, and he's given us different gifts and talents and and viewpoints and abilities. And as we come together- and that's what makes up the body of Christ doing his work. And so I think we, as the Church could do a lot better job loving one another and showing the world what love means when it comes from the Lord. And I think one way the books that we've created- has done that is really celebrating God's creation, celebrating the unique way he's made us and like the Songs of Praise book,"I'm fearfully and wonderfully made," and really celebrating the ways he's made our bodies, celebrating the emotions he's given us through the Holy Week book and so on. And so I think just introducing children to the love of God and the love of Jesus at this young age, hopefully we can help teach them how to love others as well.
Amy Mantravadi:Yeah, those are really good points. Jessica, I have a question specifically for you. There's such a rich tradition of Christian art, not only in the West, but all around the world. Are there any particular artists or works that have inspired you as you pursued a career in the Arts?
Jessica Blanchard:I would say I've found inspiration from many sources. I think I've always been captivated just by nature, and I've loved lettering and calligraphy, and even illuminated manuscripts have been really a source of inspiration to me. Even architecture, kind of specifically thinking of the work of Gaudi and Barcelona and his cathedral, and just his whimsical design. In terms of other artists, I've always loved Van Gogh, Matisse. Georgia O'Keefe: she does amazing work with nature and color. Monet: the amazing use of color and shapes to bring out the beauty of nature. And I think in terms of other- if there's any other children's book illustrators I love, especially there's two that come to mind and one is Eric Carl. He's done The Hungry Caterpillar and other books. And then Ezra Jack Keats who did The Snowy Day. Both have such brilliant uses- shapes and textures and patterns and rich colors. And that's some of the inspiration that led me to create the illustrations of the Baby Believer books.
Amy Mantravadi:Well, I can tell you that in the past year I've become something of an expert on The Very Hungry Caterpillar, so I'm definitely feeling you there. And as someone who writes about the 12th century, when you said"illuminated manuscripts," that really got me excited as well. There are so many different sources of art to look to for inspiration, and even as you said, nature- which is God's great work of art. So yeah, I love how you're thinking about tying your work in with your faith in that way. Danielle, you've also teamed up with Erin Hawley to produce the Sacred Season podcast. Could you tell us a little about that?
Danielle Hitchen:Sure, and so kind of you to bring this up since we haven't produced an episode since early in COVID. Erin and I are both work at home moms, so once we became work at home homeschool moms, all bets were off in terms of additional podcast projects. But Sacred Season is a podcast that was designed to talk about the Church calendar to come alongside of parents in whatever season of life they were in and talk about how the life of Christ, as you do the traditions of the Church calendar, should affect parenting and just more or less being human in the course of a year. So we have episodes for about the first six seasons of the calendar year, and then COVID shut everything down right before Holy Week. So we have yet to finish out our first season, our first calendar year, but we're hoping to get back to that in 2021.
Amy Mantravadi:Well, I'll definitely be looking forward to that because I listened through all the episodes you were able to produce before COVID shut everything down, and you had a Fat Tuesday episode that was really fun talking about some of the great food traditions. And I thought it was particularly interesting because a lot of Protestants- not so much in your tradition, the Anglican tradition that you're in, but some of the other traditions have sort of backed away from that liturgical calendar a lot, because I think historically it became very legalistic for a lot of people. And I personally feel that there's great value to finding non- legalistic ways to incorporate it into our lives, because it's been such a meaningful part of Christian history and has a way of bringing the sacred into all aspects of our lives. And I would recommend that people go and actually listen to the episodes you produced on them. But with Advent and Christmas coming up- by the time this podcast airs, it'll be right in the Advent season- what are some ways that families can incorporate the biblical truth into the holiday season? If you just want to mention a few things that you talked about on those particular podcasts that you did, and hopefully people will go listen to the whole episodes that you've produced.
Danielle Hitchen:I mean, first of all, I would say that if you want to observe the Church calendar, to your point about legalism- One, it's a spiritual discipline, and like all spiritual disciplines, it's not a requirement for salvation. It's just a way of discipling your heart and discipling your time and orienting your year around the life of Christ rather than around a season of finance or around the academic calendar or the calendar year. So I think it's a really lovely way to think about your time, in terms of the upcoming Advent and Christmas seasons. Those are two of my favorite seasons in the Church calendar. I think for Advent, one great way to observe it with your family is to just take a slow Advent: you know, decorate your tree slowly, get it one week, light it the next, decorate it the next, and that way you're adding a little bit of light to your life on a weekly basis and helping your kids understand how long God's people waited for Christ's coming and how wonderful would it be to put your star on the tree on Christmas day and to talk about Christ's inbreaking on Christmas and the incarnation? And that's really the point of an Advent wreath as well: that you add one candle's worth of light every Sunday during Advent, just to be adding more light to your life and more light to your home and to think about Christ coming. One other advent tradition I'm excited to start with my kids this year is a Jesse Tree, and you do one ornament or symbol per day on your Jesse Tree, and it starts with Creation and then of course it ends with Christ's coming. There's 24 little symbols. So you go through all the stories of the Old Testament and the prophets and then the Annunciation and the journey to Bethlehem and also John the Baptist. And it's just a great way to orient kids to the whole arc of the biblical narrative from Creation all the way to the Incarnation. Those are great ways to help your kids understand that the Advent season is not, in fact, an elongated Christmas season. It's actually a time when we think about and remember the waiting periods and to remind them that we're in a second Advent, we are in a time where we are waiting for Christ's second return. Then for Christmas, there are all kinds of wonderful things you can do to celebrate the season of Christmas: the 12 days from December 25th, all the way to Epiphany on January 6th. But those days should be a celebratory as possible, and I think that perhaps spreading out gifts between Christmas and Epiphany or planning fun family things to do between Christmas and Epiphany, not taking your tree down until Epiphany. All o f those things are great ways to remember the Christmas season, to remember the Incarnation, and to set you up for your new calendar year in a really wonderful and celebratory way.
Amy Mantravadi:Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that about the 12 days of Christmas. First, so that people who didn't realize where the song came from will know, there used to be and still are 12 days of Christmas, but there could be that sense of not wanting the whole Advent season to be about waiting and just gradually doing everything because then you only get one day of Christmas. No, you have 12 days of Christmas: that was the whole point. It was the waiting period and then you had the whole 12 days of Christmas. So I think as you said, it's a matter of again doing everything with discernment and moderation, but I think those traditions can be great things to incorporate into family life and use them to tell the biblical stories like you mentioned. So you guys have put out- you said now seven Baby Believer books. What project or projects are you working on for the future? Will there be more of those books? Are you going to collaborate on something else?
Jessica Blanchard:Yes. I'm actually currently starting to get near the finish line for the eighth book and the art for the eighth book. Danielle's probably like,"What have you been doing?"
Danielle Hitchen:No, I know what you've been doing. We're also putting out the Apostle's Creed memorization cards as a discipleship tool, which she's worked very hard on, and we're putting out a 2021 calendar with her beautiful art. So definitely that's what Jess has been working on.
Jessica Blanchard:So yeah, my due date is December 1st, so I'm starting to feel a bit of the pressure. So that's our eighth book. I think we're holding off on sharing what that is going to be about. And then for me personally, I'm hoping to work a little bit more on my own art prints that I sell on jessbstudio.com. I haven't really been able to devote a lot of time to that since because it's COVID and homeschooling and all the things, but that's another personal thing I've been working on, but yeah, we do hope to do a couple more books even after this eighth one.
Amy Mantravadi:Yeah, it's definitely been a tough year for all moms with COVID rearranging everyone's lives. So I understand that the need to keep some mystery over what's going to happen, but I appreciate you giving us a little hint of that. Well, ladies, thank you so much for joining me today, and I would encourage everyone to visit catechesisbooks.com and check out the Baby Believer series of books. I think they could be a great[way] to teach Christian truths to your children. Jessica and Danielle, thank you so much.
Danielle Hitchen:Thanks Amy.
Jessica Blanchard:Thank you, Amy.
Jon Guerra:(MUSIC PLAYING)
Amy Mantravadi:I very much enjoyed my conversation with Danielle and Jessica. The Baby Believer books are available for purchase at www.catechesisbooks.com. That's C-A-T-E-C-H-E-S-I-S-B-O-O-K-S.com, where you can also find information about some of their other projects. The Sacred Season podcasts that we mentioned should be available wherever you managed to find this one, and if you're looking for someone to help with graphic design or illustration for your project, be sure to check out samples of Jessica's work at www.jessicablanchard.com. That's J-E-S-S-I-C-A-B-L-A-N-C-H-A-R-D.com. A quick word for my friends who belong to a Reformed Christian tradition. I know that some of you wish to avoid children's books that have images of Jesus in them. A few of the Baby Believer books include these, but certainly not all. If you have any questions about this or anything else related to the podcast, feel free to email me at theamillennialpodcast@gmail.com. The music you've been listening to is the song"Citizens" by John Guerra off his newest album, Keeper of Days. He also has a Christmas album, It's Almost Christmas, that he released with his wife, Valerie. Give it a listen and perhaps you like me will make enjoying it one of your Christmas traditions. Let me close us out with the simple blessing that Peter offered at the end of his first epistle:"Peace be to you all who are in Christ." Thank you for listening and have a great week.
Jon Guerra:(MUSIC PLAYING) Is there a way to love always living in enemy hallways? Don't know my foes from my friends and don't know my friends anymore. Power has several prizes. Handcuffs can come in all sizes. Love has a million disguises, but winning is simply not one.(MUSIC STOPS)