Greatest of All Time

Split over 8 weeks, ‘Greatest of All Time’ covers the life of Jesus as well as what happened after Easter Sunday with chapters entitled: ‘Jesus Did Surprising Things When He Was Young’ and ‘Crazy Things Happened When Jesus Was Around’.

There are five studies each week with a recap quiz for the weekend. Each day is an A5 double-page spread with a ‘get you thinking’ question, a Bible reference to look up, some linked thoughts and prompts and a space to respond (either by sketching or writing) in prayer. The language is engaging, the links to life are relevant, the font is friendly (if small) and the fun illustrations relate to the text. Our children found the questions made them think about familiar things in a different way and the reflection points move beyond ‘head knowledge’.

We tried the book in several ways as a family: breakfast devotional for all (we’d probably want a copy for each child and we added more spontaneous questions to break up the explanation text) and as an individual night-time devotional for a Year 6 (reliant on a child who is able to process and take in the details rather than whizz through the text. However, the ‘What does it mean for me?’ prompt is helpful for this and a follow-up conversation could be handy). We settled with a daily one-to-one child-led time. At the end of a paragraph, the adult paused the text either to reiterate the questions, to consider the impact of what we’d read or to respond in the moment to related thoughts.

The studies could also be adapted for a small group setting. It is an accessible book with considered observations to interest those who already something about Jesus but are perhaps considering his relevance to them as an individual. It would help to bridge the gap between daily puzzles in response to a Bible reading and a text-heavy devotional.