One never knows where a sermon series might go on its way out into the world—particularly when the preacher is married to a writer. Some 40 years ago, in a Teamsters Union Hall on the west side of Chicago, I preached a series to a young idealistic congregation eager to do God’s work in the world. That series was titled “The Christian, the Church and Society.” It has been the one sermon series, above any other in my five decades of ministry, that has received the most comments regarding its impact.
So much so that my wife, Karen, a young and idealistic pastor’s wife, took the main concepts and built three award-winning story books out of that preaching effort. It is now 30 years since the first book, The Tales of the Kingdom, was written. Within the next decade, two more books followed, completing the Kingdom Tales Trilogy—Tales of the Resistance and Tales of the Restoration.
The basic thrust of the series was: The Kingdom of God is any setting where Christ is recognized as King, His will is obeyed and obedient subjects reap the benefit of His rule. Quite a key Biblical truth to integrate into three award-winning illustrated storybooks. But then that’s the proof of an agile and creative writer; it’s someone who can take spiritual meat and transform it into classic children’s literature (think John Bunyan with Pilgrim’s Progress or C. S. Lewis and the Narnia series).
My word to the wise is this: Be careful what you preach (particularly if a spouse is listening). You never know what someone else will do with your words.
This week we are launching a Kickstarter campaign (this is a crowd-funding Web site), to redesign, re-illustrate and republish the three Kingdom Tales books for a new generation.
In a rapidly globalizing world, we as a nation are realizing that the world is a complex and shining (and often difficult) conglomerate of multi-cultures and diverse races and ethnicities. Due to this rising global sensitivity, we feel strongly that it is time to re-release the three books, but representing the above verities in the illustrations.
Will you check out the Kickstarter campaign and see if there are ways you would like to become a backer? The link is www.kingdomtales.com/kickstarter.
