Westminster Kids | Josiah Pettit

WESTMINSTER KIDS

A New Website Dedicated to Children’s Books

Josiah Pettit

Icould tell you the story of my Christian faith through a stack of books. An old, yellowing paperback version of the Westminster Shorter Catechism that my Mom helped me memorize before I could read. The Lord of the Rings, read out loud by the fire one Christmas break after we lost power during an ice storm. A Barry Moser illustrated edition of Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. My first Bible, a pocket-sized NIV with my name on the front— which lost its concordance and back cover to a teething puppy and yet remained readable and still sits on my desk. Shusaku Endo’s Silence, read during my culturally confused high school years as a missionary kid in Japan. Tim Keller’s The Reason for God. Paul Miller’s A Praying Life. Matthew McCullough’s Remember Death. Bavinck’s Wonderful Works of God. Dane Ortlund’s Gentle and Lowly.

Oscar Wilde had it right: you are what you read. And therefore Christians should be particularly concerned with the books that fill their homes and churches. This conviction is at the very heart of our ministry at the Westminster Bookstore. We believe that books play a profound role in the life and health of the church. But the question remains, why Westminster Kids?

Jesus was not making a new point when he commanded, “Let the little children come to me.” Perhaps this is why his response is tinged with rebuke—the disciples should have known better. Scripture had already been commanding God’s people to teach God’s word(s) “diligently to your children,” to “train up a child in the way he should go,” and to “tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the Lord.” We spent nearly three years building Westminster Kids because we’re convinced books remain one of the most effective tools at our disposal to fulfill the commands of Deuteronomy 6, Proverbs 22, Psalm 78, and Matthew 19. Books that distill rich theology for the youngest minds; books that make big truths delightfully simple, but not simplistic;

“It is what you read when you books that fight against don’t have to that determines what moralism and point to Jesus; books that remind our chilyou will be when you can’t help it.” dren—and ourselves—to set their hope in God. –OSCAR WILDE At Westminster Kids, we’ve collected the best biblically faithful children’s books we could find and cataloged them in a beautifully curated new website. We also built a new heuristic tool into the site that will allow you to sort by age, use, and category, along with special considerations such as filtering out books featuring images of Jesus. In addition, you’ll find a growing archive of free blogs, videos, and audio content by Westminster faculty and staff, also featuring some of our favorite authors. It is our prayer that Westminster Kids might become the primary online source for biblically faithful kids’ books for parents, grandparents, educators, and caregivers. If you’re looking for some fresh bedtime reading, resources to supplement a homeschool curriculum, or a gift to celebrate a special occasion, let me warmly invite you to visit westminsterkids.com—built to serve you in equipping the next generations with resources that point to Jesus!

Far Greater

Update

In Ephesians 3:20–21, the apostle Paul encourages the church in Ephesus that God "is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen."

By the grace of God and through the generosity of His people, we have raised $45.5M of our $50M goal, and have already begun deploying these funds here in Glenside, and globally, with our online degrees. We are now training hundreds of pastors in the persecuted church. We have launched both our Arabic and Latin American initiatives, training pastors in those regions. We have provided record scholarship levels to our residential students. And we are on the cusp of breaking ground on a new academic center that will facilitate the capture and distribution of our training to the ends of the earth while deepening the impact of our campus and community experience.

To learn more, or to find out how you can contribute an immediate or planned gift to help us achieve our remaining Far Greater goal of $4.5M, please visit www.fargreater.org, or contact Westminster’s Stewardship Office at supportwts@wts.edu. Would you prayerfully consider a gift?