I didn’t know I was on the list to receive this product to review when it was delivered to my door. Talk about a surprise, and a wonderful one at that! Right away I was impressed, from the careful packaging to the attractive appearance of the enclosed materials; I couldn’t wait to dig in with my children.
What we’d received was a Bible program produced by Positive Action for Christ, titled The Life of Christ, taken from the Book of John. With a student workbook with nearly 300 pages of full color pictures, charts and maps and an accompanying teacher text in a matching three ring binder with a CD of Transparencies included, this program is certainly for the serious student.
The package also came with a letter detailing ways to incorporate the study into your homeschool program, whether you would choose to use a parent-led approach, an independent study approach, for your family devotions or with a co-op or church group, there are ideas to get you started.
Since we do have a Bible study program in place, my original intent was to use this as part of a family devotional program, but that didn’t seem to work out as I planned. No fault of Positive Action for Christ, we just couldn’t seem to get started. I finally decided that I’d go through the program with my teenagers, rather than assigning it to them to work on independently.
I previewed the lesson and printed pages from the Transparencies CD to use as notebooking pages. Armed with our Bibles we gathered in the living room and jumped in. It is recommended that the child work through the “Student Lesson” prior to the teacher covering the “Notes from the Teacher’s Lesson”. We tweaked it a bit since we were using this as a family. My children found it difficult to share one workbook (ideally, if you plan to use this with your entire family, it would be great if each person participating in the study could have their own book) . To remedy the problem, I read from the text while the kids looked up the various scriptures as we came to them. We all took turns reading aloud while following along in our own Bibles. We would then discuss the various questions posed in the text before continuing. There is an incredible amount of scripture to look up so I found it helpful to break down the lessons over a period of two or three days.
When we had finished the “Student Lesson”, I’d read from the “Notes from the Teacher’s Lesson” while answering the questions in the workbook. Again, there is a lot of scripture to look up and we seemed to spend quite a bit of time in discussion. Once again, I would break down this aspect of the lesson into two separate sessions, or days.
You’ll also find a “Digging Deeper” section in the student text that offers additional research ideas to further your study. These can be assigned to your students or researched and discussed as a family.
A quiz is included in the teachers’ manual for each lesson which we do orally as a review. There are also unit tests included. There is also a Scripture Memorization Program that I’d like to incorporate as well that up to this point, we have not used.
Though it is suggested that you complete one lesson per week (a total of 35 lessons), I’m finding that with the holidays and a few other interruptions, it has taken us more like two weeks per lesson, though I do anticipate that we will be able to implement a smoother schedule as we settle back into a routine once again.
There are many things that I find appealing about this program.
1. This is not a simple, fluff course- but that doesn’t mean that it is overly difficult either. Written in a style that young people can understand, it doesn’t strive to make lessons ‘fun’ but instead focuses on the Truth of scripture.
2. I love that the program is so easy to follow. You can pick up this program and jump right in- no need to spend hours trying to ‘figure out’ how to use it. Your focus can be spent on preparing to teach your students, rather than learning how to teach “the program”.
3. You’ll learn about the customs and common practices that were in place in A.D. 29-32 which is something that my children and I have found fascinating!
4. The Teacher’s Manual also includes an extensive Recommended Reading List that I’d love to make my way through before assigning some of the books to my children.
5. The goal is to encourage a closer and deeper relationship with Christ, not just to create head knowledge.
This is an excellent resource that I have thoroughly enjoyed using with my children. We will continue to use this and I already have a shopping list of materials I’d like to purchase when we’ve finished this study which includes Top Priority: Manna, a daily devotional written for teens, the Christian Growth series and the Proverbs: The Fountain of Life study, only next time around I’ll be sure to purchase a student workbook for each of my children.
The Life of Christ Student Manual sells for $17.95, while the Teacher’s Manual in the binder sells for $41.95, which includes masters of all overhead transparencies (not included) or on CD for $29.95.
You can place an order or view the materials that Positive Action for Christ offer at their website.
Download a free Scope and Sequence or catalog or request one online.
Since this is a company that produces Bible study material, you may also find it helpful to read about the history of Positive Action for Christ and their doctrinal statement, which can be found here.
You can see what other reviewers had to say about the program here.
*I received the material from Positive Action for Christ free of charge in exchange for sharing my personal and honest opinion of their product here on my blog.
This is a pretty amazing product for sure. We are trying to finish up our Awana Books - then we might do this one as a family next year.
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