What We Believe

 Our Mission

Our approach is one of grace. We hang our hats on the scripture verse, “Before you were born, I knew you” (Jeremiah 1:5). In this verse, we hear God’s love for us before we even existed. This frees us to explore God’s story without the expectation that God simply desires merit from creation. Instead, we trust that his true desire is for a relationship that is rooted in His redemptive actions toward us. From this place of being loved by God first comes forth our desire to tell God’s story to everyone.  

We believe God speaks to us through Scripture. He has spoken to us through the experience of real people and God’s intervention in history. From the beginning of the Bible to the very end, we see over and over again human brokeness, God’s forgiveness, and a redemptive thread running between each story.  

Our hope is to breathe new life into the old stories. We hope to spark the imaginations of our young readers and their teachers. The Bible is beautifully written, and peppered with drama, rebellion, and real humanity. Scripture does not shy away from the human experience or humanity’s deep need for divine intervention. Our mission is for kids and grownups to connect to God’s story through play, art, and social-emotional connectors. Our desire is for kids to know they are loved, forgiven, and are grafted into God’s story.

What We Think About…

Kids: We believe all humans are “story makers” because we are created in the image of God, the Ultimate Story Maker. We know kids are creative, thoughtful, and imaginative beings with the ability to connect to their faith through the stories of the Bible. StoryMakers recognizes children are diverse learners, so each resource we create offers many points of entry to connect with kids where they are. Kids engage with the world in the amazing ways God intended, and we want to make it easy for children to understand God’s redemptive narrative through our materials. 

The Bible: We believe Scripture is a text to be explored, engaged, and examined with our holy imaginations. Humans don’t instinctively read the Bible and allow it to be a story. More often than not, we have been taught to look for explicit directions from God about what to do or not do, rather than immersing ourselves in the story to find our common humanity and the continual good news of God’s redemptive work. Our goal is simple: We hope that children, as they grow and begin to encounter challenges, will have the instinct and clear view that God is with them and for them always. This is the message of the Bible.

Faith: We believe faith comes through hearing. StoryMakers is dedicated to telling the stories of Scripture so that faith can be sparked by the Holy Spirit. Just as Jesus painted pictures for us through the parables, we want to share creative stories that kids will remember and carry in their imaginations through the ups and downs of this life. 

Grace: We believe that even the youngest child needs to know God’s love and his story of forgiveness and grace. As we approach youngsters and teens, we tell them the good news of what God says: “Before you were born, I knew you.” (Jeremiah 1:5) We reveal to them that the God of the universe seeks them out individually for a friendship despite anything they think, say, or do.

Imagination: We believe imagination is one of every child’s most valuable resources and is an ideal access point for the story of God’s great love. The stories of the Bible are peppered with action, drama, rebellion, and redemption. Through creative engagement, children can experience these stories with curiosity, questions, empathy, and surprising insight as they recognize themselves in the stories and see their own need for God. 

Parenting: We believe that God’s approach to his children, is marked by sacrifice and humility. God loves us so much He is willing to lose over and over again, and this grace is how true love is fostered between God and creation. Grownups need reminders of this truth in the moments of power struggles over homework or bedtime or screentime. Too often, in the battle to win all the time, we lose footing in our relationships with our children, and the door begins to slowly close, creating distance. In our efforts to be right, we are often so very wrong in our outcomes. So when we consider how we parent and approach our children, we must always remember we have been forgiven much. God continues to seek us out, and He communicates His desire and love for us over and over again. This kind of love fosters security and health in how we grow to view God—and our own parents. Our hope at StoryMakers is to create opportunities for healthy connections between children and parents.

Diverse Learners: We believe that each of God’s children is unique and makes connections in a variety of ways. To enrich each child’s experience, we design our content with a diversity of entry points: activating our imaginations, immersing in visual language, sharing stories through play (acting out the parts), processing through art, using social-emotional connectors, providing fun facts, and building habits (retelling the story: repeat, play repeat).

Emotional Awareness: We know that learning about God’s story and our place in it can also tap into the emotional life of children. We believe God embraces our humanity, including all our messy feelings. As children recognize and explore their feelings, they can also learn more about the depth of God’s forgiveness and love. We include prompts for exploring a variety of feelings and being honest with God about them.

Community. Humans learn about God through scripture and within a community, whether that is family or church body. We believe we are all at the table together. We encourage grown-ups to engage with children by imagining together, active listening, receiving emotions, and taking time to discover the uniqueness of each person.