[SPEAKER_01]: Christian parenting.
[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the Bible for Kids Podcast with your hosts, author Trisha Goyer, and author and co-creator of Veggie Tales, Mike Nuraki.
[SPEAKER_00]: If instilling biblical values and kids is important to you, this podcast will give you the resources, wisdom, and hope to do just that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now let's join our hosts, Trisha, and Mike for this week's episode.
[SPEAKER_03]: Hey everyone, I'm Mike Naraki.
[SPEAKER_03]: My co-host Trisha Goyer is off spending time with her family today, so I'm solo, well not actually solo, just maybe co-hostless.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I have the pleasure of welcoming back Troy Schmidt, along with our producer, who's always here Dan just off-mic, Dan Lynch, to talk about their middle reader series, The Seven.
[SPEAKER_03]: And Book Seven has just released, which is really exciting.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then even that book is alive.
[SPEAKER_03]: Dan and with Troy, like always, we like to start every Bible for kids podcast with the Bible verse.
[SPEAKER_03]: So today's verse is a short one, but very appropriate as we were recording on Good Friday.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is from Luke 24, verses 5-6 of the NIV.
[SPEAKER_03]: Why do you look for the living among the dead?
[SPEAKER_03]: He has not here, he has risen.
[SPEAKER_03]: Remember how he told you while he was still with you in Galloway.
[SPEAKER_03]: right, happy Easter everyone.
[SPEAKER_03]: For four decades, Troy Schmidt has been reaching audiences and readers through his writing for television films and books, whether sharing stories that inspire young people or guiding teens to adults, through the Bible with inspirational devotional educational or Christian living books, he has authored more than 100 titles.
[SPEAKER_03]: Wait a go Troy, very nicely done.
[SPEAKER_03]: He's just smiling.
[SPEAKER_03]: He could say something.
[SPEAKER_03]: There you go.
[SPEAKER_03]: Try it.
[SPEAKER_03]: You're fighting.
[SPEAKER_03]: Let's go ahead.
[SPEAKER_03]: Drive again, writing.
[SPEAKER_03]: Animation.
[SPEAKER_03]: All right.
[SPEAKER_03]: Woo-hoo.
[SPEAKER_03]: In Los Angeles in 1985, for Dennis the Menace Heathcliff, Flintstone Kids, some great shows.
[SPEAKER_03]: In 1992, he moved Orlando to right for the Mickey Mouse Club on staff.
[SPEAKER_03]: for three seasons.
[SPEAKER_03]: He wrote for three Disney parades on ABC, Eastern Christmas, and a Disney animal kingdom show.
[SPEAKER_03]: He later adapted a Max Locado children's book, Hermy The Common Caterpillar into a video, creating and writing a total of 13 Hermy and Friends videos, and more than 20 different books for Tommy Nelson.
[SPEAKER_03]: Troy was a producer and writer, Prejef Fox Were These, The American Bible Challenge, and Troy worked with Alex and Steven Kendrick on books for teens connected to the movie's War Room and Overcomeer.
[SPEAKER_03]: Troy is a campus pastor, teacher, teaching pastor and director of social media at Family Church in Windmeer, Florida with more than 2,000 attendees and has been on staff since 97.
[SPEAKER_03]: He's married to Barbie and they have three sons, Riley, Brady, Carson, three daughters and law and five grandchildren.
[SPEAKER_03]: One more on the way.
[SPEAKER_03]: Congratulations.
[SPEAKER_03]: In less, is this an old
[SPEAKER_02]: and it was almost here yesterday.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was like a thing, but it was Braxton Hicks.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, so still on the way.
[SPEAKER_03]: All right.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, by it was still current.
[SPEAKER_03]: Excellent.
[SPEAKER_03]: All right.
[SPEAKER_03]: Let's tell y'all a little bit about Dan, even though, you know, Dan's behind the scenes here all the time, but Dan in addition to being producer on this podcast for the last seven years is the owner and president of Brentwood Press LLC, where he works with authors and brands like the Rabbit Room, every moment holy, and Andrew Peterson's Wing Feather series.
[SPEAKER_03]: Dan also serves as the president for the Bible for kids, 501c3 non-profit, and has created the Bible for me Bible story book brand with Amy Parker and yours truly, and the seven middle reader series with friend Trishmit.
[SPEAKER_03]: Dan has served more than 20 years in kids with kids and teen publishing on the Tommy Nelson VP of marketing brand, branding and consumer product side and B&H kids.
[SPEAKER_03]: Dan's married to his high school sweetheart Kim and they have three children and eight grandchildren.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, you guys are kind of in a race on the grandchildren there, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: So you draw your catching up.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're trying to raise up that next generation.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_03]: Welcome you guys.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's so two guests.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I read two bios usually, you know, we have two guests, uh, Trisha and I flip flop, but uh, hopefully nobody got tired of me reading, but uh, really great to have you guys.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's great.
[SPEAKER_01]: Great.
[SPEAKER_03]: No, it's time to take a break.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh man, so great to have you here, congratulations on Book 7.
[SPEAKER_03]: I know this must be a huge deal.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're going to talk about that, but just a relief on I'm sure finishing that huge kind of momentous writing challenge.
[SPEAKER_03]: Before we get into the new book, can you both remind listeners how the series came to be and maybe talk a little bit about the first six books and where we've been and what's
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I'm sitting here and I'm looking at that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I have a mirror on my shelf.
[SPEAKER_02]: I hope my shelf doesn't collapse.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I mean, you're looking at a lot of writing that was done between the two of us and going back and forth.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you want us to summarize it quickly.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, if again, I remember we had been called to work on
[SPEAKER_02]: and it was time travel and the story that we came up with just really sort of captured our attention of the people we were talking to when a different direction but we thought let's see if we can build this out and so that turned into what we have today and this is over
[SPEAKER_02]: again, I always live track them.
[SPEAKER_02]: Seems like over 10 years ago at least.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's 15 now.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, okay, easily, easily in the inception and the pitch and all those sort of things.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I created some outlines and everything.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we sat on for a while.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think I got bored.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I started writing the first one.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then sent it off.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then we were waiting some more.
[SPEAKER_02]: And wrote the second one.
[SPEAKER_02]: then all of a sudden when it was ready to go, at least we had two books ready and started with the third and put them out subsequently after that.
[SPEAKER_02]: So the thing that was always intriguing was going back in time, getting a fresh perspective, kind of a first-person perspective of some other people who would be involved in Bible stories that we hold near and dear to our hearts.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, well, but it'd be like for someone
[SPEAKER_02]: to look at those events and to be in the middle of them.
[SPEAKER_02]: The other thing that was always intriguing, I know for me was, making that main character who was Josh, not a believer, but because of his data created this time machine that was stolen by a guy named Dr. Bales.
[SPEAKER_02]: that he would be seeing these things and then evaluating it and slowly over time his faith being challenged through all six books.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, the next challenge would be, what is the thing that would connect all those six books?
[SPEAKER_02]: What is it?
[SPEAKER_02]: How many books?
[SPEAKER_02]: What's up?
[SPEAKER_02]: How many books?
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, the first, I'm sorry, I'm thinking of the first six books.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're going to talk about the seventh book.
[SPEAKER_02]: But you're right, all seven books.
[SPEAKER_02]: What connected all of them would be, what is that thing that would get somebody?
[SPEAKER_02]: What's the big plot that would last all of those books?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then what would be the mini plots throughout each of them?
[SPEAKER_02]: So we had to find this connection to all those events.
[SPEAKER_02]: and bringing together no one in the flood.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm gonna mourn Abraham, Moses, and the plagues, and darkness, Jericho, and the collapse, Joshua, and then moving into the promised land, David, and the Elias story, and then the birth of Jesus, and now the resurrection.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I think once we found that,
[SPEAKER_02]: happy with it, we've tied it all together, and the book series took off.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, no, that's great.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, yeah, and just finding those milestones is a way to just share the gospel.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then obviously seven is a great number, Biblical, as well.
[SPEAKER_03]: So it seems to really work well.
[SPEAKER_03]: And in the series, the kids have powers and abilities.
[SPEAKER_03]: Can you maybe talk a little bit about that reminder?
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I can touch and enjoy, you can, you can film the blanks, but this goes back to the beginning of the series as well because I had been, I had been at Thomas Nelson in the kids area for almost 15 years and had left there and one of the things that I really saw is missing in the faith base publishing world was a really good middle reader series for kids.
[SPEAKER_01]: Frank Preddy had done some great books early on, but unfortunately only wrote two or three of them, and there just wasn't anything there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Troy and I had worked together on the Perian Friends series and done a lot of books and a lot of videos and we started talking about that and we wanted within this
[SPEAKER_01]: brand to clearly present the gospel across all seven books and his stories mentioned, bring a character across a full arc of discovering his faith.
[SPEAKER_01]: But we also wanted the books to be as exciting and entertaining and quite honestly fictional as some of the things that are out there in the general market.
[SPEAKER_01]: that kids will really get engaged too.
[SPEAKER_01]: But we want them grounded in fact in a Christian principle and in biblical principles.
[SPEAKER_01]: The kids do have abilities that they discover and they come to learn about through the course of the entire narrative.
[SPEAKER_01]: But they're not like the kids in some of the other series where they've gotten these powers because their father was a god or, you know,
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, there's, you know, that, the abilities are mapped to the gifts of the Spirit in the Bible.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: They can't wield them at their desire.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, they are able to use them when it helps move forward in the path God has them on.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: So when it is correct, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: No.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're all tied into the will of God.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think,
[SPEAKER_02]: Some of that is shown clearly in this last book here also that they don't get anything that God has not determined they will get.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I love that.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's really the difference between magic and prayer, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: It's like this idea that magic is us controlling things, just by saying, you know, certain number of words or whatever, but prayer is going to God and using your gifts and it's God who performs the miracles, it's not our doing, it's God's doing, so that's a great decision.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: All right.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, it is time for a break, so we're going to take a short break and be right back on the Bible for kids.
[SPEAKER_05]: Are you searching for the perfect gifts to celebrate the special moms, dads, and grads in your life?
[SPEAKER_03]: We're thrilled to bring back the Christian parenting moms, dads, and grads gift guide.
[SPEAKER_05]: And this year's edition is our best yet.
[SPEAKER_05]: Whether you're honoring a loving mom, a devoted dad, or an inspiring grad, we've got you covered with meaningful gifts that truly love.
[SPEAKER_03]: From Bibles and Study Tools to Encouraging Books, you're guaranteed to find something special for everyone on your gift list this spring.
[SPEAKER_05]: Visit ChristianParenting.org for its last gifts.
[SPEAKER_05]: That's ChristianParenting.org for its last gifts to explore the 2026 mom, stads and grads gift guide today.
[SPEAKER_05]: The link is also in the show notes.
[SPEAKER_03]: Parenting is busy.
[SPEAKER_03]: Chaos happens before the coffee finishes brewing.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's why our friends at Christian Parenting created Morning Minute.
[SPEAKER_03]: A concise, scripture-rooted daily email for busy parents.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a quick pause at the start of your day.
[SPEAKER_05]: Each weekday morning you'll get one verse to strengthen your spirit.
[SPEAKER_05]: One parent-in-site granted in Christ's like wisdom.
[SPEAKER_05]: One short action item to guide your heart and your kids.
[SPEAKER_05]: And one resource to help you go deeper.
[SPEAKER_05]: It takes just three minutes to read, but the encouragement lasts all day and it's free.
[SPEAKER_03]: Welcome back to the Bible for kids.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm speaking with authors, Troy Schmidt and Dan Lynch about their new book, Alive in the series, The Seven.
[SPEAKER_03]: In book six, Escape, you guys kind of centered around the birth of Jesus and their Escape from Herod.
[SPEAKER_03]: Book seven, Alive, now is the final book, the conclusion of the story you mentioned.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's about the death and resurrection of Jesus.
[SPEAKER_03]: Can you tell us, maybe elaborate a little bit more, give us some teasers on the plot of the book itself.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, the the fun part about writing this one and actually book six was six it was just like I don't play golf, but I used to I would take the tea and I put the ball in it and there was all this anticipation of how great that swing was going to be when I hit it Not that 300 yards if I was lucky, but you know six was seeing it all up and seven finally able to sort of
[SPEAKER_02]: the secrets, the whispers, the shadows, the things that we're going on, we could come out clearly and say, this is what is happening.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is what everything has been all about.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: And what better way than really the story of Easter and the Resurrection and just imagining our main character, Josh.
[SPEAKER_02]: uh, being confronted with that, uh, you know, with that moment with that whole day.
[SPEAKER_02]: So there are a number of challenges that go into it.
[SPEAKER_02]: It doesn't, and this was the one thing, and then I talked a lot about this beforehand.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that was, this book doesn't play out like the other books.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's different.
[SPEAKER_02]: And because of some of the challenges that they're facing,
[SPEAKER_02]: And so it was fun after doing kind of the same thing for six books in the seventh one to say, here's a different way it also plays out and seeing how they would react to that challenge.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: And how are you guys like, it's got to be intimidating, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: So you spent all these years working on this series, like you described Troy, your team up the final book, what was your kind of anxiety level when you went into writing it?
[SPEAKER_03]: Were you super excited about it?
[SPEAKER_03]: You knew it was going to come out?
[SPEAKER_03]: Or was there still some questions of, OK, can we pull this off in a satisfying way?
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, all of it's been in the back of my mind just going, please can we can we announce herself and it's like, no Stay there.
[SPEAKER_04]: We'll get to it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so when it came time it sort of rushed forward I'll admit that I was so excited, you know, typing in out it came up so quickly But I had to go back and sort of I it was like catharsis, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: I can't wait Tell everybody was been going on in the back of our our heads.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, and then
[SPEAKER_02]: when it happened, I went back and was like, oh my gosh, I forgot this, I forgot this.
[SPEAKER_02]: I need the buff, this part up, and I need to add a little bit here.
[SPEAKER_02]: So the first draft of it just went.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: I kept telling Dan that was like, you got anything and said, I mean, I'm in the middle of it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, I would say both.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, we had outlined this series so long ago, and then the outline changed before book six.
[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, try ahead some ideas to do some things a little differently in six and seven.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, won't go into exactly what and why, because I don't want to give any spoilers.
[SPEAKER_01]: People that haven't read, you know, the various books, but,
[SPEAKER_01]: It all worked, but you know, there's characters that you've gotten to know and each character has their own things going on and yeah, you know, how is this going to resolve and yeah, you know, I think it'll be
[SPEAKER_01]: quite an emotional journey for anybody that's read the whole thing to get to the end.
[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, one of the powerful things, and Troy hinted at it, but one of the powerful things, I think, and reading this series is, you know, there's time travel, and there's all these crazy things that go on that are fantastical and fictional, but the events that the kids witness when they go back in time are great out of the Bible.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's some tough moments there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you know, there's a lot of, there's a lot of hard things.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a lot of death.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a lot of grit, you know, just look through the subjects, even starting with Noah's art.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, we're used to these cute plus animals on the wall, but it's one of the darkest stories in the Bible.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a loss of mankind, you know, and the doing away was sin in the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's, they're tough, but yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's why, you know,
[SPEAKER_01]: about age 10 and up, you know, depending on your kid and, you know, we have moms we hear from our grandparents that we hear from that, you know, have gotten the books and they start reading the first book to make sure it's okay for their kids, you know, and I love that.
[SPEAKER_01]: a lot of the people that are buying the books or that cautious with what, you know, they're letting their kids be exposed to because that's exactly why this was written.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I jout there that they shouldn't let their kids get exposed to at that age.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: But they come back in the go now.
[SPEAKER_01]: where either read them together, or unread them first, or I've already read them all.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: But being enjoyed all the way up the ladder, and it part of it is because it makes you think differently about some of these stories that you've just maybe glossed over as, you know, you've heard the Bible story in Sunday School, or you've read it in the Bible.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, we all tend to get past something and go, I don't really get what I read, but when you
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the Ori, you can kind of see it come to pass in front of you, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And those moments are big.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, and coming into the last book.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, there was, there is nervousness and stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: And, um, and of course Troy had a lot of ideas in his city when Tommy, you know, until I, until I read him, um, which hit on a, on a mission trip to Nicaragua, um, I just kind of glued to my Kendall reading the first draft with tears rolling down my face.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, great man.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I'm going to heat told me that I was, that was just one
[SPEAKER_02]: He just said, I'm reading and now I'm a plane and then he texted me and he said something something about, I got tears going down my face and he was trying to, I don't know, you're trying to hide it or.
[SPEAKER_02]: or something like that, like you're trying not to show her one on the plane one.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the risk of the next team is worried about what's going on with them.
[SPEAKER_03]: I've been there.
[SPEAKER_03]: I watched, uh, I had a mistake or I watched, uh, Pixar's Coco on a plane once, you know, so I had my headphones on and it was playing.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm like blubbering like a baby.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's just laying around like, yeah, so.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, be careful what you read or watch on a plane if it's highly emotional.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yep, uh, if I get it as well.
[SPEAKER_03]: It is time once again for a break, so we're going to do that and we'll be right back on the Bible for kids.
[SPEAKER_03]: What if you could empower kids to engage with the gospel?
[SPEAKER_05]: Introducing the life of the world Bible Storybook inspired by the animated film, guided by John, Jesus, disciple, and friend, children journey from creation to revelation, discovering how every story points to Jesus, the light of life.
[SPEAKER_03]: With vibrant papercut illustrations, engaging stories, and space for reflection and prayer, this beautifully crafted Bible Storybook invites kids to explore God's salvation story for themselves.
[SPEAKER_05]: Light of the world, Bible's storybook, is available wherever books are sold.
[SPEAKER_05]: from the co-creator, veggie tales, and the voice of Larry the cucumber, comes and all new Dead Sea Scrolls Adventure.
[SPEAKER_05]: When Michael and Justin are forced to hide moral and pearls identities in a class presentation, they turn to AI to generate odd, squirrels, stand-ins, uncle, merge, and ant purge.
[SPEAKER_05]: As things spiral out of control, the boys begin to wonder if the cost of lying is worth it.
[SPEAKER_05]: Don't miss Cyberskworld, book 13 in the Dead Sea Scrolls series, available now wherever books are sold.
[SPEAKER_03]: Welcome back to the Bible for kids.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm speaking with authors Troy Schmidt and Dan Lynch, you know, speaking of like revisiting stories from the Bible and kind of seeing them through a new lens, your villain Bales sounds a lot like Bale or Ball, you know,
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm sure that was very intentional.
[SPEAKER_03]: Tell us a little bit about your villain and kind of how he parallels sort of the biblical narrative and he was left sort of in a precarious situation in books six as I recall as well.
[SPEAKER_02]: He was and he's always been a little, we've always tried to keep on mysterious figure.
[SPEAKER_02]: What's his background?
[SPEAKER_02]: What's his beef?
[SPEAKER_02]: you know, why is he so mad?
[SPEAKER_02]: What is he after?
[SPEAKER_02]: What's his real goal?
[SPEAKER_02]: There's time because you look at him to go, is there something spiritual about him?
[SPEAKER_02]: Is there what's the physical about him?
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I think that becomes more clear in the final book.
[SPEAKER_02]: He is, you know, definitely a man.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you know, like all of us, you know, he needs Jesus.
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, you know,
[SPEAKER_02]: we wanted to, you know, address that when he takes off and escape, it surprised me writing it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was just like, oh wow, isn't it great when you write and you get sprized yourself?
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's like the best laid plans and outlines, you know, you can get destroyed sometimes.
[SPEAKER_02]: So then you have this great sort of wow, and then you go, okay, well, I got to figure out what to do that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's, again, this book, seven, doesn't play by the rules, sort of speak of the other books, the kind of the formula that had been set up.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so it breaks a lot of those patterns.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so it's,
[SPEAKER_02]: It's very interesting to see what happens to the bails.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, no spoilers, no spoilers.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, well, you know, so, you know, it's about the this book is about the resurrection of Jesus and I tell us a little bit about the characters as they experience that firsthand.
[SPEAKER_03]: Any hints you can give us?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I think.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it's, it's a, it's obviously the moment.
[SPEAKER_02]: of the entire Bible of all the history.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, to the first Corinthians 15, it's all about the resurrection.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's, you know, what the crucifixion means.
[SPEAKER_02]: But to just have a moment of exploring sort of the brutality of that moment, the desperation of that moment.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I think a lot of times when we think about it
[SPEAKER_02]: We tend to look at, obviously what Jesus is going through, we tend to look at what Mary is going through a couple of apostles maybe.
[SPEAKER_02]: But because this is sort of a real-time book, it was interesting to sort of look at, well, what was happening on Saturday, you know?
[SPEAKER_02]: We tend to just sort of push by Saturday and go to Sunday, obviously, it's very important, but there is a period in there.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so some of our plot plays out on Saturday.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so looking at our characters, making it all sort of work out.
[SPEAKER_02]: But you'll see all of the main characters that you would want to see.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you're sort of explored a little bit of their story again through the point of view of our characters.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it was definitely a fascinating,
[SPEAKER_02]: opportunity to look at the crucifixion just from a different point of view.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, yeah, no, I love that.
[SPEAKER_03]: And obviously, a lot of these characters have been, have had their own storylines, attach them over these past seven books with seven kid characters.
[SPEAKER_03]: They've been through a lot.
[SPEAKER_03]: Do they get to, without giving anything away, do all of their storylines play through?
[SPEAKER_03]: And do they get to be normal kids again?
[SPEAKER_03]: Or can you tell us anything about them?
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, again, they receive their powers because of the will of God, and God's will determines whether they have the powers or not, but there's definitely a timeline of when and where and why they receive those.
[SPEAKER_02]: When the story is over, there is a full completion, I would say,
[SPEAKER_02]: to their stories, and everybody understands, at least within the story, understands why this all happened, how they were used, and what was the bigger picture that came out of all of it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And isn't it what we all want to know within our time here on Earth that we have been used by God for such a time as this, borrowing Esther,
[SPEAKER_02]: and which is really one of the greatest stories in the Bible, Esther's a phenomenal, whether we'll go back in time and do that for eight.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it plays up beautifully and has a great role in that too.
[SPEAKER_02]: But using that phrase such a time as this, I think that's sort of the theme of what they understand of why this is happening to them.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and you guys, you know, you mentioned Josh, you know, Josh's lost his faith, you know, early on in the series with his mother dying in a car accident, and you learned a little bit about that in six and anything to say about his storyline and kind of his character in seven.
[SPEAKER_02]: Bull completion.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, everything is answered.
[SPEAKER_02]: and Dan is crying on a plane.
[SPEAKER_03]: All right, that'll tell you about Josh.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, all right, all right, without spoilers.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's awesome, you guys.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, again, you guys mentioned 15 plus years in the making from concept to writing to physical copy of all seven in your hands and just congrats on that being complete.
[SPEAKER_03]: I know that it must be just a huge relief and joy to kind of see all that through.
[SPEAKER_03]: Um, what's you guys thinking about anything next any kind of connection to the seven is our world that you've built that you want to keep exploring or any thoughts on that in general?
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I would say, and Dan, you can speak to this.
[SPEAKER_02]: Some of the people, when we're looking at the comments, you know, a lot of them were asking are these coming on an audio, you know, is this going to be a movie, you know, and so, you know, and again, this is why my, the partnership with Dan is so good because Dan understands
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I think in terms of this, now that that book is ready and it's out, we definitely want to explore some of these other sort of opportunities to get this book out to a wider audience.
[SPEAKER_02]: What would you say about that then?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I'm, you know, book seven comes out May 26th.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, we're recording here at the beginning of April.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're still almost two months from its actual release date.
[SPEAKER_01]: Books are being printed right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, I think, you know, it's a natural thing in a series life.
[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, Mike's experience has been that once the series is complete and the whole story is available,
[SPEAKER_01]: more people are interested in engaging with it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think we've scratched the surface with the people we want to reach with the seven.
[SPEAKER_01]: We've been talking about audiobooks.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that a logical next step this year to start seeing the titles come out in that format.
[SPEAKER_01]: So people can listen to them on streaming services and things as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we would love, of course, to see a film or a episodic video or potential with them.
[SPEAKER_01]: It would be a great story for families to be able to watch, you know, but, you know, that as you know Mike those kind of things take years and years and they do indeed.
[SPEAKER_03]: They do indeed.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's so much work and just, you know, it's such a joy again to, you know, to be able to be engaged in that work and then to see it through.
[SPEAKER_03]: And
[SPEAKER_03]: just congratulations you guys, that's super exciting.
[SPEAKER_03]: And yeah, I would love to figure out, you know, just to be you to share with our listeners how they can learn more about the series and just connect with you both.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think one of the things so really like about this book and how it connects to the others that we hadn't talked about was author out all seven books.
[SPEAKER_02]: We dropped a little hint that there are Bible verses hidden in every chapter.
[SPEAKER_02]: the answers.
[SPEAKER_02]: What were those verses in those chapters?
[SPEAKER_02]: So in a back of this new book, we have a full list of all the answers from all seven books.
[SPEAKER_02]: We just thought it was important to lace this entire series with scripture.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so what sort of naturally comes out of their
[SPEAKER_02]: verses that come right from above.
[SPEAKER_02]: So they'll get that when they get this book.
[SPEAKER_02]: That also is the tie-through all of it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Our hope is that not only did read these books, but that they read the Bible too.
[SPEAKER_02]: We have in the back of them other places that can go to watch videos to look up historical sort of things.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a whole study program that, you know, someone can do to learn more about all
[SPEAKER_02]: their connection with this book goes beyond just reading the book, but that it sort of opens up their interest and looking at other things to help them understand their faith.
[SPEAKER_02]: Love it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the books, you know, they can get the books on Amazon.
[SPEAKER_01]: probably the easiest way for everybody by books, but if you happen to have a Christian bookstore in your area, they're carried there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Christianbook.com.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Bible for Kids.com has the books available in bundles and honestly they'll ship there before
[SPEAKER_01]: they release from Amazon because we can start shipping them the moment they arrive.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Amazon has to get the books to their warehouse and their store.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you want it first order from the Bible for kids.com.
[SPEAKER_01]: But we do appreciate everybody out there that is ordering and reading and spreading the words and we hope there's a lot of kids reading the seven the summer.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's great.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, Dan Troy, thank you so much.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you for your work again.
[SPEAKER_03]: Congratulations on being done with this with this series.
[SPEAKER_03]: Listeners, be sure to follow us on Facebook or Instagram at the Bible for Kids.
[SPEAKER_03]: The Bible for Kids is now a 501c3 non-profit and we'd love to have you join us in our mission of reaching kids with a message of the Bible.
[SPEAKER_03]: Visit the Bibleforkids.com to check out our store, donate, or learn more today.
[SPEAKER_03]: We'll see you next time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for listening to the Bible for Kids Podcast with Trisha Goyer and Mike Nurekki.
[SPEAKER_00]: Be sure to connect with the Bible for kids on Instagram, Facebook, and at thebibelforkids.com.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Bible for Kids Podcast is powered by the Christian Parenting Podcast Network.
[SPEAKER_00]: Find out more at ChristianParenting.org.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our show is also available at waynation.com.