JOHNSTOWN, Pa. – Josh Knipple wants to see churches filled with children again.
And it’s his hope that his new book, “Eli Goes To Church,” will help youngsters develop a better understanding of church, faith and living in Jesus’ image as seen through the eyes of a child.
Knipple, who serves as pastor and outreach coordinator for Crucified Ministries, said the book has been five years in the making. The title character is named after his son Eli.
“I wrote it when Eli was 1, and my wife (Lindsey) and I were praying over raising him in the church and what that would look like,” the 39-year-old Richland Township resident said.
“We know that kids ask all sorts of questions, so I thought the best way to reach our own kids is to write a story for them.”
‘Faith like a child’
The story follows Eli, who wakes up on Sunday morning and his parents tell him it’s time for church.
“He starts out asking why they go to church,” Knipple said.
“At church, he asks who the people are, why they sing and why they pray. It’s a conversation back and forth between Eli and his parents, and they’re answering questions in a simple way that a kid can understand.”
At the conclusion of church, the pastor tells the congregation to go and be the light, and Eli questions what that means.
“It then cuts to Eli being at school the next day and shows how he treats others,” Knipple said.
“It finishes with Eli coming home at the end of the day and being excited because he got to be the light. You have Mom and Dad saying that it’s that simple – faith like a child.”
‘Focused on the story’
But it wasn’t Knipple’s original intention to see the story turned into a book.
“I was just going to write a story for Eli and share it with him,” he said. “It was something he could look through and cherish himself.”
It wasn’t until he showed the story to friend and illustrator Thyra Jacobs that the idea came to fruition.
“She started putting pictures to it, and when she started doing that, it started to become a reality,” he said.
“Thyra grew up in church, too. Her dad’s a pastor and my dad’s a pastor, so she used visual ideas from both concepts of what we grew up with in church and what it looked like to us. We wanted it to be something that kids could respond to and have illustrations to keep them focused on the story.”
Jacobs, a resident of Richland Township, said it was a long process in creating the illustrations.
“There was a lot of messaging back and forth with ideas, doing a lot of sketching and talking about what style we wanted for the book,” she said.
“Primarily, I work in pen-and- watercolor illustration and Josh loved it.”
For her drawings, Jacobs said she pulled inspiration from Eli, as well as people she knew from church.
“I based the pastor on how my dad looked and dressed, and on one of the pages, I drew an elderly church lady and she’s the spitting image of my grandmother, who was the quintessential church lady,” Jacobs said.
“It was a lot of self-reflection on my own childhood church experiences and really putting that into the illustrations.”
Jacobs said she loved helping to create the book.
“There was kind of a balance between professional stress about wanting to make the best illustrations and the best-quality product I could, but it also was really nostalgic for me,” she said. “It also was a fulfillment of a childhood dream that I’ve had of being a children’s book illustrator because this is the first book I’ve illustrated.”
‘It has blown me away’
The book, which is geared toward children ages 4 to 11, was published by Christian Faith Publishing and released in May.
It’s available for purchase in bookstores and online at Amazon, the Apple iTunes store and Barnes and Noble.
Knipple said feedback has been positive.
“It has blown me away,” he said.
“I had one person reach out and say their grandkids want to go to church with them for the first time in a long time after reading it. A dad told me this has opened up questions to talk about faith in their home. There’s a church in South Carolina that wants to order 50 copies, and people across the country are getting it, so this is something I never expected.”
Along with Eli, 6, Knipple is the father of Silas, 4, and Elliston and Evans, 20-month-old twins.
Next stop: The beach
He said more books are likely.
“Our 4-year-old is asking when his book is coming out,” he said.
“I’ve started the very basics on a book called ‘Silas Goes To The Beach.’ One of the greatest lessons I ever learned about faith was at the beach and sitting there at night with my dad, and him talking about the waves and ocean and images of God’s love through the waves, so that’s where my mind is going next.”
For more information on “Eli Goes To Church” or purchasing it, email Knipple at [email protected].
