Kimberly Hayden is the author of the children's book, "Libby Loves Church." It’s her debut self-published book, which she totally attributes to God. She has a passion for working with children and has done a lot of fundraising and charity work for children's causes. Kimberly drew inspiration for the book from her own experiences as a child not wanting to go to church, and she hopes the book can help parents introduce faith to their children in a more engaging way. And hopefully as a family together in church.
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K-LOVE’s Richard: Kimberly, what inspired you to start creating the book Libby Loves Church?
Kimberly: “Well, my passion's always really lied with the fact that I love kids. I've done a lot of work with children's charities, raising money for them and doing a lot of fundraising for the public schools that my son would go to. But to be quite honest, it was just the strangest thing that happened. I was praying one night and I was just kind of rambling on to God and then all of a sudden I got this thing in my head. I mean, I'm talking, I was probably in a prayer 10 minutes deep and I was like, wait a minute, that's a book! And I grabbed my phone and I just sat there and typed this whole thing out and 20 minutes later I had the book. It was the weirdest thing, and I kind of teased that. I'm like, well, maybe it's I'm ADD and I was rambling onto God a little bit and he was like, ‘okay, girlfriend, you got to cut it out now.’ And he just plopped this into my head. But that's how this book came about.”
Richard: So how can a parent explain to their child the importance of going to church without it seeming like a chore or a task?
Kimberly: “And I think that's the most important part because as a child - and that's kind of goes back to what Libby talked about in the book - and how I felt as a child, it's just like, ‘Oh my gosh, it's so boring. I don't want to go. I just want to watch cartoons.’ And that's how I felt as a kid. And my mom's like, ‘let's go.’ But had my mom said, ‘Hey honey, we need to go to church to thank God for all the wonderful things he does for us. And he gives us like it's the trees and your puppy dog or whatever.’ So, I just feel like for truly little kids having a basic concept of something like what Libby is explained to, we go to say thank you for all the wonderful things we have and that God does for us. And then from there, it just kind of opens up the door for the child to ask more questions or the parent to start slowly teaching them about their faith.”
Richard: Alright, so do you believe that churches could do more - or better - in finding creative ways to share Jesus and still keep the interest of kids?
Kimberly: “Yeah, I do feel that there's always room for improvement with anything in life, but I do think that children need to be nurtured a lot more as they're growing relationship with Christ, especially if they're not going to church or they're not getting parents who talk to them about it at home.
I guess I just think about all the kids who may go with a friend to church and then once they leave, their parents aren't religious, they don't have a way to do anything more with that. It's like there's no further outreach to that child. So, unless the child's naturally curious or has a spark that got ignited by going to church and there's that real interest, then where does that really leave them?
So, I do believe that there could be more that a church could do for these little kids. As we've mentioned, it's like if you can grab them young, then they have a better likelihood that they'll walk with Christ for the rest of their lives.”
Richard: And looking at parents, for example, I know that sometimes at a church you'll see parents drive up and drop the children off and then come back and pick them up later hoping the children might be positively affected or find faith or find friends and so forth. But does this kind of make a disconnect when mom and dad don’t, but you do?
Kimberly: “Well, yeah, it kind of goes back to when I was a kid, my dad would always be like, do as I say, not as I do. So, it's like, well wait a minute, you want me to go do this? But they don't see them being godly or it's like, well wait a minute. So, I do feel that that can be very confusing for a child.”
Kimberly believes the earlier kids are exposed to the message of Jesus, the better. “You never think about introducing Christ and everything into a two-year old's life, but it needs to start that young.” And honoring Jesus as a parent – and seeing your child grow in faith in a bible-believing church is a win-win... with eternal results.
In our complete podcast interview just below, Kimberly shares who Libby is more-or-less modeled around and the fun of writing a book that can make a real difference.
