| NOAH: Web-based ministry for families streams around the globe | |||||
| FROM PAGE B1 other resources. He has completed Genesis through the Book of Ruth plus two New Testament books, Luke and Acts. For example, in the Exodus, he does a study of each plague and illustrates it, providing animation. He draws the cartoon animal, scans it into the computer and uses an animation software program to complete the illustration. "Kids love this animation," Valentine said. Games, activities and coloring pages designed by Uncle Noah may be printed off the site for use in classes or done in class on the computer. It took three years and several experiments to get the Internet start-up going, but the Web site ChildrensBibleStudy.com ' was officially launched in January 2001. The Uncle Noah Family Radio program began May 6, 2007, on KJAK FM92.7. Online, the "Ask Uncle Noah" part is popular, Mathis said. The programs are streaming, making them MP3 available. "He always tries to make his answers biblical," Mathis said, noting that they are working on making a robot that can answer the questions in Uncle Noah's words since many of the same questions are asked repeatedly. All this creativity and technology takes place in a small bedroom/office in the Valentine home. Several churches and individuals |
A year ago, Charles Valentine extended his Uncle Noah Bible adult ministry on computer by starting Uncle Noah Family Radio, which can be downloaded from the Internet or heard live from 11:00 to 11:30 a.m. on Sundays on KJAK FM 92.7.
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began working as a
writer/ illustrator for the extension department at Sunset
School of Preaching, and it was then that he first began his Noah's Ark publication that has
evolved into the Web-based children's ministry. Ken Miller, who was education minister at Sunset Church of Christ in late 1970s and early 1980s when Valentine was at the preaching school, remains among Valentine's enthusiastic fans. "Charles and I had basically the same philosophy about fifth- and sixth-graders . in Bible classes. The typical class material was fill in the blanks and not very challenging to fifth- and sixth-graders. We believed they could accomplish a lot more. "By the time I got there, Charles had already developed a good program called JAWS (Junior Action Winners Society)." Miller, who retired as professor of religious education at Harding University in Arkansas and has moved back to Lubbock, said Valentine's innovative, out-of-the-box teaching was highly successful. He trained an outstanding team of teachers at Sunset. "It was so effective that if I had people coming in from other congregations wanting to know teaching programs, I would invite them to this Wednesday night class that Charles |
supervised," he said. And this program was accomplished before Uncle Noah and the computers. "The Uncle Noah program has challenging and fun learning type of material," Miller said. In the early 1990s, Valentine began teaching art in the Lubbock Christian School. As a result, he was involved in an art exchange travel program. Three years later, he served on the Character Counts Seminars team that visited cities in Russia and Ukraine. He has some drawings in his office that Russian students made. Basically, Valentine is a Bible teacher whose mind brims constantly with ideas for more puzzles, games and activities presented with animation and artistic style that appeals to children and adults. He also has some doctrinal studies available.
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