Name of Book: If Jesus Came to My House

Author: Joan G. Thomas

Illustrator: Lori McElrath-Eslick

Publisher : Harper Blessings; Harper Collins

Audience: Ages 3 and up

Summary: A boy shares all of the activities he would do if Jesus were a visitor at his house, including sharing toys, making tea, playing with pets, visiting the garden, eating fresh apples, and more. The boy then shares that because Jesus is not physically at his house, he can treat his friends as if they were Jesus, and even go to Jesus’ house to visit and worship him.

Literary elements at work in the story: The story is told through a continuous poem, from the first person point of view of the boy. The story portrays a little boy playing with his friend Jesus, who is a little boy just like him. The story takes place at the boy’s home and yard, as and the boy’s church is also mentioned in the story.

The book shares valuable Biblical and theological themes, like: tithing, hospitality, Imago Dei, trusting God, prayer and worship, care for creation.

How does the perspective on gender/race/culture/economic/ability make a difference to the story? The house, yard and church all depict a family with means, middle to upper-middle class family. The boy wishes Jesus would show up a little boy like him, so Jesus is portrayed as a young white boy throughout most of the book. The male pronoun is used to describe God throughout the book because God is depicted through Jesus.

Scripture: John 20:31

Theology: God became a person, Jesus Christ, and lived with us human beings on earth. He is the way God reached out to us, to turn us back toward God. Jesus was totally human, meaning that he experienced everything that we experience. Because of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, we are guaranteed new life in Christ and therefore we are called to share the love of Christ in all that we do.

Faith Talk Questions:

1. What would you do with Jesus if Jesus came to your house?
2. Does Jesus look like you and me?
3. Does God look like you and me?
4. When we go about our everyday, should we live as if Jesus was standing right by our side?
5. What does living like Jesus mean for you and me?

If Jesus Came to My House by Storypath is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.