Our Story
Over the course of my fifteen years as a children’s pastor, I noticed a trend—puzzling at first and then brought into relief by a simple observation. Young kids loved the Bible, but by 2nd–4th grade, their excitement faded. Why? Storybook Bibles suddenly felt too young, yet children’s Bibles were too advanced—written at a high-school reading level, printed in tiny fonts, and hundreds of pages long.
What kids needed was a bridge—something between storybook Bibles and full translations. That gap was where Kaleidoscope was born.
Early Days
The idea for Kaleidoscope sat with me for the better part of a year and eventually made its way into four short stories from the Book of Acts—stories no storybook Bible covered.
As I shared this resource with children in my church, the reception was immediate: kids loved them! The stories seemed to awaken something in them that said, I can learn the Bible, and it can be a lot of fun.
But even at that point, I had only pictured using Kaleidoscope in my local church. It hadn’t crossed my mind to dream bigger than that. That is until a parent mentioned, “There’s nothing like this. People outside our church need this.”
Expanding Kaleidoscope outside my church seemed great, but there was something even greater in our family’s life at that moment. We were expecting an unexpected baby number four. A fourth child was clearly in God’s plans, but it was not in ours. We already had three small children running us ragged and the prospect of a fourth felt like the simultaneous death of several dreams. Starting a side-hustle on top of pastoring and raising a family, as exciting as it seemed, felt impossible.
Then, on January 13th, 2020, Charlotte Ammen was born. That evening, after our other three had come to meet their new sister, I rocked my daughter in the corner of our dark hospital room and felt at peace. Things would be ok. Somehow the reality of holding her was less frightening than I imagined. God was with us, and I didn’t have to put my plans on hold waiting for a fictitious moment when life would “get easier.” Why wouldn’t I trust God to do what I had deemed “impossible”?
Kickstarter
Seven weeks later, on March 1st, I launched a Kickstarter campaign to help fund the launch of Kaleidoscope. I knew the problem well: children needed a transitional resource to support them as growing readers. But a vulnerable, cliffhanger of a question still lingered in my mind: Would others, outside of a few kind parents in our church, feel the same?
The answer came quickly… they did. For the next ten days, I watched as the numbers on our Kickstarter climbed. At first there were the predictable friends and family (thanks, Mom!). Then came loose acquaintances. And then, names of people I’d never met began piling up. Slowly I allowed myself to believe, This might actually happen!
By March 10th, we were fully funded. And then, the unexpected happened.
The following day, on March 11th, our city began to close as the reality of the COVID pandemic set in.
Becoming a Pandemic Business
Before the pandemic, I’d imagined starting Kaleidoscope on nights and weekends, working around my full-time job. But over the next eight months, my church responsibilities dried up. Looking back, full-time ministry and starting a business would have been a disaster for my family. God had another, better plan. I’d now have the better part of eight months to set our new company in motion.
Month after month, I toiled away in my makeshift basement office. My wife and I alternated the responsibility of keeping the children entertained or doing “virtual school” even though our oldest was only in kindergarten. As copies of our first book, Good News: The Story of Acts, became available, we hand-delivered them to local customers, mostly as a way to pass the time.
But as bored as we all became, an awakening began around the world in 2020. A glimmer of hope in a desert—how fitting for our God! Christian parents had a collective “aha” moment: The local church cannot provide everything my child needs to grow in Christ. I need to do more at home. Parents everywhere saw the same opportunity we saw and wanted to share the gospel with their children in a time when life felt hopeless.
I’m grateful for God’s perfect timing. If I had started Kaleidoscope even one month earlier, I would have quickly realized I didn’t have the time, knowledge, or energy to begin a company. If I had waited until Charlotte was a few years old and the pandemic had passed, I may have missed that critical “aha” moment.
We like to say around Kaleidoscope that, while we wouldn’t wish a pandemic on anyone, we would not exist without the pandemic.
Growing Pains
By the end of 2020 we had produced three books and I had enough confidence to think, This thing might actually work.
Gradually, the pandemic restrictions eased. My full-time church job awaited me, now with the addition of a full-time start-up company. This was not sustainable. And yet, Kaleidoscope was still a long way from profitability, let alone being able to pay me a salary.
Difficult decisions had to be made in a hurry. We could stay in full-time ministry and allow Kaleidoscope to fade just as quickly as it appeared, or we would make one of the most challenging decisions of our life. We chose the latter. In the summer of 2021, we moved our family of six four hours away to take a part-time children’s pastor role at a small church plant, enabling me to still continue the work of Kaleidoscope.
Close friends said we were being rash. Some accused me of leading my family into financial ruin. Yes, I thought, but if I succumb to fear, we’ll never know what could have been. To me, it felt riskier to play it safe than to go see how God might work.
At first, we weren’t sure where the money would come from, but we knew the worst place we would end up was in God’s hands. We felt pretty good about that. Month by month we found our footing, and in the fall of 2022 we took our first (small!) paycheck from Kaleidoscope.
Yoto
At the end of 2022, our customers asked a new question we’d never heard before: “When will you offer audiobooks?” While customers loved our books, children’s audio was quickly becoming their priority. The opportunity intrigued us. With audio, we could get solid biblical content into more homes. But we had more questions than answers. I’d never produced an audiobook. But, then again, until the spring of 2020 I’d never written a book either. I knew we could figure it out, but which platforms would we want to be on? And, perhaps a better question: would any of those platforms actually want us?
By the beginning of 2024, we had our answer with a generous invitation from Yoto to become their first biblical content. God provided a platform for us on one of the fastest growing children’s toys of all time. Yoto and Kaleidoscope felt like a partnership only the Lord could dream up, and it has been nothing but spectacular.
To date, close to 100,000 Kaleidoscope Yoto Cards have been sold worldwide. I could have never dreamed that our work would get such broad and recognizable exposure. What began as a curiosity in 2018 (How do we keep growing readers engaged in God’s Word?) found its answer in Yoto.
More important to me than the number of cards we’ve sold is the way you’re using them in your homes. Yoto has a metric known as a “Stickiness Score.” Kaleidoscope consistently scores between a 5 and a 6, meaning the average card has been listened to 5-6 times! That’s a half-million times a child has engaged with biblical content on their Yoto player. Praise be to God.
The Future
When I think of our next five years, I’m always drawn back to a memory of the first child I shared Kaleidoscope with, Evie. I delivered a stapled-together rough draft of Good News to her home. That evening, her parents texted me, she read the whole thing… in one day! Evie called it her Bible. Our deepest desire at Kaleidoscope is to be a part of what God is doing in the life of children like Evie—that they would know that our God is their God.
Today, I’m still the same Chris who was a children’s pastor with a wild dream. You can still find me most Sundays in the children’s wing of my local church. I like to say that I am now “the world’s best volunteer.” Lord willing, I’ll teach children the Bible every day of my life. I’ve always believed that some of God’s most beautiful work begins at childhood. Children are not only the most ripe mission field of the church, but they remind us of the kingdom of God—curious and humble.
And with every book, Yoto Card, journal, and podcast we make, I think of you and your children. I’m praying for you, and asking God to continue to do more than what our eyes can see.