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Duane Montague

@dsmontague

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I tell stories about faith, family, American history, popular culture, & finding joy in the everyday.

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For the past several months, I've been working on something that's especially close to my heart.

It's called “What About Salvation?” A workbook for kids (and their parents!) and it comes out this Friday!

Years ago, when I was a kids' pastor, I spent a lot of time thinking about how we help children understand the big questions of faith. Not just teaching them the right answers, but helping them understand what those answers actually mean for their lives.

Because kids have questions. BIG questions.

What does it mean to be saved? Why do we need Jesus? What does it mean to follow Him? And what does all of this have to do with the lives we're living right now?

I believe kids deserve more than a quick answer and a pat on the head. They deserve thoughtful, honest conversations about the things that matter most.

That's the heart behind the WHAT ABOUT? books. They're designed to help parents and kids explore what the Bible says together, with questions, activities, illustrations, and plenty of room for conversation.

"What About Salvation?" is the newest book in the series, and I'm excited to finally share it with you.

It arrives THIS Friday, October 16!

Big questions deserve honest answers. And kids deserve to be part of the conversation. ❤️

#WhatAboutBooks #WhatAboutSalvation #ChristianParenting #FaithAndFamily #KidsAndFaith #StorytellerofLegacy taken in Chino Hills, California by @dsmontague

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3 days ago

I've been working on something for a while, and I'm finally getting close enough to share it! 😊

It has to do with kids.
It has to do with faith.
And it has a lot to do with the questions kids ask when we actually give them permission to ask them.

After years of working with kids and families, I've learned that kids are capable of handling far bigger ideas than we sometimes give them credit for.

So, I've been working on something that takes some really big ideas about God, Jesus, faith, and what it means to follow Him—and puts them into words kids can actually understand.

I'm pretty passionate about helping people of all ages understand just how amazing and wonderful a relationship with Jesus Christ can be. I am super excited about where this is going, because it combines so much of what I love (writing, drawing, sharing my faith) into something...

Something new.

(I AM SO EXCITED.)

#FaithAndFamily #ParentingJourney #StorytellerOfLegacy #WhatAbout May be a graphic of text taken in Chino Hills, California by @dsmontague

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17 days ago

70 days until Christmas. 🎄

Every year, we promise ourselves we’ll slow down and savor it this time.

The lights. The music. The old traditions. The little moments we don’t realize we’ll miss until they’re gone.

I’ve written two books about making room for what matters at Christmas. Over the next several weeks, I’ll be sharing a little of both.

But today, I’m wondering:

What’s one little thing that makes Christmas feel like Christmas to you? 🎄

#christmasiscoming🎄 #ChristmasTraditions #ChristmasBooks #FindYourJoy taken in Chino Hills, California by @dsmontague

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8 hours ago

On the night of October 15, 1776, Hugh Mercer crossed to Staten Island with a small force and a simple plan: “Surprising them was therefore the first object.”

Just before dawn, they struck.

Mercer wrote that the surprise “was effected this morning at break of day.” The troops and Loyalist militia broke almost immediately. Several were killed or wounded. The Americans seized prisoners (including officers) and began pulling intelligence out of them immediately.

One captured Hessian soldier told Mercer that “some new troops landed last Monday,” confirming Howe was reinforcing New York for the next phase of the campaign. Another reported that the fort on the island held “about 600 men,” though many were sick.

There was one Hessian who didn’t want to fight at all.

He said he had “come over with the first of the Hessians,” but had slipped away the moment he landed. Forced into service in Hesse‑Cassel, pressed into uniform by his prince, he had run “the day they landed” and spent ten days hiding among Staten Island’s farms. He begged Mercer not to send him back.

Then came the counterattack.

British troops moved fast, trying to cut off Mercer’s retreat to the boats. The Americans fell back under pressure, carrying their prisoners no with them. Mercer wrote that the enemy pursued “with spirit,” firing from the ridges as the Continentals scrambled down to the shore.

They pushed off just ahead of the British line.

By mid-morning the next day, the boats were back across the water. His prisoners secured, Mercer wrote to Washington that his men were exhausted but alive. They had crossed, struck, captured, and escaped: all within a single night and morning.

October 15, 1776 was not a history-making day, but it was the moment one Hessian found his way out a war her never wanted to be part of anyway. 🇺🇸

————————

If you enjoy rediscovering the moments we’ve forgotten, follow along for more stories from America’s past. 🇺🇸

#America250 #StorytellerofLegacy #USHistory #ForgottenHistory taken in Staten Island, New York by @dsmontague

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15 hours ago

One thing I learned during my years as a kids’ pastor is that children are capable of wrestling with some pretty big ideas.

Sometimes, we underestimate them.

We simplify things until the meaning gets lost. We give them an answer without taking the time to help them understand it. Or we assume that if they can repeat the right words, they’ve grasped what those words mean.

But there’s a difference between knowing an answer and beginning to understand it.

Take the word protoevangelium, for example.

Go ahead. Try saying it three times fast. 😂

It’s a theological term for the first announcement of the gospel, found in Genesis 3:15. And it opens the door to a beautiful truth: even when sin broke our relationship with God, He already had a plan to make things right.

Someone was coming. Someone who would defeat sin and evil. Someone who would fix what was broken.

That someone was Jesus.

That’s a pretty big idea to explain to a child. But we don’t have to shy away from big ideas. We just have to find ways to help kids understand them.

That’s one of the reasons I created the What About? books. They’re designed to help parents and kids explore what the Bible says together, with Scripture, questions, illustrations, activities, and plenty of room for conversation.

They’re not homework. They’re not tests. They’re invitations to explore the big questions of faith together.

What About Salvation? arrives this Friday, October 16!

Because kids can handle big theology. And those conversations are worth having. ❤️

#WhatAboutBooks #FaithAndFamily #ChristianParenting #StorytellerofLegacy taken in Chino Hills, California by @dsmontague

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2 days ago

The trailer for "The Magcian's Nephew" just dropped. And while it starts off feeling like Greta Gerwig might do okay with the #CSLewis masterpiece about #Narnia's creation, it goes off the rails once Digory and Polly discover Uncle Andrew.

And just when it feels a lot like a preview for a Doctor Who episode starring children, Led Zeppelin lets rip a guitar solo. Nothing says "The Chronicles of Narnia" better than "Stairway to Heaven," a song about a woman who believes she can buy her way to salvation

Aslan makes a brief cameo at the end as a starry blur roaring into corporeal form, which, as anyone who has ever read and loved the book like Gerwig says she has, is not how Aslan ever appears. Lewis always--always--makes clear that Aslan is a real, flesh-and-blood lion.

I was already worried. This trailer is getting praise for being "a bold and thematically perfect decision, blending rock legend with fantasy epic" from Entertainment Weekly and others.

This truly makes me sad.

Watch it for yourself, then let me know your thoughts…

#TheMagiciansNephew #Netflix by @dsmontague

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2 days ago

We'd light the candles on the path
And line them by the door
Put paper bats above the lights
And music on the porch
The same old candy bowl came out
The one we'd had for years
And somehow every Halloween
The whole family was here

The kids got older one by one
Our lives got rearranged
The costumes stopped appearing
And the little voices changed
We still put out the candy bowl
For trick or treaters who might come
We hope for kids who might stop by
Before the night is done

There's not as much activity
On our quiet little street
But soon there'll be some grandkids
In costumes and running feet

People talk about Christmas
People talk about Thanksgiving
About the empty chairs
And how the years keep moving
But nobody talks about past Halloweens
And the traditions that disappear

And though the house is quieter
And the children have grown
We still gather every October
We still call each other home

🎃 ❤

How about you? Any #Halloween traditions you miss? I have so many! 🥺🎃

#Nostalgia #FamilyTraditions #SpookySeason May be an image of text taken in Renton by @dsmontague

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3 days ago

One of the things I learned after more than a decade in kids ministry is that kids can handle big ideas. REALLY BIG ONES.

They can think about God, sin, salvation, faith, doubt, forgiveness, prayer, Scripture, and what it means to follow Jesus. We don't need to make those things smaller just because they're kids. We need to explain them clearly.

I saw it over and over again with thousands of kids.

When you stop talking down to them and start talking to them, something changes. They lean in a little bit closer and you can see that they're suddenly making connections you didn't expect. The best part? It's when you can see the kids understand something the adults in the room are still trying to figure out.

That's a big part of why I created WHAT ABOUT?

I don't want to turn big ideas about God into cute little lessons kids will outgrow. I want to give them real theology, clear language, honest answers, and plenty of room to say, “Okay, but what about this?”

Kids have big questions about our really big God, and they should always be part of the conversation. I think it's why Jesus said we all need to come to Him like kids. Not because they're sweet and innocent (if you have kids, you know exactly what I mean).

But because kids are really okay with the biggest ideas about faith.

It starts with giving them a big theological idea and explaining why it matters. Show them what the Bible says, connect it to something they understand and why it fits with their every day life. (Like, how it relates to what they might experience after school on some random Friday in October.)

Then give them room to ask questions.

You might be surprised by the questions. But you'll be blown away by what they can grasp. ☺️

#WhatAbout #WhatAboutSeries #ChristianParenting #KidsMinistry #FaithAndFamily #StorytellerofLegacy May be a graphic of child and text taken in Chino Hills, California by @dsmontague

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13 days ago

Kids ask really big questions. We shouldn’t be afraid of giving them really big answers.

That’s a big part of why I created the What About? books.

Kids don’t just want to know what Christians believe. They want to know why.

Why do I need Jesus?
What does salvation actually mean?
Why do people get baptized?
What does it mean to follow Jesus?

I’ve always believed kids are capable of handling those questions. Kids don’t need us to make faith smaller—not at all, in fact.

We just need to give them a way to explore it.

I love exploring big ideas and letting my mind ask questions. It’s why I can write about history and Narnia and Disney AND still know that the single greatest moment in my life was saying yes to Jesus when I was six years old.

That’s why I’m creating books that give kids and the adults who love them a place to ask questions, open the Bible, talk honestly, and discover what God says together.

God isn’t afraid of their questions. 😊
We shouldn’t be either. ❤️

What About Salvation? is the newest book in the series, and I’m very excited about where this project is going. Honestly. So very excited.

#WhatAbout #StorytellerofLegacy #FaithQuestions #FaithAndFamily taken in Chino Hills, California by @dsmontague

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7 days ago

On October 11, 1776, Benedict Arnold lost the battle, but it may have saved the war.

His fleet was a made up of green lumber, half-finished galleys, and soldiers who'd never been on a ship. The British had guns and experience, and were determined to take Fort Ticonderoga. So Arnold hid, tucking his boats into the channel behind Valcour Island, out of sight of the main lake.

On the morning of the 11th, he sent Col. Edward Wigglesworth out in a yawl to watch the British come down. Wigglesworth rowed out, counted sails, and returned to report that they had rounded the island.

Half an hour later, the shooting started. The Royal Savage ran aground "by missing stays." Then came a "most terrible fire without the least intermission," lasting until half past five. About fifty Americans were killed or wounded.

That night, Arnold slipped what was left of his fleet past the British line, rowing in the dark. Wigglesworth wrote that they "cleared the enemy without being discovered."

He never says how.

It didn't save the fleet. Two days later, Arnold beached his flagship and burned it rather than let it be taken. But for some unexplained reason, the British once again hesitated. They won the victory at Valcour, took Crown Point, but never advanced to Ticonderoga. Whether it was the strength of the American forces or the lateness of the season, they drew back.

Because they never pushed on to Ticonderoga, the invasion down the Hudson waited another year. When they arrived at Saratoga, Gates was ready—and the victory there became a turning point in the Revolution.

Ebenezer Parkman, a New England minister, whose diary documented nearly every moment of 1776, wrote the news he’d heard from a passing artillery captain: "our Fleet is shattered."

He had no idea what it had bought. 🇺🇸

—————————

If you enjoy rediscovering the moments we've forgotten, follow along for more stories from America's past. 🇺🇸

#America250 #ForgottenHistory #StorytellerOfLegacy #NewYork #USHistory #AmericanRevolution taken in Valcour Island by @dsmontague

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5 days ago

On October 10, 1776, fifteen small vessels sat hidden behind a rocky island on Lake Champlain, waiting for twenty-five of the King’s ships.

Benedict Arnold had chosen his ground with care: a narrow channel on the island’s western side, out of sight of anyone sailing the main lake. A guard boat crept to the island’s northern tip each day to watch for sails.

North of him, the British fleet dropped anchor for the night under Captain Thomas Pringle. General Carleton would later claim he never knew where Arnold lay. Yet an eyewitness account that surfaced in 2016 says that at seven that evening, the writer went aboard the flagship Maria and learned of “the Enemy’s being at the Isle of Valcour.”

If so, both sides may have spent that night knowing exactly where the other was.

Arnold’s men waited in the dark behind the island. The British waited on the open lake. Neither could know what the morning would bring.

They could not know that the delay bought on these waters would keep the British off the Hudson until the next year. They could not know it would help set the stage for Saratoga, a victory that helped bring France into the war.

All of that was still hidden beyond the horizon.

History remembers the battle. The night before is easier to forget. Yet courage lives there too: in the darkness, the uncertainty, and the long hours before the first shot.

On October 10, 1776, a hodgepodge fleet waited, and courage sat quietly at anchor in the dark. 🇺🇸

#America250 #ForgottenHistory #ValcourIsland #AmericanRevolution #StorytellerOfLegacy taken in Valcour Island by @dsmontague

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6 days ago

On October 9, 1776 British guns thundered on the Hudson as warships tore past Washington's forts. Three thousand miles west, the noise was firecrackers.

On this day, Franciscan friars Francisco Palóu and Pedro Benito Cambón formally dedicated Mission San Francisco de Asís at the edge of the continent, beside a stream the Spanish had named for Our Lady of Sorrows: Dolores.”

The friars originally wanted to dedicate on October 4, the feast of St. Francis, but the founding stalled for weeks. By one account, they waited on word from a Spanish captain who opposed another mission. Word never came, so they went ahead.

Their people had earned this. Settlers from Mexico had trudged a thousand miles with the Anza expedition to reach this windswept shore. Palóu said the first Mass in June under a brush shelter. On September 17, Lt. José Joaquín Moraga raised his sword to the four directions and claimed the land for King Carlos III at The Presidio.

Finally, though, they had their mission.

The original church was made of wooden poles plastered with mud under a thatched roof. Yet the day had flags, a feast, a parade, and firecrackers over a place that would one day be San Francisco.

Far from thirteen former colonies embroiled in a war for independence, a handful of friars and families, made a bold claim on the western edge of the map and founded one of the greatest cities in the world.

Palóu would become known as the father of California history, the man who helped found the place and wrote it down. The mud-and-thatch church he dedicated is long gone, but the gleaming white adobe building built in 1791 still stands.

Today, it’s the oldest intact building in San Francisco, a reminder that the year 1776 was bigger than what we often remember.

#America250 #StorytellerOfLegacy #ForgottenHistory #SanFrancisco #SanFranciscoDeAsís #USHistory taken in San Francisco, California by @dsmontague

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7 days ago