I don’t know how many of you readers caught ‘Deborah 13: Servant of God’ on BBC Three last night…I know I didn’t. I did however watch it on iPlayer last night.

I read about the documentary on Saturday and made a point of making a note that it was on. The documentary followed 13 year old Deborah and her family of 10 brothers/sisters.

The family are all evangelical Christians and live in a very remote place in Dorset. All the children are home-schooled and don’t really mix with anyone other than their siblings.

I have to admit I made a note of the documentary expecting to be annoyed by ‘bad Chrstian press’ and I’m sure had the documentary been on Channel 4 I would have been, however I was pleasently surprised and think the family pose a challenge for Christians across the board!

Firstly God is centainly on the agenda in their household! The day begins and ends with bible study as a family, every meal is accompanied by grace and at the end of the programme when their eldest son returns to university they pray for a safe journey. I loved that in their family prayer and looking at God’s word was right out there in the open and I only wish that more Christian families included that… I don’t think I’d ever thought of the idea of family bible study but I shall certainly think of it again!

Secondly the children didn’t care about looks! Right at the start of the documentary Deborah was asked if she knew who Britney or Victoria Beckham were and she didn’t know! Deborah had no interest in fashion or reservations about her looks which in my opinion was a great thing because her self worth was based on something other than our ridiculous culture!

The not so good…

Although generally I think the children were in a good family atmosphere and that the older brother being at university shows that perhaps their Christian bubble upbringing isn’t a bad thing there were a few things that I raised an eye-brow at…

Firstly the family were t-total and of the belief that alcohol shouldn’t be consumed by Christians…to which I’d probably enquire about Jesus’ first miricle of water to wine!

Secondly Deborah seemed to be very focused on the idea of people going to hell which although is technically true it seemed like she had a very negative view of the world rather than looking at the positives within it.

All in all though I thought it was a positive reflection of Christianity in todays culture and a real challenge to think about how seriously we (as Christians) take our faith

To watch it on iplayer click here