Before school started this year, our church was notified that several public schools would be willing to have Good News Clubs in their schools. Good News Clubs is a Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF) out reach program. CEF’s goal is “to reach the largest people group . . . Children”. Good News Clubs are designed to be held in neighborhoods or in schools. According to Child Evangelism Fellowship:
The Supreme Court ruled in 2001 in Good News Clubs v. Milford Central School that Good News Clubs can meet in public schools after school hours on the same terms as other community groups.
I help with the Briarglen Public School Good News Club and today was our second meeting. We had between 15 and 20 elementary school kids. We start out with the kids signing in (because kids are not allowed to attend without written parental permission) and then we have a snack. After the snack, we file down the hallway to library where the kids sing songs and hear a Bible story. We also teach a Bible verse each week and play review games with the verses they learn. Then we have a short cliff hanging missionary story. At the end, the kids get prizes for being able to say the previous week’s memory verse.
This is a really good program for teaching unchurched kids about the Bible. All the stories are pre-planned and each one is designed to explain who each member of the God Head is, who Man is and what sin is and how it affects our relationship with God.
There are two families and two individuals who help with our Club. Each of us take turns with the different aspects of the club. For the first month, I am responsible for telling the missionary story and then I will switch and do something else. They say that a vast majority of Christians became Christians when they were kids. I hope that the Lord uses this Club to draw more kids to Him.
4 comments:
It's neat to hear about the Good News Clubs! Is this your first year to help with them? It sounds like you get curriculum from CEF? Does it have the missionary story in it? Do you have to leave work early for the club? Do I have enough questions?!!!
I'm interested especially in the misssionary stories because I'm looking for good ones to use in AWANA. I actually used an old CEF story my mom had for the last two weeks. The kids really enjoyed it.
Yes, this is my first year to particiate and yes I do leave work early. (I leave at 3:00pm which is 2.5 hrs early.) I'll get back to you on the missionary story.
Good News club is FUN!! We held one at Blue Ridge Elementary last year and we will be starting it up again in a few weeks. I'm glad you had so many kids! Our main problem is getting kids to come. The school has given us a hard time about promoting it. How do you promote yours? We wanted to send info home with the kids so the parents would know about the club, but the teachers aren't very cooperative.
I looked at the stories listed on CEF's website. I'm so glad you mentioned them because they look perfect for my AWANA class! A lady at my church may have some of them, but if not I think I'll order a couple of the 5 part stories. Which one are you doing?
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