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For more than a decade, KiDs Beach Club® has held a special place in the heart of Lisa Rowlette. “Bringing Jesus into schools and putting Bibles into every child’s hand and heart is the epitome of the Great Commission,” Rowlette said.

With the Great Commission being a special calling from Jesus to every believer, Rowlette found a creative way to carry that out in her own life by holding an estate sale and donating the proceeds to KiDs Beach Club® so that hundreds of children can get Bibles and hear a clear presentation of the gospel each week in their public school.

“Preparing for an estate sale after my husband’s death was a sad but necessary task, but the idea to donate all the proceeds to KBC brought some joy into an otherwise difficult situation,” Rowlette said. “That kitchen table that contained happy memories but wouldn’t fit into my new home? Its sale put Bibles into almost a dozen hands! All in all, the proceeds from the sale were enough to support one Beach Club for a year!”

Rowlette is hoping that this will encourage other KBC volunteers, donors and parents to hold their own estate sale or even regular garage sale and get creative to connect more and more kids to Christ by putting Bibles in their hands.

“I can envision the volunteers who work together in a certain KBC banding together for a garage sale to benefit their club.” Rowlette said. “Sometimes churches host rummage sales for various worthy causes. What cause is more worthy than this? We don’t all have extra money in our accounts to donate, but it seems everyone has things they really want to let go. Turn that junk into the treasure of God’s word by having a sale. I believe it will bless you as it blessed me.”

KiDs Beach Club® has hired Stefanie Aldrich as its first mobilizer. She will be instrumental in development and growth strategies as the organization focuses on expansion into new territories. She will serve a dual role as a club relations specialist for the South Texas region, including Houston. 

Aldrich comes to KIDs Beach Club® with more than 10 years of experience in public relations, marketing, strategy and event management. Her business experience includes founder and strategic planner of Relev8 and as an event representative with Women of Faith. Her ministry experience includes women’s ministry director, special events planner and administrative assistant.

She has been married to Dan for 23 years. They love to travel and complete “DIY” projects together. The couple has three children – Alyssa, Stephen and Patrick – and two grandchildren – Averie and Sailor – with another grandson – Abram – on the way in September.

Aldrich is a champion of concept and commission; she believes it’s an exciting time to be a part of KiDs Beach Club®, witnessing its mission and vision expand for a generational impact.

Your support of our Bibles for Beach Club program makes it possible for KiDs Beach Club® to give a KBC Explorer’s Study Bible to every child in every Beach Club, but that is only a starting point for the nearly 2,700 volunteers who serve in Beach Club.

Every week, they teach the Bible to the many unchurched children who attend our after-school Bible clubs that meet in their public school. Did you know that more than 62 percent of children who attend Beach Club do not regularly attend church, and the Bible you partner with us to give them is likely the first Bible they have ever received? It may even be the first Bible in their home.

So, it is important that our volunteers introduce them to the Bible and teach them how to use it. We want them to read from God’s word to find out how much He loves them by providing a way to get to know Him through His son Jesus Christ. We want children to know that He desires to have a personal relationship with each of them.

Ivy Lassiter, the children’s minister at First Baptist Church in Richardson, Texas, which sponsors the Beach Club at Northrich Elementary, led the Bible lesson for the club’s Great Treasure Day this past fall. She offered kids a couple of reasons why she loves the Bible and considers it the “best thing ever.”

“One of the first reasons is that every single word in this book – every single word – is there because God wanted it to be there,” she said. “I just think it’s kind of amazing that God, who had the creativity to create our whole universe and had the creativity to create you and has the power to do anything; that amazing God goes, ‘these are the words that I want My people to read; these are the things that I want them to know about Me’ and He puts them in a book for us.”

Lassiter explained that everything people want to know about God and what He thinks about us is in the Bible. “It’s all in there because God, our humongous God, wanted it to be there,” she said.

The second thing she thinks is so amazing about the Bible is found in Hebrews 4:12, which, in the KBC Study Bible, says, “For the word of God is living and powerful.” Another translation reads, “God’s word is alive and active.” She explained that means that the word of God can never get old and even though it was written a long time ago, it remains just as true today as the day it was written.

“I’m reading it to my son Warren, who is 5, and he can learn something about the Bible,” Lassiter told the Beach Club. “But then my dad, who is 65, can read those same verses and those same stories and can learn something from it. I can’t think of another book in the entire world that a 5-year-old can read, and a 65-year-old can read and can still learn something and grow from. That is amazing!”

Lassiter said she has been studying the Bible on her own for something like 20 years, but every time she reads it, she sees something new or finds different meaning in something she had previously read. She asked Beach Club volunteer Sherry Hobbs how long she has been reading the Bible, and she told the kids she has been reading the Bible for “many, many decades,” but learned something new during her devotional time just that morning.

Molly Greenlee, one of the two children’s pastors at CHRIST Church in Irving, Texas, tells the kids in the two Beach Clubs her church sponsors that the Bible is the most important thing you can carry around with you because this is God’s word. Then she showed them her first Bible that she got for Christmas when she was 5 years old.

“My Bible is full of stickers and full of crayon markings,” she told them as she carefully opened the brittle, white-covered Bible to show them. “I might not have always known what I was reading when I first got it, but I kept it because it started me off in my faith.”

She told them that what they are learning in Beach Club will help them be able to use their Bibles. Each week KBC volunteers teach a new Bible verse and show kids where to find it in their Bibles.

“We’re about to give you this book and some of you already have one,” Lassiter told the Beach Club on Great Treasure Day. “But here is the deal, you get to learn and grow, and this book will be exciting to you for the rest of your life and that’s what we want for you guys.”

Then she gave the kids an example of the prayer she reads before she opens her Bible each day and encouraged them to do the same.

“I pray, ‘Jesus, help me understand the words that I’m about to read. And Jesus, help me to know You more and help me experience who You are today. Amen.’”

Greenlee reminded the kids in her Beach Clubs that it’s okay if their new Bibles don’t stay in perfect condition.

“It’s okay if they get bent, it’s okay if they get dirty because that means that you are using it,” Greenlee said. “That is what God wants you to do. He wants you to read it. He wants you to know how much He loves you and you can only do that by actually opening and using your Bible.”

We hope all of our Beach Club kids are using their Bibles this summer by participating in the Hang 10 Summer Reading Program. Each weekly plan helps develop a habit of spending 10 minutes a day with God by reading the Bible and praying.

Are you ready for summer? It’s almost Memorial Day Weekend! As the unofficial start of summer, this is the  time when we kickoff the Hang 10 Summer Reading Program.

"Hang 10" is the phrase we use to encourage kids to hang out with God for 10 minutes every day through Bible reading and prayer. The Hang 10 Summer Reading Program continues building daily habits of praying and reading the Bible.

This year's Summer Reading Program focuses on walking kids through the Bible, using stories selected from each Bible book. Each week for 14 weeks beginning May 26 and continuing through the Saturday before Labor Day, August 31, the plan will provide daily Bible readings and additional "bonus" content designed to help kids dig deeper into the Bible.

The Summer Reading Program is available on the KBC website, featuring stories from:

• The Books of the Law
• The Books of History
• The Books of Wisdom, Poetry and Praise
• The Minor and Major Prophets
• The Gospels
• Paul’s Letters (Epistles & Pastoral)
• The General Letters
• Prophecy

RELATED:
Tips for Getting Kids into God's Word this Summer  

Our Summer Reading Program isn't just for kids! We are encouraging everyone to "Hang 10" this summer. We’re hoping that parents, teachers, volunteers and the many friends of KiDs Beach Club® lead by example to spend at least 10 minutes a day with God.

Follow the KBC social media accounts where we'll post each week's Summer Reading Program on Sunday, along with daily reminders on our Facebook and Instagram Stories. We encourage you to share them with your friends and family who may not yet participate in Beach Club or who are looking for a summer devotional activity. You can even forward this email to them.

Please follow us at @KiDsBeachClub on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and be sure to share your posts by mentioning us or using the hashtag #Hang10SRP. We would love to see photos of your children or grandchildren with their KBC Study Bible this summer. 

This summer's Hang 10 Summer Reading Program was designed to be used with the KBC Explorer's Study Bible, which is given to every child in every Beach Club. If you do not have the KBC Study Bible and would like one, it is available for only $20 in the Surf Shop. You can still participate in the Summer Reading Program without the KBC Study Bible, but you won't be able to read the bonus materials.

KiDs Beach Club® often impacts more than just the children who attend Beach Club. It can be a life changer, altering the lives and eternal future of an entire family.

Christine Zanella, a volunteer at Wekiva Elementary School in Longwood, Fla., and her family’s trajectory were completely changed by her son after he signed up for Beach Club.

“My son, John, was the first child to sign up for KiDs Beach Club® in 2015 at Wakiva Elementary,” she said. “Throughout the first two years, I could see how this ministry was a blessing for my family.”

The simple and practical way the Bible was explained was amazing.

In 2017, Zanella’s son and daughter were in Beach Club. John was starting fifth grade and her daughter Carolina was starting second grade. She had already been volunteering for Beach Club events but was asked to become a full volunteer with this club.

“I certainly loved and was excited to be a part of it,” she exclaimed. “Today, I have been volunteering at this Beach Club for two years, and this ministry is, literally, God's hands in my family's life.”

Zanella says that both of her kids chose to have Jesus as their savior through Beach Club and that they attend First Baptist Church Sweetwater, the partnering church.

“My daughter and I were both baptized there on February 3, 2019,” she said. “The kids are participating in the youth groups at church, and John attends FCA (Fellowship of Christian Athletes) at his middle school every Wednesday morning.”

KiDs Beach Club® was the open door for her family to come to Jesus as Savior and for a life closer to God.

“I am really grateful to be a KBC Surf Team leader today, share the word of God with the kids in our school, and pray for their families!” she said.

When Jack Terrell, the president and founder of KiDs Beach Club®, heard about the Zanella family, he responded, “it’s humbling to know that when a church is mobilized to see people outside its walls and then allows its laity to be equipped to use the KBC model, the results are always the same... changed lives!”

The Beach Club at McCall Elementary School in Willow Park, Texas is teaching character words through action and discipleship. The fifth graders often mentor, teach or take on extra responsibility in their Beach Club.

Club Leader Sean Crevier, the children’s minister at Willow Park Baptist Church in Aledo, Texas, explains that once children receive Christ as their savior, just like you or I, they have been given spiritual gifts and they need to learn how to use them for the Lord.

“For example, we see that some of them are teachers and some of them have the gift of administration, so we really try to use them where they have gifts and talents,” Crevier explained.

There are several fifth graders who help out with younger groups.

“Now we still have adults at each group who help with discipline and such, but the younger grades are bonding and connecting with the fifth grader as more of a friend or peer than an authority figure,” Crevier said.

They have found that the younger Surf Team groups are really receptive, more attentive and tuned in when an older peer is helping teach. Not only are those helpful benefits, but the fifth grader really has to digest the lesson and the Hang 10 before they can turn around and teach it to others.

“It is the same philosophy we use at our church and we have found good success transitioning it over to Beach Club as well,” Crevier said.

They have even had kids prepare to lead the Memory Link time or lead the Review Game.

“We always try to lean on the older kids to try to have them prepare ahead of time to do that,” Crevier said. “It’s been really cool to see the kids learn and turn around and lead.”

In addition to discipleship, they are learning to use some of the character words like dependability, friendliness, kindness and responsibility to be leaders and teachers to their peers.