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At the start of the new school year it can sometimes be a challenge for churches to recruit volunteers to serve in Beach Club, and also organize who will be doing what role. Three years after launching its club, a church in Tennessee is praising the Lord for His divine orchestrations to bring them the exact number of volunteers it needed. 

First Baptist Church in Lakeland, Tenn. Started a Beach Club at Lakeland Elementary three years ago. When they were first presented with the idea of their church partnering with KiDs Beach Club®, it was a completely different concept for them to be able to host an after-school Bible club inside a public school. The church jumped at the opportunity.

First Baptist Lakeland has a church body of a little more than 100 members. Once they began planning for club and organizing their volunteers they had more than 30 people sign up to help in some form or fashion. That’s one-third of their congregation!

However, about a week before their club was scheduled to begin, they got an unexpected call from one of their volunteers. This individual was set to serve as both a surf team leader and the worship leader of their club. Their work schedule suddenly changed and they were no longer able to make it in time to volunteer. 

Church coordinator David Riggs found himself in a bind. When he heard the news, he thought “What am I going to do?” Panic began to set in. Another church leader was able to make a call to Laura Simons, a church member, in hopes of she had a connection who could fill either one of the open positions of worship leader or surf team leader. Upon hearing Lakeland’s request, Simon responded, “Well, I have kids that go to school there, and I am a teacher. Would you want me to do that?”

Indeed, First Baptist Lakeland wanted her to fill that role. That was one of the positions covered just in time. But, that still left them without someone to lead the music, and they had less than a week before club was set to begin. Riggs continued the search until they found Dianne Davis. 

Davis was working as the music teacher at Lakeland Elementary when she heard about KiDs Beach Club® through an email from the principal. She initially dismissed the idea of helping because of her busy schedule, but the Friday before their first club, Davis felt a stirring in her heart.

“What if no one signs up to help?” she wondered. So, Davis contacted the principal and was told the club was looking for a worship leader. “Well, I knew that was God working so of course I said yes.”

“I was so overcome with emotion that finally, after almost 20 years of teaching, I could finally pray with and talk freely about God with my students,” Davis later said about the opportunity to do Kingdom work inside her school.

With the start of the new semester Beach Club, it can sometimes be a challenge for churches to recruit volunteers, and also organize who will be doing what role. Three years later, a church in Tennessee is still praising the Lord for His divine orchestrations to bring them the exact volunteers they needed.

God has continued to work in the Beach Club at Lakeland Elementary. With more than 100 children registered, Riggs is thankful for a church willing to serve and the team of volunteers the Lord provided. “We know what our mission is; it’s go and make disciples.”

Karyn Streaker serves as the Beach Club leader at North Woolmarket Elementary School in Biloxi, Miss., and speaks highly of how KiDs Beach Club® is impacting the children at the school in her community. She knows of the impact not only because she is the club leader, but because she is also a fifth-grade teacher at the school.

“I get the privilege of seeing the kids during the school day and during Beach Club,” Streaker said.

During the five years that Woolmarket Baptist Church has sponsored a Beach Club, Streaker has had many of her students attend Beach Club, allowing her the opportunity to share her faith with her students who attend the after-school club and teach them how to use the Bible. 

The students at the school have recess only once a week. “I have a group of kids who bring their Bibles to recess,” Streaker said.

These children trade their time to run and play on the playground to sit together and study God’s word. Other children choose their KBC Explorer Study Bible to read during free reading time in class. Streaker is pleased to see them read their Bible when they could pick any of the other books that might be more popular among their peers.

Students are learning about the Bible in Beach Club, and they are also learning character. Streaker had a student named Maggie in her classroom that came to know Jesus through KiDs Beach Club®. Maggie and her two younger brothers all made Jesus their Friend at Beach Club and were able to share what they learned in club to their parents in a remarkable way.

Maggie came running through the school hallway one morning to find her teacher and tell the story of what had happened the night before. Maggie proceeded to say that her whole family was out at the grocery store when a man approached them needing money for gas and groceries. Maggie and her brothers told their dad how they learned about compassion in Beach Club. 

With the Bible story, they convinced their dad to help the man buy what he needed. 

“They were able to live out the character word and share the Bible story with their family,” Streaker said. “The impact of Beach Club and what it does for students is just a phenomenal thing to witness.”

Children who attend Beach Club already bring their Bible to school on the day their club meets, but KiDs Beach Club® is encouraging everyone to bring their Bible with them to school another special day; Bring Your Bible to School Day is Thursday, October 5. 

Bring Your Bible to School Day is an annual, nationwide, religious-freedom initiative for students from elementary school all the way up to college level. It was created by Focus on the Family to equip and empower Christian students to understand their religious freedoms and express their biblical beliefs in a way that shows the love of Jesus.

Participation in Bring Your Bible to School Day is student organized and initiated, as well as protected under both First Amendment and Equal Access rights. These are the same rights that allow KiDs Beach Club® to be held on public school campuses.

In recent years, you may have noticed the increase in news headlines about students being told they can’t engage in simple religious-freedom activities, such as reading their Bible personally during free time or praying during lunch. That’s why it’s so important to come alongside our students and encourage them that they do still have religious-freedoms protected under the United States Constitution–and they don’t have to be ashamed of or hide their deeply held religious beliefs.

Our Beach Club kids know they can have their Bible at school and read it during quiet time. They enjoy reading it before school, in the library, hallway, cafeteria and even together on the playground.

They are taught how to share their faith and pray with their classmates. These religious freedoms are protected. 

On Bring Your Bible to School Day, thousands of students across the country will take the lead on their campuses to celebrate religious freedom and share God’s hope with peers by taking a simple action: Bringing their Bible to school! We hope all Beach Club kids will participate. 

To learn more about what you can do to support the students’ efforts and help them get the word out, be visit bringyourbible.org. They have resources for parents and churches to help you share the event with your students. They also have videos of students just like yours sharing their story of bringing their Bible to school. They even have explanations about myth vs. fact regarding students’ legal rights. 

I Timothy 4:12 says, “Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity.” And that’s what the Bring Your Bible website seeks to equip students to do.

Parental support for students participating in Bring Your Bible to School Day will be absolutely key since it does require courage in this culture of spiritual relativism to acknowledge the existence of redemptive truth. So, we hope you will surround your student participant with prayer and encouragement as they participate in the event.

Hurricane Harvey hit the coast of Texas last month affecting thousands of people as one of the most catastrophic storms the United States has ever seen. Harvey seemed to park over the Houston area with near record setting rainfall in the Lone Star state and also in Louisiana. Thousands of people were affected by a loss of power, damage to their property or the complete loss of their homes.

Hurricane Harvey affected the children and families of eight Beach Clubs around Houston. Specifically, in the cities of Alvin, Mont Belvieu, Highlands and Baytown. 

On the night of North Texas Giving Day earlier this month, Jack Terrell, the founder and president of KiDs Beach Club®, joined radio host Chris Krok on his nightly call-in show on WBAP in Dallas. They talked with Andrew McDaniel, a pastor at Memorial Baptist Church, which sponsor a Beach Club at Stephen F. Austin Elementary School in Baytown, which is located about 30 minutes east of Houston.

McDaniel shared how more than 5,000 homes were flooded by as little as three inches to as much as several feet of water in the city of Baytown alone. Most of the affected homes are located in the school district where Memorial Baptist sponsors a Beach Club. 

“The biggest request people have is ‘Where do I go from here?’” McDaniel said. 

The parents of many children who attend the Beach Club at Stephen F. Austin Elementary have called McDaniel or the church for help. The church endured little damage and became a shelter in the days following the flooding. McDaniel and his congregation performed boat rescues throughout the community. He said these people, roughly 80 percent, do not have flood insurance and are in great need of assistance.

Memorial Baptist stepped up and as of mid-September, had helped 61 families. The greatest need in Baytown is drywall and the church has helped these families tear out the bad and install the new.

For families who have experienced a total loss, they lost items that can never be replaced. Gone, too, are items of sentimental value and, for families with kids who attend a Beach Club, they more than likely lost their child’s Explorer’s Study Bible.

McDaniel and Memorial Baptist are hosting a special party for all the families they have been able to help at the end of September. 

“It’s a time to be able talk to those kids about KBC, because our schools have been delayed in opening up so we haven’t been in the schools yet this school year,” McDaniel said.

The KiDs Beach Club® corporate staff was invited to attend the event to help promote Beach Club and hand out Bibles. All of the area children will be invited to attend Beach Club and several cases of Bibles will be handed out to elementary aged children. Whether they lost theirs in the flooding or have never attended a club, KiDs Beach Club® is ready to give kids hope.

Thank you for your continued support of the Bibles for Beach Club program as well as your donations earlier this month on North Texas Giving Day, which will help fund the extra Bibles going to children affected by Hurricane Harvey.

After your quiet time with the Lord on Thursday, September 14, when you close your Bible, would you consider providing a Bible for a child in a public school? 

September 14 is North Texas Giving Day, when thousands of generous donors give back to their favorite charities in North Texas. It costs KiDs Beach Club® just $20 to put a KBC Explorer’s Study Bible into the hands of a child and your gift that day will help provide a child the hope of a relationship with Jesus Christ in confusing time in our world.   

This year, North Texas Giving Day has set up a way to schedule your $20 gift, as early as seven days in advance.  Please go to kidsbeachclub.org/givingday beginning September 7 to schedule your gift.

The effects of Hurricane Harvey have put a real fear into the hearts of children along the Gulf Coast where we have 11 after-school Bible clubs. Their security and world as they have known it, has been shaken. When school resumes for the children in that region, our KBC volunteers will be ready to assure the children in those Beach Clubs that there is a sure foundation in Jesus Christ during times of uncertainty.

Those KBC volunteers represent nine partnering churches who are not only providing spiritual guidance to these children in public schools but are ministering to the physical needs of the families of Beach Club children as well. One of KBC’s core principals is that we impact communities for God’s Kingdom by equipping churches to minister outside the walls of their building and become beacons of hope in their communities, especially during disasters like this.

Your financial gift to KiDs Beach Club® on North Texas Giving Day will greatly help us continue to provide hope in Jesus Christ. A generous donor has already provided a matching gift of $4,000 so please go to kidsbeachclub.org/givingday beginning September 7 to schedule your donation.

While some Leadership Luaus have already taken place, every volunteer should make plans now to attend remaining Luau events in the month September to help them get ready for a new year of KiDs Beach Club®.

Leadership Luau is a high-energy time of worship and celebration for Beach Club leaders to connect with other leaders in clubs near them. Leadership Luau is not a typical training event, but an exciting time to get recharged and ready to achieve the mission of giving every child a Jesus experience inside their public elementary school.

A lot of hard work goes in to preparing for Leadership Luau, however Vickie Sneed, a club relations specialist in Tennessee, went all out to create a masterpiece of decorations to set the mood for a fun day of training for the Leadership Luau in Bartlett. Sneed spent countless hours planning and crafting the luau. 

“Hopefully I'm sending a message to our volunteers that they are important and worth the time it took for decorating,” Sneed said.

“My hope is that when they walked in and saw the decorations, their mood was lifted and excitement and energy filled the air. I want each volunteer to be encouraged, motivated and eager to embark on another year of KiDs Beach Club®.”

She and a team of nine others got together at church for a full craft day in the time leading up to the Leadership Luau. They painted several surfboards, created palm trees from carpet rolls, turned close to 100 pool noodles into an extravagant coral reef, crafted more than 100 flowers from tissue paper and coffee filters and so many other fun decorative projects. They went as far as to build a surf shack for refreshments, several beachside scenes, a beach ball arch and a life-sized ocean wave for attendees to document in photos to share on social media.

David Riggs has volunteered for three years at the Beach Club at Lakeland Elementary in Lakeland, Tenn., and has attended Leadership Luaus previously. On the practical side, he loves getting all the new information at one time with the volunteers from all of the other Beach Clubs in his area. In that everyone is gathered together for the training, a highlight for him is getting to meet the new volunteers he will be serving with for the upcoming school year in his Beach Club. 

Evelyn Davis, who has been a volunteer for two and a half years at Ellendale Elementary in Bartlett, Tenn., wouldn’t miss Leadership Luau. When asked why she attends she said, “Because of all the information I glean from the people sharing.” She especially loves to hear from other volunteers and club leaders about their experiences in Beach Club and the encouragement they have for one another.

Davis serves her Beach Club as a decision counselor, which is someone who talks with children about making Jesus their Forever Friend. She encourages others to attend because “Leadership Luau gives me enthusiasm for sharing Jesus with the children.” 

Leadership Luau provides the opportunity for volunteers to gather together and get excited about sharing Jesus with children.

“Seeing the potential impact of reaching kids for Christ through Beach Club is motivating and uplifting,” Sneed said.

In addition to providing an opportunity for you to connect and share ideas with fellow volunteers, top-notch KBC leaders are eager to share three new promotion and registration tools designed to grow your club and streamline the registration process:

• New online registration
• Individual web pages for every Beach Club
• New tools to promote your Beach Club

If you have not yet registered for Leadership Luau, go to kidsbeachclub.org/luau to locate and register for an event near you. You won’t want to miss this time of worship, celebration and learning!