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Jack Terrell, the president and founder of KiDs Beach Club®, delivered a powerful message at two of the three Leadership Luau: Spring Training events designed to encourage volunteers. It’s a strategy he uses to lift up others and take them to a higher level.

Terrell opened his talk with a short story from his childhood. His family owned a couple businesses in town where he helped out when he was young. One of those businesses was a gas station in near proximity to a few local bars. People coming over from the bars would often make a mess in their bathrooms and Terrell’s father wouldn’t allow anyone to clean it up except Terrell. Because of the experience, Terrell knew from an early age he didn’t want anything to do with alcohol, because of the byproduct.

“Sometimes people don’t want to have anything to do with us because they’ve seen the byproduct,” Terrell said about how the world mistakenly labels Christians.

“I believe what Father is wanting us to do is to set the appropriate example,” he continued. “The world wants to see that joy!”

Terrell encouraged each listener to practice their faith and lift up others.

To create a visual, Terrell talked about the glass half empty against the glass half full example. Your perception of the glass will determine the outcome of how you act. As Christians, we should lean toward choosing joy and rejoice in the Lord in light of any situation, as it says in Philippians 4:4-9.

In order to do this there’s got to be a plan. Terrell uses this one: commit, know, initiate and understand.

For commit, Terrell said to, “commit to daily encouragement.” Rather have a mental commitment to love on people. Know says to, “know the difference that separates hurting people and helping people.” People need to know there’s a difference between the two, and approach them in different manners if they are hurting or healthy. During Beach Club, this means not ignoring bad behavior in children, but instead, loving them through it.

“We need to be willing to work differently in different environments,” Terrell said.

For initiate, you “initiate the positive in a negative environment.” As Christians, we need to be the ones to initiate relationships, and we need to do it from a positive perspective, not a negative perspective. The last, understand, is to “understand life is not a dress rehearsal.

“You’re on stage; it starts the moment you wake up. People are watching to see how you react. For the kids in Beach Club, they are watching you to see if you are really who you say you are.

“If you don’t ‘commit,’ you can’t act on the ‘know.’ If you don’t ‘know’ you can’t ‘initiate.’ If you don’t ‘initiate,’ you will never ‘understand.’ These four things build on each other and work together to showing Jesus to those around you, and the children who attend Beach Club.

“When you see people, whether you know them or not, say a good word unto the Lord,” Terrell said.

Watch Terrell’s full message from the Leadership Luau: Spring Training in Houston below:

Kirk Zehnder, the pastor at The Fellowship at Weatherford, Texas, which partners with KiDs Beach Club®, has written a book designed to help parents prepare their younger children to take the next step in discipleship after their Beach Club kid chooses to make Jesus their Forever Friend.

"It is good to see them coming to Christ,” Zehnder said. “But what do we do with them after they have come to Christ?"

Zehnder is passionate about KiDs Beach Club® and the opportunities the ministry brings to connect kids to Christ, but he is equally excited about the opportunities to lead their parents to Christ and connect the entire family to a local church, specifically the church that partners with KiDs Beach Club®.

In his book, "Jesus, Baptism and Me," Zehnder clearly presents the next step for a child after making Jesus their Forever Friend, which is baptism and learning to walk with Jesus every day.

"What do we do as far as a discipleship step? How do we get them on a pathway about learning about what they've done and then on a pathway about how to grow in Christ? And then connect the dots so that we can connect them to a local church?"

The book was written with these goals in mind and is designed to be done by a child along with their parents. It goes step by step through the gospel again and shares what it means to follow Jesus. This is with intention to eliminate the uncertainty that a child made strictly an emotional decision or accepted the invitation of salvation just because a friend did too.

"Jesus, Baptism and Me" will prepare a child for baptism. There is no set timing for a child to complete the book. Zehnder encourages all to go through it at the pace of the child without rushing so you can enjoy the discipleship time. Baptism is meant to happen once and Zehnder has written this book so that children will understand baptism as well as the importance and significance of what they are doing.

“I want a child to really know what they are doing and cherish it forever,” he said.

With an emphasis on baptism, the book also covers how to be close to Jesus, reading and studying the Bible, prayer and living with Jesus.

A special printing of "Jesus, Baptism and Me" was made especially for KiDs Beach Club®. For easy reference for Beach Club kids, every scripture in the version includes page numbers where the scripture can be found in the KBC Explorer Study Bible to add easy reference. The child and parent are led in discussion as they go through the pages about topics as sin, redemption and repentance.

"Not only will the child be trained and discipled so that they are ready to follow the Lord in baptism," Zehnder said. "If there is an unsaved parent they will open the Bible with their child and read the word of God." 

"We want to touch children's lives, but we want to touch parents and lead their whole family to Christ," he said. That goal can be more easily accomplished by all churches and clubs through the incorporation of this book to the curriculum of KiDs Beach Club®.

KiDs Beach Club® will begin to fully integrate the “Jesus, Baptism and Me” as a resource beginning in the fall.

Would you take just a couple of minutes to visit our Facebook page and leave a review? Your favorable reviews of KiDs Beach Club® will help us better communicate to prospective church partners and potential schools what we’re about and what we can do for the culture of their school and on a broader scope, their community.

As our teams have these conversations, potential churches and schools often turn to our social media accounts – specifically our Facebook page – and we want those comments to adequately reflect what KiDs Beach Club® is all about.

Thank you for your support of this ministry. Together we’re connecting kids to Christ and putting Bibles in their hands. Help us continue making Jesus cool at school!

Have you checked out the Surf Shop recently? KiDs Beach Club® has added a few new items to its online store in the last few weeks that might be of interest to our volunteers, church partners and other friends of the ministry.

Among the items already available on the store like KBC Bibles, t-shirts and other items that can be used directly in a Beach Club, we now have other items like tumblers, tote bags, a polo shirt and a new promotional yard sign.

You might remember the colorful tumblers from the Benefit Dinner last summer. Now, you can get your very own 20 oz. KBC Branded Tumbler by Bison Coolers, available in eight different colors. The tumblers feature a durable 18/8 stainless steel construction; double wall vacuum insulated; clear, shatter-proof Triton® lid. The tumbler fits most cup holders and keeps hot or cold for hours and has a sweat-proof design.

Before you head to your next Beach Club meeting, you'll want to get your hands on our new large, blue tote bag with a KBC logo on the side. Carry all things Beach Club, including your KBC Bible, the weekly lesson and all the materials you'll be sending home with the kids like Hang 10 pages and Memory Link cards. The zippered tote is 16x18x4.5 inches with 28-inch handles. Hummingbird Embroidery in Lakeland, Tenn. stitched the KBC logo on one side.

“You asked for it, you got it!” Many pastors and educators have been asking for a polo shirt with the KBC logo on it that they can wear around church, in school or around the office. The Port Authority® Tech Embossed Polo features an embroidered, full-color KBC logo on the left side of the chest. The polos are available only in black and in men's adult styles, sizes: S to 4XL.

Let children know when your Beach Club is meeting with the newly designed KBC yard sign. This is an 18"x24" two-sided aluminum sign securely mounted on a black round rod frame and features the KBC logo and the words “Meets Today.” Check with the school's principal before buying to find out what the school's policy is on displaying school "club" signs on school property. 

To check out these new items and to shop, visit KiDsBeachClub.org/Surf-Shop.

April Rodriguez has joined the KiDs Beach Club® staff as the club relations specialist for the Northwest Dallas/Fort Worth area.

Rodriguez is a lifelong Fort Worth native, where she met her husband Israel of nine years, at the age of 11. The couple and their daughter Marissa, are members of Victory Church in River Oaks, Texas.

She has been working in some aspect of ministry since 2009. She and her husband have worked in children’s ministry, evangelized in street ministry, led a drama ministry and currently work together in their church’s youth ministry.

Rodriguez is excited step into this position and work for KiDs Beach Club® because, “knowing that what you do for a living is actually meaningful, has purpose and changes lives forever.”

Outside of work she enjoys singing, painting, making jewelry, puzzles and playing games.

For Christ Church in Irving, Texas, KiDs Beach Club® is a very important part of their church’s outreach plan. Not only do they love Beach Club for the amount of families and children they get to minister to each week, they love it, also, because KiDs Beach Club® gives them Bibles to give to the children they are ministering to.

Christ Church sponsors Beach Clubs at Farine and Gilbert Elementary Schools in Irving Independent School District. They see about 140 kids each week between the two Beach Clubs.

“We get to be with as many kids, and see as many families during the week at a public school as we see each Sunday,” said Molly Greenlee, one of the two children’s pastors at Christ Church.

Each year, one of the most anticipated weeks in Beach Club is Great Treasure Day. For their first Great Treasure Day at Farine Elementary, the club’s volunteers thought it would be special to prepare the Bibles with the children’s names already written inside. They were caught off guard to find that the children wanted to be given their Bibles in the plastic wrap they are shipped in “because they knew it was brand new and it was only theirs,” Greenlee said.

The children wanted to write their own names in their new Bibles because it meant it was something they could call their own. Volunteers were shocked to hear so many of the children telling them that they don’t often receive new things.

Countless children at the Farine Beach Club said they had never had a book that was brand new, much less their very own Bible.

When the next year’s Great Treasure Day came around, returning Beach Club children thought they would receive another brand-new Bible. Greenlee took this as an exciting opportunity to teach them what a special gift it is to truly cherish the Bibles they have.

Greenlee invited her 85-year-old grandmother to come and bring her Bible to Beach Club. Greenlee showed it to the kids and let them see how it was old, worn and falling apart, because it has been read so many times.

“This is what your Bible is supposed to look like, and we want it to look like this because it means it is being used, and you’re studying and you’re learning about Jesus,” she said.

“These Bibles have become precious items to these kids,” Greenlee continued. Teachers tell the Beach Club volunteers about children who are in the club bringing out their Bibles during free reading time and each week in club the KBC Bibles are brought and used.

“Being able to give a Bible to each kid on the same day so then we get to use it, has been life changing to our club,” Greenlee concluded.

Of course, your financial gifts are making this happen. We are able to provide every child in every Beach Club with their own KBC Explorer’s Study Bible at no cost to the child, parents or church. Together, we’re connecting kids to Christ and putting Bibles in their hands.