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Now that Great Treasure Day has become a regular event, more churches are getting creative with how they make the day even more special for all the children in Beach Club, not just those who are getting a KiDs Beach Club® Explorer’s Study Bible for the first time.

Some churches decide to throw big parties for their Beach Club on Great Treasure Day, celebrating the joy and delight of receiving God’s word. Other clubs take a more intentional route to focus on the gift of God’s word, highlighting His gift of salvation in a longer story time. Other churches elect to personalize each Bible.

Some churches take the path of personalizing the Bibles with handwritten notes on the inside covers. Kids at Hodges Elementary School are given their new Bible with a note somewhere in the Bible, but they don’t know where. Kids immediately begin searching for it and are excited to read the note when they find it.

Some children even ask their surf team leaders to write them a note as well. Members of Hickory Tree Baptist Church spend time in their Sunday school classes to write these notes.

“It is vital for Hickory Tree Baptist Church to take the time to personalize each kids’ KBC Bible,” Jason Points, the church’s children’s pastor, said. “This shows the kids that we are behind them and rooting for them. When these kids begin questioning the chaos and evil around them or struggle through an identity crisis and pick up their Bible, they will know there are others who have gone before them and who are on their journey with them.”

Women at Wildwood Baptist Church have a sewing club that meets regularly and as a part of their ministry, they decided they could get involved in the work their church is doing with KiDs Beach Club®. Their idea lets them help right from their sewing meetings. They take part in making Great Treasure Day a special celebration for their church’s Beach Club at Moss Elementary School by sewing a cover and bookmark for each child who receives a Bible. This year, the first year for the club, that count was close to 100 Bibles!

Club leaders at Lake Ridge Bible Church organize an event right before Great Treasure Day at Kimball Elementary in Mesquite, where church members “adopt” a child who will receive a Bible. Church members are given basic information about the children in their Beach Club, including his or her name, age, birthday and whether or not they go to church. Church members pick a child and commit to be in prayer for that child throughout the year.

They also write a note and stick it in the Bible that their child will receive on Great Treasure Day. Some people take this “adoption” to heart and even send cards and gifts for their child’s birthday. After Great Treasure Day, a bulletin board at the church is filled with pictures so the church members can put a face to the name of their “adopted” child.

No matter how churches choose to make Great Treasure Day special for every child in Beach Club, the most important part is just putting that Bible in their hands. 

Thank you for your continued support in making sure God’s word is given to every child in every Beach Club®! Please make plans now to join us July 14 for the Bibles for Beach Club Benefit Dinner presented by Home Point Home Medical Equipment, featuring keynote speaker Lee Strobel.

For the last few years, Caitlin, a student at Mohawk Elementary in Richardson, Texas, had seen kids attending KiDs Beach Club® every Friday afternoon each spring semester at her elementary school. Because she was not yet in third grade, she was upset she could not take part, and counted down the days until she was old enough to attend Beach Club herself.

Fast forward to this year. Caitlin came home from school elated that she was finally old enough to attend KiDs Beach Club®. With a permission slip in hand, Caitlin asked her mom if she could sign up. Her mother Katherine Criswell immediately agreed and Caitlin was set to participate.

About an hour later, Caitlin came back to her mother with a question. “You know what mom?” she asked. “Could you come with me?”

Her mother Katherine wanted clarification, “Just like, for the first time?”

“No, it would be really neat if you were there, experiencing club like I’m experiencing it,” Criswell remembers Caitlin saying.

Criswell decided to look into what was involved with volunteering at Beach Club and what the commitment entailed. She quickly decided it was an awesome opportunity to be at the school teaching kids the Bible. But, she wanted to make sure her daughter really wanted her to be there. Caitlin insisted her mother come to Beach Club to have that same experience as her, just not too close in her same small group. 

When Criswell got to Beach Club for the first time, she was assigned to be the Surf Team leader for third grade boys. A mom of two girls, at first she was at a loss about how to connect and understand these boys.

“God uses me best when I’m not in control,” Criswell emphasized.

It has been a great experience for her to be open and humble, letting God lead their time together. She considers it a joy for her to see these relationships grow and continue to develop. Criswell described the boys in her Surf Team as having diverse backgrounds. Some boys have great biblical knowledge while others do not know what a Bible is or what verses are.

It has been great for Criswell to invest in what she jokingly refers to as “future dating material” for her daughters. If she can encourage these boys to find a foundation in Jesus at an early age, then hopefully they will become great young men.

“What a great opportunity to build into these boys to be lights for Christ,” she said.

Criswell encourages others to volunteer in KiDs Beach Club® because, “If you’re given an opportunity to lead and teach and love on kids, especially in elementary school where they are just developing and figuring out who they are initially, this is the best time to get in and build those relationships now.

“All you have to do is have a willing heart, an excitement to build into kids that are in elementary school and just show up. You can just show up and impact these kids and the future of these kids’ lives.”

A few years ago, Mike Heinz was invited to serve at the KiDs Beach Club® at Mohawk Elementary, which sponsored by Trinity Bible Church. The invitation made a lot of sense to Heinz, who has two boys who attend the school. A youth pastor at another church, he agreed to become the club’s Bible connection leader.

Heinz has been involved in ministry for a number of years, either in church or working with Christian summer camps. But, the fact that he can do ministry inside a pubic school astounded him and he jumped at the chance, even if it means giving up a part of his day off.

Heinz prepares the Bible story each week and enjoys not only teaching the kids, but also refreshing his memory of Bible stories he maybe has not heard recently, or has not studied in quite some time. The kids soak up whatever the story is that day. On some days, he can speak for 20 minutes and still hold the children’s attention with the scriptures.

During the first year of Beach Club at Mohawk, they started with 50 students. They had so many kids all at once and no real way of knowing where these kids stood spiritually. As they got going, the volunteers were able to see many of these kids in the club already knew Jesus, but some of these kids did not.

“Working with kids from the school was very unique versus working with kids from the church,” Heinz said, “because we didn’t know who was a believer and who was not. Each week presenting the gospel was exciting.”

That mindset from the club’s early days has remained with the volunteers and affects how they serve now. Volunteers know they are welcomed by the school administration and teachers, but there are still people working there and families of the students who don’t believe.

“It is really neat to be able to come into a place where you know that it might not be received well and we get to share Christ,” Heinz said. “It really gives you energy from week to week and year to year to do this because there are kids here who don’t know Jesus, and they have accepted him, and that’s very exciting.“ 

Aside from the ministry done at school, Heinz is delighted in the ways KiDs Beach Club® has impacted his family, especially his children who attend Beach Club.

They are able to pray together as a family for Beach Club and the impact it will have on their school. Additionally, a special connection is made at Beach Club between the students who do know Jesus. Heinz’s sons now have a support system of other children at school who know Jesus and they also know children they can love and be praying for to come to know Jesus.

Heinz passionately said, “Everyone should be a part of Beach Club!”

When Wildwood Baptist Church in Mesquite, Texas decided to partner with KiDs Beach Club® to start a club at Moss Elementary, they were like a lot of churches in America today. The church was very inward focused and didn’t offer many programs outside their church and in their community. 

As they started preparing for their first Beach Club in the fall of 2016, the church was nervous to go outside its walls. Church leaders were worried about how they were going to balance the ministry. They were also concerned about how they would serve so many kids in their club. 

But, Matthew 28:19 resonated in the hearts of the congregation. “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” They knew KiDs Beach Club® was the push they needed to get up and go!

Wildwood Baptist’s Beach Club averages close to 100 students each week, and it hasn’t even finished its first year.

“Luckily we serve a big God and he had a reason for connecting us with KBC,” Kyle Stewart, the club leader at Moss Elementary, said.

The whole church has bonded together around KiDs Beach Club® and has embraced the children and teachers at Moss Elementary even beyond that of only serving with them for one hour one day a week. 

“Being a part of KiDs Beach Club® seemed to light a fire in our church,” Stewart said. “We are 100 percent more outwardly focused than before.” 

Most uniquely, Wildwood has a group of women who participate in a sewing ministry. 

For Great Treasure Day at Moss, the women decided to sew each child a cover and bookmark they would distribute with each of the KBC Explorer Study Bibles. Now, each of these women also serve in KiDs Beach Club® as surf team leaders.

Brown Missionary Baptist Church, sponsor of the KiDs Beach Club® at Southaven Intermediate School in Southaven, Mississippi, was recently recognized for its work in the community through its involvement with KiDs Beach Club®.

Brown Missionary Baptist was awarded two Humanitarian awards from the Desoto County Association of Educators and also the Mississippi Association of Educators at its recent representative assembly in Jackson, Miss. The associations wanted to recognize the hard work Brown Missionary Baptist is putting into its community as well as offer their thanks for being so successful with the students they serve.

Earlier this month, Jeffery Jackson, the pastor at Brown Missionary Baptist Church, and Vickie Sneed, a club relations specialist for KiDs Beach Club®, both were able to attend the recognition ceremonies. Nearly 100 educators attended the events with delegates representing school districts from across Mississippi.

When Robin Avant, who was presenting the award to Pastor Jackson, introduced herself to both Jackson and Sneed, she got very excited. She was not expecting to have such representation from the organization in attendance. Avant invited Sneed to speak about KiDs Beach Club®.

Jackson and Sneed were able to speak about KBC for roughly 10 minutes in front of all the attendees.

“KBC is a priceless jewel that positively impacts children's lives and builds character,” Jackson said. “KBC is a club that should be instituted in all public schools where possible.”

After the event, the National Education Association Director for Mississippi approached Sneed with his business card. “He was very interested in Beach Club,” Sneed said. “It was all very exciting. I'm glad I had the opportunity to go.”

“It really feels good to see a secular organization recognize the relevancy of the church in the local community,” Jackson said after being presented with the awards. 

Please pray for doors to continue to open for more Beach Clubs to start not only in Mississippi, but across the country.

Atheist-turned-Christian Lee Strobel will be the keynote speaker at the 2017 Bibles for Beach Club Benefit Dinner July 14 in the Speedway Club Grand Ballroom at Texas Motor Speedway.

Strobel, the former award-winning legal editor of The Chicago Tribune, is a best-selling author of more than 20 books, including his classic, The Case for Christ, which is a perennial favorite that details his conversion to Christianity. The book will be released as a major motion picture in select theaters on April 7 and will depict Strobel’s journey from atheism to faith. Check out the movie trailer.

His most recent book, The Case for Grace, won the 2016 Nonfiction Book of the Year from the EPCA. For the last 25 years, his life’s work has been to share the evidence that supports the truth and claims of Christianity and to equip believers to share their faith with the people they know and love.

As part of his speaking ministry, Strobel travels across the country sharing his testimony, encouraging believers and challenging skeptics. He regularly speaks at conferences, commencements, fundraisers and other major events. Strobel has been a featured guest on national networks including ABC, Fox, Discovery, PBS, and CNN.

Strobel is currently a teaching pastor at Woodlands Church in The Woodlands, Texas, where he speaks multiple times each year. He recently joined the faculty at Houston Baptist University as a professor of Christian thought. 

Tickets for the general public will go on sale April 5, but you can take advantage of a special pre-sale ticket opportunity today by visiting kidsbeachclub.org/benefit-dinner.

Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for special ticket offers for our Benefit Dinner.