Blog

September 22 is North Texas Giving Day, the annual event when thousands of people from across the Dallas-Fort Worth area and beyond rally around various non-profit organizations to help financially support their mission. It’s a day when you can help KiDs Beach Club® continue to Teach KiDs Truth.

We want to thank you for coming alongside of us in teaching children the truth about God’s word. It’s a challenging time in our country trying to figure out who you can trust. From presidential candidates to Olympic athletes, the messages are confusing. If you think it’s tough for you to figure out, how do you think your kids feel? Aren’t you glad to be able to trust in God’s word because it is true and reliable?

Great Treasure Day will take place the fifth week of Beach Club, usually in October. That is the day when we provide the truth, a KiDs Beach Club® Explorer’s Study Bible, to every child in club who hasn’t received one already. Then, throughout the school year, our incredible volunteers will teach each child every week where to find truth about forgiveness, courage, confidence, kindness, respect and humility, just to name a few. As you know, KiDs Beach Club® is non-denominational so these truths aren’t coming from the opinion of any particular religious organization but solely from God’s word.

In John 17:17, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, while praying to our Heavenly Father, interceded on our behalf asking Him to “Sanctify them by Your truth, Your word is truth.” God’s gift to us is His word, which we have given to 40,320 children during a decade of ministry. There is no better gift to give our children than God’s absolute truth. Please help support us as we connect kids to Christ and put Bibles in their hands.

Before North Texas Giving Day, please pray about making a gift of any size that can be used to assist us in teaching kids truth. It only costs $20 for us to put a Bible in a child’s hand inside their public elementary school! All you have to do is go to our website: kidsbeachclub.org/givingday between 6 a.m. and midnight on September 22 to place your gift and help us continue teaching kids truth.

Suzanne Massey and Grace Husbenet have joined the KiDs Beach Club® staff. Massey, who also serves on the KBC board of directors, has been hired as the strategic growth senior director, while Husbenet, a sophomore at Abilene Christian, will serve as a club relations director.

Massey brings more than 26 years in the textbook publishing business and 20 years in education. Additionally, she has served on the staff as a bi-vocational preschool minister and children’s minister for 16 years. She joined the KBC board of directors this past January.

A graduate of Stephen F. Austin State University, Massey has experience both in the classroom with students as well as training educators in numerous areas of professional development, including KBC leadership teams.

While serving as the children’s minister at Grandview Baptist Church in Mesquite, Texas, she helped that church bring a Beach Club to Porter Elementary. The club debuted with 93 children and remains one of the largest Beach Clubs today. 

While children’s ministry was always a priority, Massey worked closely with families. Family activities, including women’s ministries, are a part of her passion to serve others.

Suzanne, a resident of the Dallas area since 1976, has two children and three grandchildren as well as a close-knit extended family. 

Husbenet is studying children and family ministry as well as marketing at ACU. She is a member of North Richland Hills Baptist Church where she has been heavily involved in children’s ministry. She has served in Kid Worship, Kids Camp, Day Camp and Vacation Bible School. This past summer she was the children’s ministry intern at North Richland Hills Baptist Church.

While in Abilene, she attends Pioneer Drive Baptist Church, where she is part of the college leadership team. This fall, she will be involved with children’s ministry in addition to helping with Beach Club.

KiDs Beach Club® is continuing to grow and is looking to fill several other positions, including a Strategic Growth Director in Bedford, Texas and Club Relations Director positions in Texas, including Beaumont, North Central DFW and Midland/Odessa. Please visit our employment website for a complete list of positions and to fill out an application.

Karen King is a member of Trinity Bible Fellowship in Richardson, Texas and is a former volunteer at the Beach Club at Mohawk Elementary. She served as a KiDs Beach Club volunteer for one year before having to give it up to focus on other ministries with which she volunteers.

In her Prairie Creek neighborhood in Richardson, her 12 neighbors on the cul-de-sac gather once a week in front of her house. It’s a great way to meet and fellowship with neighbors. Through that activity a few years ago, one of her neighbors mentioned her son, Ben, did not have a Bible to take with him to church camp. She lent him an old Adventure Bible so he would be able to participate in the daily reading and devotional. 

At the beginning of the summer this year, she asked Ben if he needed to borrow her Bible for camp again, but he had started attending the Beach Club at Prairie Creek Elementary.

“Nope, I go to Beach Club now, so I have my very own Bible,” Ben told her.

Thanks to your giving, KiDs Beach Club® is able to provide every child in every Beach Club with a Bible. With nearly half of the 40,320 total Bibles KBC has distributed to children having been passed out since January 2015, the Bibles are being seen more and more outside of club meetings. 

Kids are taking their KBC Explorer’s Study Bible with them everywhere they go, including summer camps, Sunday school, Vacation Bible School, school and even to shopping malls. 

Counselors at Pine Cove Camp in the City, a summer day camp program in several communities across the country, told KBC staff to say they had seen the Bibles when Pine Cove Camp in the City was at First Baptist Church in Richardson in mid-June.

A club leader in Tennessee shared a story about a girl who committed to reading the entire Bible and takes it with her wherever she goes. She would provide weekly updates about her progress until club ended and after graduating from Beach Club. When the club leader ran into her at a retail store recently, the girl ran out to her parents’ car to grab her Bible to show the club leader her progress. 

Even Jack Terrell, the founder and president of KiDs Beach Club®, saw the KBC Study Bibles at a multi-church summer camp at the Riverbend Retreat Center in late July when he was there as the camp pastor. KBC Area Director Kristen Forejt sees kids bringing KBC Bibles to Sunday school, and her church, Trinity Bible Fellowship, had several children bring them for Vacation Bible School. 

That would only make sense. During the final Beach Club meeting at Mohawk Elementary last spring, the club leader invited all children to attend VBS at Trinity. One boy, a rising fifth grader who had attended Beach Club in third and fourth grade, brought his younger sister (and his Bible) with him. On Thursday of that week, both children prayed to receive Christ!

Everyone at KiDs Beach Club is encouraged at the frequency people are seeing the Explorer’s Study Bibles and thankful for your support of the Bibles for Beach Club program. The Bibles you’re helping put in kids’ hands are making an impact and connecting them to Christ. Thank you!

Wanna be a KiD who makes JESUS cool at YOUR school?

Here's How!

• Carry your Bible with you to school.
  
  
• Behave in ways that are pleasing to God.
  
  
• Wear your KiDs Beach Club® t-shirt.
  
  
• Tell your friends what you learn about Jesus.
  
  
• Read your Bible during your free reading time.
  
  
• Go to a church that teaches about the Bible. Invite a friend to go too!
  
  
• Pray to Jesus during your "moment of silence" and before you eat lunch.
  
  
• Show love to everyone... just like Jesus did.
  
  
• Come to KiDs Beach Club® and bring a friend with you.
  
  

Leadership Luau, a high-energy time of worship and celebration for Beach Club leaders, is right around the corner. It will allow you to connect with other leaders in clubs near you. 

If you've been serving in Beach Club for a while, you'll find that Leadership Luau isn't a typical training event. You'll be inspired and challenged to continue serving in Beach Club with excellence. You'll hear from a top-notch team of KBC leaders who will share ways to take your club to the next level staying focused on our mission of giving every 3rd through 6th grade child a Jesus experience in their public elementary school.

Our Leadership Luau is going to be really different, really great. Check out these 10 big reasons not to miss it:

1. Experience God’s presence and CELEBRATE 10 years of KBC ministry through worship and praise with fellow KBC Leaders.

2. Hear inspiring testimonies of GOD AT WORK in beach clubs both nationally and locally in your area.

3. Hear first hand WHAT’S NEW for beach club this school year including new Bible distribution processes for Great Treasure Day and Online Basic Training requirements.

4. KBC CURRICULUM has an updated look and layout. Learn about the helpful new features and where to find what you’re looking for. We can’t wait till you see our improved Memory Link Posters!

5. Hear the BIG NEWS about how we’ve streamlined the KiDs Online Management System. Sneak preview…kids information is staying in the system. Record Keepers, be there to learn what this change means for you. We trust you’ll love it! 

6. Help your club win 50 FREE CLUB T-SHIRTS for kids by having the highest percentage of your club volunteers present (Valid only at regional luaus in Texas, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Florida.) 

7. Experience practical and challenging teaching for all leaders on how to effectively weave THE GOSPEL into every element of beach club. Yes, even for attendance and snack leaders!

8. Leave spiritually challenged and refreshed through a personal message from KBC Founder & President Jack Terrell. Word for the year: PASSION

9. Spend time in PRAYER as a KBC community of leaders committing to the Lord the 2016-17 year in beach club and asking God to move in the hearts of kids, families, school faculty and KBC volunteers.
   
   
10. Lunch is provided in most locations. Reserve your lunch for $7 online in advance or pay $10 at the door (supply limited). After lunch options include BASIC TRAINING for new clubs and new volunteers to learn the nuts and bolts of beach club, VETERAN CLUB LEADERS networking, discussion and idea share and RECORD KEEPERS get hands on the KiDs Online Management System to refresh on the basics and learn new processes.

Go to kidsbeachclub.org/leadership-luau to find the Leadership Luau nearest you. Please register to let us know you’ll be attending.

Not many people know where Pass Christian, Mississippi is. The fishing community sits on the eastern shore of Bay St. Louis along the Gulf of Mexico just to the west of Gulfport.

The community continues to rebuild after Hurricane Katrina destroyed nearly all of the town in 2005. After Katrina, the population of Pass Christian shrank from 7,000 or 8,000 people to around 1,000 people today. Most of the town has relocated, but others rebuilt or renovated. Among those is Cornerstone Baptist Church, which took over the site of another church about four years ago. Cornerstone sits just a few of blocks from the beach.

Last year, that small church took a step out in faith to sponsor a Beach Club at Pass Christian Elementary School. The club meets in the cafeteria most Thursdays during the school year.

Late last spring, after praise and worship time, the club leader began teaching the lesson about God speaking to Moses through the burning bush. 

“God told Moses to remove his shoes because he was standing on holy ground,” pastor Don Bearden remembers teaching. “When we finished the lesson, we asked if there were any questions and one little boy held his hand up and kept raising it higher because he wanted to make sure we saw him. So asked him what he wanted to ask. 

“He stood up like a little man and looked at me dead in my face and said, ‘I just have to get it straight.’

“I said, ‘What’s that son?’

“‘When God told Moses to take his shoes off, why did he do it?’ the boy asked. 

“I told him it was because it was holy ground and it is holy ground because God was there.’

“You could see his mind kick into a higher gear and then the boy asked, ‘so if this (school) is the same as church because we’re worshiping God that makes this holy ground?’ 

“I said, ‘that’s right!’”

Then, he looked at Pastor Bearden, took off his shoes and started moving his feet to feel the floor (like toes in sand at the beach) and then the young man hit his knees and bowed his head.

“You just would have had to have been there,” Bearden said. “You could feel an outpouring of the Holy Spirit rush in that place because this young man gave you the impression that he was genuinely kneeling and praising the Lord.”

Then the boy looked up and asked, “So we are standing on holy ground?” and I said, “Son, we sure are. Anywhere God is present is holy ground.”

One of the Beach Club volunteers tried to explain to him that holy ground is even in his heart and that the Lord is in his heart. 

The Lord definitely is in Micah’s heart. It’s where he welcomed in Jesus last November. It’s one of 19 professions of faith made by kids in the club, which more than 60 kids attended last year.

Bearden said there are always some of the teachers who just watch the club from the doorway. That night when he got home, he had one of the teachers call him and say, “I just wanted to let you know that I may never ever get over what I witnessed today. I know now that I have to get back into church.”

A total of three teachers have come to know Christ by observing that Beach Club. Another nine Beach Club parents have accepted Christ after Bearden and his team witnessed to them curbside when they pick up their children after club.

The Sunday after Micah’s inquiry about holy ground, the church reenacted what happened at Beach Club as part of the message.

“We had a man with a beard who dressed up as Moses,” Bearden said. “This guy looked like someone you would have seen in the movie The 10 Commandments. We had one of our deacons on the PA system as the voice of God. We were trying to make it as real as we could. We did the same thing in our church service and then I got up and told them what had happened.” 

Micah was in church that Sunday. It was his first time to be in church with his dad.

“When we told the story to our congregation, the young many was sitting on the edge of the pew with his dad sitting beside him and he again took off his shoes,” Bearden said. “When he did, I took off mine and several people in the church began to take off theirs and the alter began to fill.”

That story just swept through the town. 

“I didn’t even get to finish preaching because we had an alter call and the alter was filled up in 30 minutes,” Bearden said. “When we told them what had happened with that little boy, several people told me that I didn’t even need to speak. Everybody got the message.”