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The KiDs Beach Club® “Hang 10” Summer Reading Program is about to enter its final month. It’s designed mainly with the Beach Club kid in mind to give them a plan to help them spend 10 minutes every day with God, reading His word or in prayer.

The reading plan isn’t just for kids. It’s for everyone. We invited KBC volunteers as well as the siblings and parents of Beach Club kids to participate. We even encouraged you to forward it to anyone looking to spend more time immersed in God’s word.

The focus this month has been to find out what God’s word says about the 24 character words taught in Beach Club. We want them to discover God’s character and explore how they can live with Biblical character, too.

Tammy Terrell, a Strategic Growth Director for KiDs Beach Club®, is reading along with you and your kids. One day, she discovered what she called a “gold nugget” nestled in the middle of a very familiar passage. On July 6, she was drinking a cup of coffee and reading the Bible.

“I was praying about an upcoming doctor appointment and reflecting over the past month,” she said. “I opened the Summer Reading Program and turned to the Gospel of Mark. The character word that day was compassion and the question asked, "How did Jesus show compassion?"

Here’s the passage, Mark 6:30-34…
30 Then the apostles gathered to Jesus and told Him all things, both what they had done and what they had taught. 31 And He said to them, “Come aside by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.” For there were many coming and going, and they did not even have time to eat. 32 So they departed to a deserted place in the boat by themselves. 33 But the multitudes saw them departing, and many knew Him and ran there on foot from all the cities. They arrived before them and came together to Him. 34 And Jesus, when He came out, saw a great multitude and was moved with compassion for them, because they were like sheep not having a shepherd. So He began to teach them many things.
(KBC Explorer’s Study Bible page 1,081) 

The answer, and the focus of compassion for the Summer Reading Program, is on the crowd. However, Terrell can’t help but think Jesus showed incredible compassion to His disciples as well. 

As she read the passage in her NIV Study Bible she stopped on verse 31. “Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, ‘Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.’” 

What compassion! In the verses just prior to this passage, it says that Jesus' disciples had just heard that John the Baptist had been beheaded and took his body and buried him. Then, in the very next verse, they went to tell Jesus everything they had been doing. I can’t help but think they told Jesus the sad news of John’s death in addition to everything else they “had done and taught.”

Terrell thinks Jesus saw how tired his disciples were both physically and emotionally. Not only had they been “doing” and “teaching” but they also were saddened by the loss of John the Baptist. Terrell thinks Jesus was, too. Jesus showed great compassion and extended to them an invitation to “come with Me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.”

Think about it! Almighty God in human form, Creator of the universe, Jesus, invited His disciples to get alone with Him and find rest. Do you know that this same God, Jesus Christ, invites you and me to come with Him by ourselves to a quiet place and get some rest? No matter what life throws at you, know that you can pick up your Bible, get alone in a quiet place, pray and find rest for your soul.

If you are not currently Hanging with God at least 10 minutes a day, we want to encourage you to join us. The Summer Reading Program continues through August and you can always go back and see what you might have missed by visiting our website. God loves you and invites you to meet with Him by reading the Bible and praying.

Do you know Jesus personally? Has there ever been a time in your life when you asked Jesus to forgive you of your sins and place your faith in Him alone to save you? If you haven’t, we would love to talk with you. In fact, it’s as simple as A-B-C! ADMIT you have sin. BELIEVE Jesus died on the cross to save you and forgive you of your sins. And make the choice to CHOOSE to follow Jesus by inviting Him into your life. You can read more about the A-B-C’s on the tip-in pages of your child’s KBC Study Bible between pages 626-627.

We want to encourage you to call KiDs Beach Club® and let us know if you have questions or if you have something we can pray about for you. Please share your story of how KiDs Beach Club® or your child’s KBC Explorer’s Study Bible has impacted your child, yourself or your family. You can even send us photos of you and your children reading their KBC Study Bible to news@beachclubs.org. We would love to hear from you.

What a month it has been. Notice there is no exclamation point after that statement. Outside of our nation’s 240th birthday, there were no celebrations. July was a tough month for America. From the killings by police officers in Minnesota and Louisiana to the killing of police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge to the political conventions in Cleveland and Philadelphia this week and last, the outlook appears bleak.

America is hurting. We’re becoming too secular and it’s time for a change - a change of heart. We think that starts with God and His word. America needs to reengage with the Bible if there is to be any hope.

KiDs Beach Club® staff regularly listen to podcasts of sermons from neighboring churches in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. It’s another way for us to see how God is working through the churches in our community. 

Recently David Barton, the founder and president of WallBuilders, recently spoke at Gateway Church in Southlake, Texas. WallBuilders is an organization dedicated to presenting America’s forgotten history and heroes, with an emphasis on the moral, religious and constitutional foundation on which America was built. His message at Gateway is definitely worth checking out. 

He talked about how the Bible influenced the founding of our nation and how for a little more than two centuries significantly influenced our culture. Barton quoted many former United States presidents throughout his message.

“The teachings of the Bible are so interwoven and entwined with our civic and social life that it would be impossible for us to figure what life would be if these teachings were removed,” said President Teddy Roosevelt, who served from 1901-1909.

“If you take out of America what the Bible produces, you wouldn’t even recognize America. That is what Teddy said back then,” Barton stated.

He also quoted President Franklin Roosevelt, who was in the White House from 1933-1945, who said, “In the formative days of the Republic, the directing influence the Bible exercised upon the fathers of the Nation is conspicuously evident.”

Barton interjected, “Unless you go to school today and then it is conspicuously absent.”

Franklin Roosevelt continued, “We cannot read the history of our rise and development as a Nation without reckoning with the place the Bible has occupied in shaping the advances of the Republic.”

President Andrew Jackson (1829-37), regarded by many scholars as the least religious president, said, “The Bibles is the Rock on which our Republic rests. 

President Zachary Taylor (1949-50) called the Bible the best of books and said, “I wish it were in the hands of everyone. It is indispensable to the safety and permanence of our institutions.”

Taylor continued, “Especially should the Bible be placed in the hands of the young. It is the best schoolbook in the world. I would that all of our people were brought up under the influence of that Holy Book.”

And American children were according to Barton. In 1844, the United States Supreme Court, in a unanimous 8-0 decision, said if you’re going to be a government-run, government-operated school, you will teach the Bible. We won’t fund any government school that doesn’t teach the Bible.

That was the way it was until 1963 when teaching the Bible in school suddenly became unconstitutional despite no historical or legal precedent.

“In that decision,” Barton explained, “the Supreme Court, for the first time, said, ‘You know that thing about Bibles in schools, we’re not going to do that anymore.’

“Why did they do it? The court said that ‘if portions of the New Testament were read without explanation, they could be, and… had been, psychologically harmful to the child.’”

Barton sarcastically said, “So, we’ve now discovered the Bible causes brain damage. We have to save our kids from brain damage. I would argue that we’ve suffered massive brain damage since we’ve taken the Bible out of schools. We’ve lost our senses in all sorts of areas. 

“Benjamin Rush, one of our nation’s founding fathers, said the Bible, when not read in schools, is not read in subsequent periods of life. We know statistically that the older you are the harder it is to start reading the Bible.

“Now if you read it when you’re starting school… you’ll keep reading it for your entire life. But if you don’t read it early on it’s pretty hard to start as a teenager. It’s even harder to start as a young adult. When you get over your 30s its even harder and as time goes on it’s even harder to start reading the Bible.”

That is why KiDs Beach Club® chooses to engage with children in third through sixth grades and where do we do it? In the public elementary school thanks to another Supreme Court ruling from 2001 that allows Bible clubs to meet in school after school hours. We’re able to do it because if a school is open to other outside organizations, it cannot discriminate against religious organizations. 

Not only are we teaching children about the treasure of the Bible, we’re giving each and every child in our 170 clubs across the nation a copy of the Bible of his or her very own. We’re teaching them how to read it daily and how to share it with others. It’s helping to change hearts of children, connect them and their families to a church and impacting communities.

“God has a great promise for us,” Barton said. “This is what God tells us in Joshua 1:8, ‘Constantly think about My Word every day and every night so you will be sure to obey it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.’ 

“What made America different for so many years is that we tried to apply those biblical principles and we weren’t always successful. We had lots of things wrong. But more than any other nation we tried to apply the Bible and Franklin Roosevelt said, the advances we made were because we did apply the Bible. So many areas, while we’re not a perfect nation, we are so far ahead of so many others with stability and prosperity and creativity, we just didn’t know that it came out of the Bible.

“That is our challenge,” Barton said in his message at Gateway. “If you’ll get into God’s word and read that and obey it and apply it, you will be prosperous and successful personally, in your family, in every institution we deal with. The whole thing will change if we get back to knowing God’s word, but that starts with us individually.”

If you’re interested in watching David Barton’s message in its entirety, please visit: http://gatewaypeople.com/ministries/life/events/individual-messages-2016/session/2016/06/25/know-the-bible

By now you know that KiDs Beach Club® gives a KBC Explorer’s Study Bible to every child in every Beach Club. Many of you help in this effort with your monthly donations. Some of you even help in the distribution process as a Beach Club volunteer. 

During the last school year, KiDs Beach Club® handed out more than 8,300 Bibles. In the 10-plus years KBC has been giving out Bibles, more than 40,000 kids have received a Bible. For many of them, it’s their first.

Only 38 percent of children who enroll in Beach Club claim to have a church home on their permission form when they start club. Sixty-two percent do not! So, for most, not only might the KBC Bible be their first, it might also be the first Bible in their home.

“The most important thing about handing out these Bibles is that many of the kids might not have ever had a chance to own a Bible or even ever read the Bible,” David Griffin, a pastor at Community Life Church in Forney said. “One of the exciting things is that many of these students don’t even have access to a Bible, so to give them the opportunity to have a Bible to call their own, means a great deal.”

The KBC Explorer’s Study Bible is designed to be easy to read. One dad of a Beach Club kid asked the principal at his child’s school where he could get a copy of a KiDs Beach Club® Bible for himself. He said his son had one and it seemed easy to read. The principal suggested that he sit with his son and read it together. He was surprised that he hadn't thought of that and now they read God’s word together.

KiDs Beach Club partnered with publishing company Tommy Nelson to create the KBC Explorer’s Study Bible, which is handed out on Great Treasure Day, the fifth week of Beach Club.

“This Study Bible has been richly enhanced by the four-color cover designed by KiDs Beach Club as well as the insert pages interspersed throughout the New King James Explorer’s Study Bible,” said Dana Long, a Bible designer at Tommy Nelson.

The special features of the KiDs Beach Club® Explorer’s Study Bible include Word Decoders, which are a compass to the meaning of Bible terms; Discoveries, which allow readers to experience living in Bible times; Bible Treasures, which helps readers learn wisdom from the lessons learned by Bible characters; and Digging In, which allows readers to find rich treasures in story backgrounds, the meaning of key passages and more.

“Each of these insert pages help kids grasp the plan of salvation and the essentials of the Christian faith with age-appropriate language and artwork,” Long said. “The insert pages cover topics such as ‘How to be saved,’ ‘Who is God?’ and ‘What is He like?’ ‘Who Jesus is?’ and ‘What He has in store for each child that trusts in Him.’”

There is also a full-page spread highlighting the great commandment and another for the great commission.

We have put all the insert pages on our website and hope you will take the opportunity to learn more about the Bible your helping to put in the hands of children.

Thank you for your continued support of the Bibles for Beach Club program. If you are interested in becoming a monthly Bible donor, please visit: kidsbeachclub.org/bibles.

KiDs Beach Club® went to St. Louis in mid-June as an exhibitor during the SBC Annual Meeting and as a program sponsor in the SBC Pastors’ Conference. The goal was to unveil its new national growth strategy.

The theme of the Annual Meeting was “Awaken America” by placing a greater emphasis on evangelism. The theme for the Pastors’ Conference was “Live This” encouraging pastors to lead the charge in the urgency to share the gospel.

Several great speakers at the Pastors Conference were unified with the message to thousands of pastors in the audience to “do the work of the evangelist” from 2 Timothy 4:5.

“There is no answer for what’s happening in our world today apart from the gospel."
      - John Meador, First Baptist Church; Euless, Texas

“People can’t respond to a gospel they’ve never heard. We must proclaim the message of the gospel.”
      - David Platt, President of the International Mission Board

“May we never forget the first time we met Jesus.”
      - Derwin Gray, Transformation Church; Charlotte, N.C.

And these two remarks that reinforce how KiDs Beach Club® can help churches share the gospel.

“If your lane doesn’t take you near far-from-God-people, change lanes.”
      - Jimmy Scroggins, First Baptist Church; West Palm Beach, Fla. 

“If Jesus continues to use you, bring the next generation with you.”
      - Johnny Hunt, First Baptist Church; Woodstock, Ga.

Through more than a decade of ministry in public schools, KiDs Beach Club®, has gathered statistics that indicate 62 percent of children who first attend a Beach Club do not have a church home. National studies have also shown a much greater success in reaching people for Christ before the age of 12.

Researcher George Barna, author of Transforming Children into Spiritual Champions, stresses the importance of children's ministry by contending that lifelong moral views are largely in place by adolescence.

"What you believe at age 13 is pretty much what you're going to die believing," Barna said.

Research compiled by his Barna Group shows that children between the ages of 5 and 13 have a 32 percent probability of accepting Jesus Christ as their Savior. That likelihood drops to 4 percent for teenagers between the ages of 14 and 18, and ticks back up to 6 percent for adults older than 18.

KiDs Beach Club® provides a great way to reach children during this critical period in their lives in a mission field that is often overlooked by churches, providing those churches an open door into the public elementary schools to minister to children in third through sixth grades. We are an evangelism tool to reach children for Christ.

At the booth in the exhibit hall in St. Louis, KBC was able to meet with hundreds of pastors and church messengers. We had more than 100 meaningful conversations with church leaders from 18 different states, including 11 states that do not yet have a Beach Club.

While most of the churches were in southern states, KBC also visited with pastors from Maryland, Michigan, New Mexico, New York, Virginia, Wyoming and even the Virgin Islands. Some pastors at churches that already sponsor Beach Club also stopped by our booth and were excited to tell the KBC story, being some of our strongest ambassadors during the annual meeting.

One of those pastors is Fred Shackelford, the senior pastor at Ellendale Baptist Church in Ellendale, Tenn.

“Our church got involved with KiDs Beach Club® a couple of years ago,” Shackelford said. “In our involvement we have seen incredible opportunity, not just to take the gospel to children in our area at a school that we had been looking to get involved with and partner with for a number of months, but we’ve also just seen an opportunity to connect with our community in a deeper way.”

And that is by sharing the gospel.

“Like most churches, we are trying to get outside the walls of our church and KiDs Beach Club® has just been an incredible opportunity for us to connect with our community in an ongoing way. We’ve seen children that have been unchurched, families that have been unchurched, come into the life of our church through KiDs Beach Club®. We’ve seen kids pray to receive Christ… and they get to become part of the Kingdom and we get to be a part of that. I’m so thankful for KiDs Beach Club®.”

In St. Louis, KiDs Beach Club® was able to deliver the message about who we are and what we do to as many church leaders as possible. Many schools don’t have KiDs Beach Club® and we wanted to make sure we reach as many children as possible. KBC also is placing a greater emphasis on sharing the gospel throughout the entire club meeting, not just at a set time.

Summer for KiDs Beach Club® Area Directors is all about ramping up for the coming school year. In June, KBC hosted two different training retreats for its Area Director teams to help them serve our growing partners of churches and schools in their area with excellence.   

Our Texas Club Relations Team met at a retreat center in Junction, Texas for three days of training and recreation. Specific training involved how the team can better support Beach Club volunteer leadership to improve three specific areas: volunteer enlistment, behavior management and keeping clubs gospel centered. Each evening included a time of worship, Bible teaching and prayer, helping the team spiritually prepare for the upcoming year. 

The Independent Area Directors and Strategic Growth Team met for three days at the KBC corporate office in Bedford, Texas, utilizing the ministry’s new training space, which was completed in early June. Since all Independent Area Directors live outside of Texas, they were treated to the “full” Fort Worth experience with meals like Texas barbecue and a visit to the historic Fort Worth Stock Yards and Sundance Square. Training included refreshers on basic KBC processes, new tools for strategic growth and practical tips for working from home.

“There is nothing that unifies a team quite like having fun together. Even with all our Texas heat, it was great for our folks to spend time exploring outdoors and all be together,” KBC Executive Director Cindy Leach said. “Most of our field staff serves in isolated areas. These retreats are a way to help them connect with each other and realize that while they may be the only staffer in their area they’re certainly not alone.”

Both teams took time to celebrate how God worked in the past year and look ahead to what’s coming this year. The KiDs Beach Club® team is a family focused on a shared mission and vision to connect kids to Christ and put Bibles in their hands.

“The retreat was an exciting time to see what KBC is doing in other parts of the United States,” Vanessa Weber, the independent area director in North Dakota, said. “I walked away feeling excited about the ministry’s growth, encouraged by our leaders and other area directors, and amazed at how God continues to open doors at schools and churches! We are on our way to 200 clubs!”

“We believe God has great things in store and our teams are equipped and enthused about making next year, KBC’s best year yet,” Leach added.