What I Love to Do One Afternoon a Week

Okay, look at these faces! Wouldn’t it be worth a couple of hours of your time each week to teach them how much God loves them, hear their stories, be the blessed recipient of their smiles and hugs??

I know, some of you work outside the home, or are plenty busy raising your own little ones…but since that is not my current stage of life I decided last summer to take a chance this year and work with our after school Bible Club program.  The Instagram pic above is of most of our Kindgergartners {I co-lead this group during small group time with another sweet lady}. I originally thought I would share a link with you to the ministry site for the organization that started this in our area, but decided I wouldn’t do that in order to do the most I can to protect our precious club kids {and yes, their parents have given their permission for pictures}.  We are blessed that a local woman had a vision for sharing the love of Christ with elementary school kids and started an umbrella ministry.  This makes it easy for churches to “sponsor” a club – which means we pay for the curriculum and materials used, get training and staff the club.  This makes it quite easy for us, because they choose & order the curriculum and give us the framework, which we adjust to fit our location, time-frame, group-size, etc.  They provide twice yearly training, do background checks on workers, and provide us with photo id. However, this is something that anyone could really do with some prayer, passion and a little time!

Here’s how ours works.  We meet one afternoon a week after school in the library for 85 minutes.  Our basic schedule is: Snacks ♦ Music ♦ Bible Story/Missions/Memory Verse Time {we have over 50 kids enrolled so we split them into 2 groups and “flip” them halfway through} ♦ Small Group/Prayer Time ♦ Dismiss.  The time goes by very quickly, but we pack a lot in there! We have 4 “Party Clubs” a year where we change it up a little bit {Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentine’s, Easter}.

We are blessed with a team of 9 {from High School to Great Grandparents} who share the various responsibilities. Our church family also supports us with prayer, providing simple snacks, making goody bags for the parties…we even have a precious lady that bakes and decorates special cookies to match our party themes!  One of our team members is a college student who dreams of working in the international mission field with children and two are high school girls who love to serve and work with special needs children at school.  It is so fun to watch my team members grow in their own lives.  Several of them have tried something they haven’t done before…like one who gave a presentation of the gospel using visuals she hand prepared – and we are talking with several children about it as a result!

So, I just wanted to share my experience…not to draw attention to me, but to highlight a ministry opportunity you or your church may not have considered yet.

Have a beautiful day! {It’s sunny and 71 here today}