Blog

Children who attend Beach Club already bring their Bible to school on the day their club meets, but KiDs Beach Club® is encouraging everyone to bring their Bible with them to school another special day; Bring Your Bible to School Day is Thursday, October 5. 

Bring Your Bible to School Day is an annual, nationwide, religious-freedom initiative for students from elementary school all the way up to college level. It was created by Focus on the Family to equip and empower Christian students to understand their religious freedoms and express their biblical beliefs in a way that shows the love of Jesus.

Participation in Bring Your Bible to School Day is student organized and initiated, as well as protected under both First Amendment and Equal Access rights. These are the same rights that allow KiDs Beach Club® to be held on public school campuses.

In recent years, you may have noticed the increase in news headlines about students being told they can’t engage in simple religious-freedom activities, such as reading their Bible personally during free time or praying during lunch. That’s why it’s so important to come alongside our students and encourage them that they do still have religious-freedoms protected under the United States Constitution–and they don’t have to be ashamed of or hide their deeply held religious beliefs.

Our Beach Club kids know they can have their Bible at school and read it during quiet time. They enjoy reading it before school, in the library, hallway, cafeteria and even together on the playground.

They are taught how to share their faith and pray with their classmates. These religious freedoms are protected. 

On Bring Your Bible to School Day, thousands of students across the country will take the lead on their campuses to celebrate religious freedom and share God’s hope with peers by taking a simple action: Bringing their Bible to school! We hope all Beach Club kids will participate. 

To learn more about what you can do to support the students’ efforts and help them get the word out, be visit bringyourbible.org. They have resources for parents and churches to help you share the event with your students. They also have videos of students just like yours sharing their story of bringing their Bible to school. They even have explanations about myth vs. fact regarding students’ legal rights. 

I Timothy 4:12 says, “Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity.” And that’s what the Bring Your Bible website seeks to equip students to do.

Parental support for students participating in Bring Your Bible to School Day will be absolutely key since it does require courage in this culture of spiritual relativism to acknowledge the existence of redemptive truth. So, we hope you will surround your student participant with prayer and encouragement as they participate in the event.

Hurricane Harvey hit the coast of Texas last month affecting thousands of people as one of the most catastrophic storms the United States has ever seen. Harvey seemed to park over the Houston area with near record setting rainfall in the Lone Star state and also in Louisiana. Thousands of people were affected by a loss of power, damage to their property or the complete loss of their homes.

Hurricane Harvey affected the children and families of eight Beach Clubs around Houston. Specifically, in the cities of Alvin, Mont Belvieu, Highlands and Baytown. 

On the night of North Texas Giving Day earlier this month, Jack Terrell, the founder and president of KiDs Beach Club®, joined radio host Chris Krok on his nightly call-in show on WBAP in Dallas. They talked with Andrew McDaniel, a pastor at Memorial Baptist Church, which sponsor a Beach Club at Stephen F. Austin Elementary School in Baytown, which is located about 30 minutes east of Houston.

McDaniel shared how more than 5,000 homes were flooded by as little as three inches to as much as several feet of water in the city of Baytown alone. Most of the affected homes are located in the school district where Memorial Baptist sponsors a Beach Club. 

“The biggest request people have is ‘Where do I go from here?’” McDaniel said. 

The parents of many children who attend the Beach Club at Stephen F. Austin Elementary have called McDaniel or the church for help. The church endured little damage and became a shelter in the days following the flooding. McDaniel and his congregation performed boat rescues throughout the community. He said these people, roughly 80 percent, do not have flood insurance and are in great need of assistance.

Memorial Baptist stepped up and as of mid-September, had helped 61 families. The greatest need in Baytown is drywall and the church has helped these families tear out the bad and install the new.

For families who have experienced a total loss, they lost items that can never be replaced. Gone, too, are items of sentimental value and, for families with kids who attend a Beach Club, they more than likely lost their child’s Explorer’s Study Bible.

McDaniel and Memorial Baptist are hosting a special party for all the families they have been able to help at the end of September. 

“It’s a time to be able talk to those kids about KBC, because our schools have been delayed in opening up so we haven’t been in the schools yet this school year,” McDaniel said.

The KiDs Beach Club® corporate staff was invited to attend the event to help promote Beach Club and hand out Bibles. All of the area children will be invited to attend Beach Club and several cases of Bibles will be handed out to elementary aged children. Whether they lost theirs in the flooding or have never attended a club, KiDs Beach Club® is ready to give kids hope.

Thank you for your continued support of the Bibles for Beach Club program as well as your donations earlier this month on North Texas Giving Day, which will help fund the extra Bibles going to children affected by Hurricane Harvey.

After your quiet time with the Lord on Thursday, September 14, when you close your Bible, would you consider providing a Bible for a child in a public school? 

September 14 is North Texas Giving Day, when thousands of generous donors give back to their favorite charities in North Texas. It costs KiDs Beach Club® just $20 to put a KBC Explorer’s Study Bible into the hands of a child and your gift that day will help provide a child the hope of a relationship with Jesus Christ in confusing time in our world.   

This year, North Texas Giving Day has set up a way to schedule your $20 gift, as early as seven days in advance.  Please go to kidsbeachclub.org/givingday beginning September 7 to schedule your gift.

The effects of Hurricane Harvey have put a real fear into the hearts of children along the Gulf Coast where we have 11 after-school Bible clubs. Their security and world as they have known it, has been shaken. When school resumes for the children in that region, our KBC volunteers will be ready to assure the children in those Beach Clubs that there is a sure foundation in Jesus Christ during times of uncertainty.

Those KBC volunteers represent nine partnering churches who are not only providing spiritual guidance to these children in public schools but are ministering to the physical needs of the families of Beach Club children as well. One of KBC’s core principals is that we impact communities for God’s Kingdom by equipping churches to minister outside the walls of their building and become beacons of hope in their communities, especially during disasters like this.

Your financial gift to KiDs Beach Club® on North Texas Giving Day will greatly help us continue to provide hope in Jesus Christ. A generous donor has already provided a matching gift of $4,000 so please go to kidsbeachclub.org/givingday beginning September 7 to schedule your donation.

While some Leadership Luaus have already taken place, every volunteer should make plans now to attend remaining Luau events in the month September to help them get ready for a new year of KiDs Beach Club®.

Leadership Luau is a high-energy time of worship and celebration for Beach Club leaders to connect with other leaders in clubs near them. Leadership Luau is not a typical training event, but an exciting time to get recharged and ready to achieve the mission of giving every child a Jesus experience inside their public elementary school.

A lot of hard work goes in to preparing for Leadership Luau, however Vickie Sneed, a club relations specialist in Tennessee, went all out to create a masterpiece of decorations to set the mood for a fun day of training for the Leadership Luau in Bartlett. Sneed spent countless hours planning and crafting the luau. 

“Hopefully I'm sending a message to our volunteers that they are important and worth the time it took for decorating,” Sneed said.

“My hope is that when they walked in and saw the decorations, their mood was lifted and excitement and energy filled the air. I want each volunteer to be encouraged, motivated and eager to embark on another year of KiDs Beach Club®.”

She and a team of nine others got together at church for a full craft day in the time leading up to the Leadership Luau. They painted several surfboards, created palm trees from carpet rolls, turned close to 100 pool noodles into an extravagant coral reef, crafted more than 100 flowers from tissue paper and coffee filters and so many other fun decorative projects. They went as far as to build a surf shack for refreshments, several beachside scenes, a beach ball arch and a life-sized ocean wave for attendees to document in photos to share on social media.

David Riggs has volunteered for three years at the Beach Club at Lakeland Elementary in Lakeland, Tenn., and has attended Leadership Luaus previously. On the practical side, he loves getting all the new information at one time with the volunteers from all of the other Beach Clubs in his area. In that everyone is gathered together for the training, a highlight for him is getting to meet the new volunteers he will be serving with for the upcoming school year in his Beach Club. 

Evelyn Davis, who has been a volunteer for two and a half years at Ellendale Elementary in Bartlett, Tenn., wouldn’t miss Leadership Luau. When asked why she attends she said, “Because of all the information I glean from the people sharing.” She especially loves to hear from other volunteers and club leaders about their experiences in Beach Club and the encouragement they have for one another.

Davis serves her Beach Club as a decision counselor, which is someone who talks with children about making Jesus their Forever Friend. She encourages others to attend because “Leadership Luau gives me enthusiasm for sharing Jesus with the children.” 

Leadership Luau provides the opportunity for volunteers to gather together and get excited about sharing Jesus with children.

“Seeing the potential impact of reaching kids for Christ through Beach Club is motivating and uplifting,” Sneed said.

In addition to providing an opportunity for you to connect and share ideas with fellow volunteers, top-notch KBC leaders are eager to share three new promotion and registration tools designed to grow your club and streamline the registration process:

• New online registration
• Individual web pages for every Beach Club
• New tools to promote your Beach Club

If you have not yet registered for Leadership Luau, go to kidsbeachclub.org/luau to locate and register for an event near you. You won’t want to miss this time of worship, celebration and learning!

KiDs Beach Club® redesigned its website over the summer and it can still be found at kidsbeachclub.org. It is vastly different than our old site and we think this new design better conveys who and where we are as an organization by telling the stories about our Beach Clubs, the kids who attend and the volunteers who serve. 

With the redesigned website come two new features everyone should know about, including Find a Beach Club and online registration.

To find your child’s club, click either of the links to “Find a Club” in the main navigation menu at the top of the website or the orange “Register KiDs” tab in the upper right-hand corner of the site. That will open up a page with a map of the United States. You can use the interactive map by zooming in to find your club or you can click the name of your state below the map to bring up a list of school districts. From there, you can select the name of your child’s school.

That will bring up a page for your child’s Beach Club with information about meeting dates and times, location and information about the sponsoring church. At the bottom of the page, there is a “Register Today!” button with a direct link to the new online registration form. Just click it to register your child. You will have to fill out a separate form for each of your children who will attend Beach Club. The form is accessible a variety of ways, including desktop computers, laptops, tablets and mobile devices and is optimized for the Google Chrome browser.

Be on the lookout for the new promotional club flyer that may come home with your child or be available at the school or the sponsoring church. You may even have it sent to you electronically from your school district through PeachJar or a comparable service. The flyer has information about the Beach Club at your child’s school and the direct URL to find your club’s page on our website.

In addition to those new features, users will see a focus on the ministry's four core values, the four Cs: Impacting Communities for the Kingdom; Sharing Christ in Public Schools; Fostering Life Change in the Hearts of Children and Connecting Families to a Church Family. And it's all presented right on the home page.

The website comes with other new features, including real-time reporting of the number of kids impacted by Beach Club, the numbers of volunteers who serve in Beach Club and the professions of faith made by Beach Club kids, both for the current school year and since the start of Beach Club in 2003. Also on display are the number of clubs, partnering churches and the all-time number of Bibles distributed.

Most of the information from the old site was adapted into the new site, which was designed in conjunction with Artistry Labs. It is presented entirely different and in an engaging way. We think you will find the site does a good job explaining who we are, what we do, where we are, when clubs meet and how to do a Beach Club. In fact, we answer all those questions under the "About" tab in the navigation bar. 

We hope you like it and visit often to read and watch the countless stories and video about how KiDs Beach Club® is connecting kids to Christ and putting Bibles in their hands.

It’s always exciting when a new church partner starts a Beach Club, but it’s even more exciting when they’re in a new state. This fall, Grand Avenue Baptist Church in Fort Smith, Ark., has the distinction of starting the first Beach Club in Arkansas at nearby Albert Pike Elementary.

Grand Avenue recently prepared for this ministry by promoting Beach Club at their Vacation Bible School. Moreover, they gave VBS attendees the opportunity to be involved in the outreach by designating the week’s offering for Beach Club.

“Anybody want to know what that money’s going to help do?” Sherry Goodrum, one of the VBS leaders and a teacher at the church, excitedly asked her young audience. “It’s actually going to go for a really cool activity. It’s called KiDs Beach Club®.”

She enthusiastically explained the purpose of Beach Club to the VBS attendees –many of whom are students at Pike Elementary, and thus potential Beach Clubbers.

“KiDs Beach Club® is an innovative ministry established to mobilize the church to go outside of the walls. You know that the church needs to go outside the walls to make sure that the message of Christ gets to the heart of our communities.”

She also described what kids can expect at Beach Club meetings, “We’re going to tell the truth of scripture at these meetings, every time, in an effort to make sure that Jesus is cool at school.” 

Goodrum presented this information as a lead-in to the offering, which was collected throughout the week in traditional VBS fashion: boys against the girls, with Goodrum getting a pie in the face if the boys won, and a male leader facing the same fate if the girls won.

Despite all the fun and competition, Goodrum ultimately directed the focus back to the unified effort of raising funds for Beach Club.

“The money raised during the VBS will help to purchase Bibles,” she said. “Isn’t that awesome, for others to hear about Jesus’ love?”

At week’s end, they had collected $718 for Beach Club. As for the competition, the girls won, sparing Goodrum from the pie. More importantly though, the kids at Grand Avenue had a valuable opportunity to participate in outreach, learning at a young age to help and pray for one another.

In addition to Arkansas, KiDs Beach Club® will also expand this fall to Ohio, marking the ministry’s 11th state. 

As Beach Clubs around the country enter the new school year, consider how you can create opportunities for your church family – young and old alike – to contribute to your Beach Club. Click here to find out how you can get involved in Beach Club.