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We know we’re coming right off a successful annual fundraiser, but we will again be participating in North Texas Giving Day. We want to get September 14 on your radar. That’s the day when thousands of people rally around various Dallas-Fort Worth area non-profit organizations to help financially support their mission.

If you were unable to support KiDs Beach Club® at the Bibles for Beach Club Benefit Dinner earlier this month, we hope you will be able to make a gift in support of our ministry that is connecting kids to Christ and putting Bibles in their hands. Together we’re making Jesus cool at school!

While we are thrilled with the 14,000 Bibles you helped us raise at the Benefit Dinner, that number signifies a year of significant growth for our ministry. The last two years, the Lord has provided us with the exact number of Bibles we have needed to ensure we’re able to give every child in every Beach Club a Bible of their very own. Based on the Bibles we’re purchasing for kids this year, we’re projecting to grow by more than 90 clubs, which amounts to roughly 6,300 kids.

In order to facilitate our rapid growth, we will have to act quickly to expand our ministry with the addition of strategic growth and field staff representatives and your gifts will greatly assist that process.

More details will follow, but know that this year you can schedule your North Texas Giving Day gifts starting September 7. Simply go to NorthTexasGivingDay.org any time between September 7-13, and you will be able to schedule gift in support of KIDs Beach Club®.

Amazing! That’s the only word that seems to describe the 2017 Bibles for Beach Club Benefit Dinner July 14 in the Grand Ballroom of the Speedway Club at Texas Motor Speedway. The night focused on the ministry’s continuing vision to provide every third to sixth grade child a Jesus experience within the culture of their public school.

“This is an audacious vision that God has given these people, and it excites me,” said keynote speaker Lee Strobel. Strobel is the author of The Case for Christ, and a teaching pastor at Woodlands Church in The Woodlands, Texas.

Strobel emphasized the importance of raising today’s young people to be strong in their faith, because they are the leaders of tomorrow. He also expressed concern in current trends.

“There’s no question,” Strobel said, “today we are facing a crisis of faith among young people.”

He gave these statistics:

• Only 56 percent of millennials consider themselves to be Christians.
• Only 62 percent of millennials are confident that God exists, compared to 82 percent of baby boomers.
• Overall, the number of atheists and agnostics has more than doubled in recent years.

Strobel cited one cause being that young people have tough questions about their faith, but no one who is willing to discuss them. Strobel talked about his own journey down this path, which ultimately led to atheism and immorality.

“That’s the path that some of these young kids are going to be taking unless somebody intersects with them at a young age and brings them hope through Jesus Christ,” Strobel said.

KiDs Beach Club® wants to make this intersection, and provide kids with tools to stand strong in their faith. One of the key pieces to this is providing each child a Bible, which we are able to do because of your continued support. 

“Hebrews 4:12 says that the word of God is active and it’s alive,” Strobel said. “We’re not putting something powerless and anemic in people’s hands; we’re putting the word of God in the hands of these young children who are at the perfect age.”

As a result of the Benefit Dinner, KiDs Beach Club® will be placing an order for another 14,000 Bibles to hand out to children in public elementary schools.

Strobel encouraged donors that by partnering with KiDs Beach Club®, “We can help turn the tide and reverse the current trend of millennials turning away from Christ. 

“Why can’t they be the greatest generation that has ever lived for Jesus Christ?” he said. ‘They can. With our encouragement, with our investment in their lives and their spiritual development, with the Bibles we can give them, who knows what they’re gonna bring to this world as they spread this message of hope and grace and love and forgiveness and eternal life through Jesus Christ.”

If you were unable to attend the Bibles for Beach Club Benefit Dinner and would like to support this cause, please visit kidsbeachclub.org/bibles.

Back in April, we wrote about our first Beach Club in Missouri, Harris Elementary in St. Charles. For the first five weeks of club, no one attended. Then, near the end of that fifth week, at 3 minutes until 4 p.m., Miley (and her mother) walked in.

It was a reward for the volunteers who had faithfully showed up each week, hoping and praying for the day children would walk through the doors of the gymnasium. 

Check out this video we shared at the Bibles for Beach Club Benefit Dinner on Friday, July 14. It's a story of perseverance.

How would you like to enjoy a breakfast at the Original Pancake House, lunch at La Hacienda Ranch or a fancy dinner at Bob’s Steak and Chop House? Those are just three of nearly 100 gift cards available in the popular Dine and Dash game that will take place starting at 6 p.m. before our Bibles for Beach Club Benefit Dinner, which takes place in just days at Texas Motor Speedway.

Happening at the same time in the Grand Ballroom of The Speedway Club will be the Pick and Play which features tickets to outings such as the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra and The Perot Museum as well as certificates for family portraits, chiropractic and salon services as well as passes for your family to go ice skating at the Galleria.

When you purchase a dinner plate in the Dine and Dash for $25, on the back of the plate will be a gift card worth at between $25-$100 to restaurants around the DFW Metroplex. The great news, each donation purchases a Bible for a child in a public school.

The Pick and Play tables will be stocked with Bison Tumblers and for $50, you’ll choose a tumbler to keep along with the certificates inside ranging from $25 - $300.

It costs just $20 to put a Bible in the hands of one of the more than 11,000 children in Beach Clubs across America.

It’s not too late for you to join us at the Bibles for Beach Club Benefit July 14, featuring keynote speaker Lee Strobel, please click here for tickets.

Thank you for partnering with us to reach thousands of boys and girls for Christ in public elementary schools by making Jesus Cool at School!

Married couples often share commonalities. For Trai and Kesa Chavez, who will celebrate their second wedding anniversary in August, one of those commonalities is that they are both former Beach Clubbers. Moreover, both spouses attest to the impact that KiDs Beach Club® made on their lives.

They didn’t know each other back then. Kesa attended the Midway Park Beach Club in Euless, Texas, off and on during third and fourth grades. She was shy, and being involved with KiDs Beach Club® helped her feel accepted.

“The leaders of Beach Club really loved on me,” Kesa said. “I had a leader actually share with me John 3:16 and the importance of love, and that right there was just something huge to me because it was a one-on-one connection.”

In addition to her shyness, Kesa was also struggling with a difficult family situation at the time.

“It was a really tough time for me in third grade. My dad almost passed away, and dealing with that when you’re a little kid – there’s so much that runs through your mind.”

She credits KiDs Beach Club® with helping her through those days. 

“It spoke life to me,” Kesa said.

It also gave her a tool for coping with those situations. 

“That was the time I actually started to learn how to pray, from the leaders at Beach Club,” Kesa said.

For Kesa, as for many kids, Beach Club supplemented her regular church attendance. However, her husband came from a different background.

“Beach Club was the first seed planted for me,” Trai said.

Trai attended Beach Club at Lakewood Elementary, also in Euless, during fifth and sixth grades. For Trai, Beach Club gave him something to do after school. Although he didn’t fully embrace the message at the time, he enjoyed going.

“Though I didn’t get the whole spiritual part a whole lot, I felt like that the people, the leaders that were there, they were nice people; they were fun to be around, played games, and I knew that they were there for good reasons… My heart just wasn’t in it for the ministry part of it.” 

Nonetheless, Isaiah 55:11 promises that God’s word will not return to Him void, and God began working on Trai. 

“I remember after going (to Beach Club), I would think about death, and I would think about what’s after.” Trai said. “It really got my gears grinding for the first time thinking spiritually.”

The seed that Beach Club planted ultimately matured, and in ninth grade, Trai accepted Jesus Christ as his Savior and began attending church.

Today, the couple is answering God’s call on their lives. Trai is preparing to enter Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in the fall to pursue a bachelor’s of arts in humanities and Biblical studies. Meanwhile, Kesa will be taking courses in Southwestern’s women’s program while interning at their church, First Baptist Euless.

The couple is grateful for the foundation that KiDs Beach Club® gave them, and for the seed that was planted in Trai.

“I’m thankful,” Trai said, “because I did look back once I started going to church in ninth grade, and I was like, ‘I remember a little bit about this stuff, I remember hearing a little bit about this.’”

When Dawson Morton began attending KiDs Beach Club® at Meadow Creek Elementary School in Bedford, Texas, he didn’t go on his own volition, but instead because his mom said he should. What he found out, however, was that he liked it.

Now a sophomore at Wayland Baptist University in Plainview, Texas, Morton has a long history with KiDs Beach Club®. After joining Beach Club in third grade, he attended regularly for three years. He credits this to Jack Terrell, the KiDs Beach Club® founder, who was volunteering in the Meadow Creek Beach Club back then.

“That’s what I looked forward to when I went to Beach Club, was hanging out with Jack, and talking to Jack,” Morton said.

Terrell was serving as the Bible Connection Leader, teaching the weekly Bible story. Morton liked the way Terrell presented it, saying that although he had heard the stories in church, hearing them in Beach Club gave him a new perspective. This led to him accepting Jesus Christ as his Forever Friend. 

“Jack is actually the one who brought me to Christ because of one lesson that he gave me,” Morton said.

That lesson was about Gideon. Making that day even more special, Morton had also been selected as that week’s Bible recipient. At that time, KiDs Beach Club® was only able to award one Adventure Bible each week in each club; Morton says that he still has his and plans to give it to his kids someday. 

Eventually, as kids do, Morton aged out of Beach Club. However, he soon got the opportunity to return in a new capacity. His mom decided to volunteer at a Beach Club sponsored by their church, First Baptist Hurst, and she asked Morton to join her. Just as he had the first time, Morton balked at the idea.

“At first, I was kind of nervous about it,” Morton said. “I was like, ‘I don’t think I can do that.’” 

At his mom’s persistence, he finally agreed to go one time. That was all it took.

“It was almost as if it had changed my life again, as to what it was when I participated in Beach Club… It filled my heart up with joy because I could see all these kids accepting Christ just like I did one day, and the joy when they got the Bibles that were given to them.” 

Morton continued to volunteer at the River Trails Beach Club in Fort Worth, Texas, throughout junior high school. Today, he studies international marketing and plays baseball at Wayland, but he still remembers his time in KiDs Beach Club®. He has also remained close to Terrell, and still cites “talking to Jack” as his favorite part of Beach Club.

Morton offers this advice to kids who, like him, might be unsure about joining Beach Club: “Stick through it, even though your friends might not be there with you. And you might feel alone, but there’s always going to be people there for you, and good will most likely come out of it.”