KBC Blog (2021)

When you support KiDs Beach Club® September 19 on North Texas Giving Day, your gift is helping us fight an increasingly difficult spiritual battle between good vs. evil, morality vs. sin and light vs. darkness. It’s a real battle infiltrating our communities.

Through our after-school Bible clubs, KiDs Beach Club® is on the front lines, sharing the Light of Jesus Christ in our public schools, which have become the most accurate representation of their communities.

According to the Barna Group, more than 70 percent of Americans identify as Christian, but when asked if they attend church regularly – at least one time per month – only one-third of the surveyed respondents indicated they do. Barna researchers say this represents a more accurate picture of Christian faith in America, one that reflects the reality of a secularizing nation.

More than 60 percent of parents who sign up their children for Beach Club, indicate they and their kids do not have a church home.

KiDs Beach Club® is a solution to enable the church to go outside of its walls to reach the unchurched to help our communities return to God. KiDs Beach Club® is an innovative ministry established to mobilize the church to go outside its walls in order to take the message of Jesus Christ into the heart of its community.

“Many students won’t ever step into a church so it’s important for us to go to them,” Kathy Porter, the club leader at Northrich Elementary in Richardson, Texas, said. “Our culture is a culture that doesn’t always look to the Light. They feel despair; they feel a lack of hope many times.

“KiDs Beach Club® is a way for (volunteers) to form relationships with these kids and then, when we form those relationships, we can show them the Light of Jesus and then they start to feel it and ask more and more questions. The culture can be scary, so school becomes a safe place for them and certainly KiDs Beach Club® becomes a safe place for them.”

Churches, like First Baptist Richardson that partners with KiDs Beach Club® to do the Beach Club at Northrich Elementary, are incredibly passionate about the gospel being the Light that can change a life and are excited to be able to go into the schools and share Bible stories with them.

Keneé Dover is a surf team leader in the Beach Club at Janie Stark Elementary School in Farmers Branch, Texas. “Being able to spread the word of God to young hearts is the biggest blessing that we are given,” she said.

“To be able to give that gift to children when it really sinks in… especially children that have never heard about God and never heard about Jesus. It’s important for us to share that with them because we are called to share the Good News. It’s the Great Commission, ‘Go to all the world and preach the Good News…’ Our world is right here in this community and there are people who don’t know Him yet.”

Dover is proud of club leader Schalee Sanchez for helping The Branch Church bring a Beach Club to their community.

“Schalee had it called on her heart to start this club,” Dover added. “We debated on public school or private school for that reason, and we chose, because we are believers, to be the light in the public school. This just gives us another avenue for our children to be able to share and be an encouragement to their friends, and then to be able to partner with our children, to be the Light in little hearts, is just the biggest blessing.”

Sanchez said her heart was burdened and troubled for all of the things that go on in schools during this day and age.

“It’s just so sad,” Sanchez said. “I began praying about it more and more. I felt like God was saying I want to teach you to fight back but in the right way. I believe that KiDs Beach Club® is doing that. It’s a way, in a spiritual realm, that the armies of God are fighting against the darkness.”

KiDs Beach Club® is teaching children the word of God so that as they grow and mature, they will make better life choices, instead of negative ones. The truth of scripture is incorporated in every club meeting, which reinforces the character words taught each week in club and in the elementary schools themselves. The vision of KiDs Beach Club® is for every child to have a Jesus experience within the culture of their elementary school.

Thanks to your ongoing support, this fall we have 162 churches partnering with us to operate 192 Beach Clubs in 11 states. Since 2003, more than 21,000 volunteers have allowed our organization to impact more than 101,000 students. In the next five years, your support will help us march toward our goal of reaching 100,000 students in 2,000 Beach Clubs every week.

Your support of KiDs Beach Club is making a huge difference in our communities and for God’s kingdom.

Beginning today, you can schedule your gift to KiDs Beach Club® to help our churches share the Light of Christ in the heart our communities – the public school. Click here to schedule your gift to KiDs Beach Club®.

This year, for the first time, you also can give via text message. Just text “Bibles” to 444-999 to support our efforts to connect kids to Christ and put Bibles in their hands.