Good News Club

Good News Clubs are wrapping up around the Little Rock area and I am enjoying my visits to each one. I am genuinely in love with the workers from each church that make these clubs possible. They are a delight and on each visit I enjoy getting to know them just a little bit better. Relationships can be messy, but I don't think there is anything better than getting good and entangled in someone else's life, and struggling forward together. We need to do this in the Body of Christ, especially in the Body of Christ.

Anyway, yesterday I visit two clubs located in the heart of the city. The first club had grown from five kids in the first six week session to thirty kids in the second. One of the girls who attended the first session ran over to me and gave me a hug. "I thought you had forgotten about us!", she exclaimed. I explained to her that I was helping other boys and girls at other schools learn about Jesus. This seemed to satisfy her and she ran back to join the group.

In this club I rotated between two groups of children - the rowdy little ones and the rambunctious older ones - and observed them learning Bible verses, participating in an object lesson about sin, writing down prayer requests for the "God Can", constructing a craft, and hearing about Satan's fall, not to mention singing, loudly, "God loves me, I know He does...", complete with clapping, stomping, and chest thumps.

Near the end of club, one of the leaders ran over to her co-leader and whispered something furtively in her ear. The co-leader's face broke into a wide smile. I later learned that they were discussing two little girls from this past summer's outreach who had heard the gospel at a 5-Day Club and since then had been coming to church regularly. The leader had learned at church the previous day that the two little girls plan on being baptized very soon. And there was much rejoicing.

It is wonderful to work with people who have such a burden to reach others with the gospel. Sometimes it feels like we're not getting anywhere, but then I am reminded how God can use little things, even years later, to bring someone to Himself. I continue to hear testimony of people who first heard the gospel and believed at a Good News Club. Children are such complicated little creatures. Who knows how God will choose to work in their lives?

These visits renew my vision and encourage me to just keep going. Ministry can be such a guessing game at times. There's not a set formula for ministry "success", and anyway, the definition of success is sketchy at best when it comes to ministry. Faithful obedience is what counts, and that is hard. I often forget that while I'm here in my little office answering e-mail, returning phone calls, planning training sessions, and praying, that lives are being changed.

It's good to be reminded every once in awhile.