Good News Clubs Spreading the Good Word

I need some good news. Don’t you? I mean, with all the breakdowns and bailouts and foreclosures and jobless numbers and trillions in national debt, with drug cartels exploiting our porous borders, with the institution of marriage under attack and our national monuments in danger of terrorist attacks, with almost all candidates for office attacking and vilifying each other — I want, I need, to hear something good!

Well, I’ve got some great good news. And it’s about what we call “The good news.” The Gospel. The wonderful news about an all powerful God who loves us!

How is this relevant in a news, government, and social commentary web site like this? Let our Founding Fathers explain.

• George Washington: "It is impossible to govern the world without God and the Bible."
• President John Adams: “Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
• Benjamin Franklin: “Only a moral and virtuous people are capable of freedom. The more corrupt and vicious a society becomes, the more it has need of masters.”

What is increasingly overlooked from too many Americans, especially our young in school, is that this incredible country only exists because of the Judeo-Christian faith of the men and women who built it.

There is no other reasonable or even possible explanation for it; the republican concept of democratic government grew wholly out of the Bible declaration “Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” Not only that. Wherever this Christian approach to self government under a loving God who grants every individual equality and liberty has taken root, in any part of the world, that nation or people have prospered, moving beyond their neighbors in every facet of life.

Almost under the media and political radar, the great good news of God’s love is being taught to millions of young people in many parts of the world. And it’s being enthusiastically received, changing forever the priorities and knowledge of self worth for all who receive and believe it.

I’m referring specifically to an organization named Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF). This valiant, dedicated group of unsung heroes has been teaching school kids about God for over 73 years now. And amazingly, they’re still able to teach them on public school grounds — through Good News clubs that meet after school, in neighborhood homes, even outdoors, wherever children and a good Christian adult can meet together, freely and voluntarily.

CEF trains an average of 275,000 children’s workers each year, mainly parents and caring adults who will take the time and effort to teach. And not just in America. Courses are available worldwide and even online, where people from 40 countries have learned how to reach children with the Gospel. Some of these thousands of clubs around the world, like one in Zimbabwe, have as many as 1,400 children in them.

Millions of American adults today remember being in these Good News clubs when they were growing up. But happily, a 2001 Supreme Court decision established the right to hold Good News clubs in our public elementary schools.

A wonderful partnership has developed, in which local churches adopt neighborhood schools and provide club volunteers who are trained by CEF and then teach the CEF lessons to eager, receptive young kids.

What makes this so dramatic in America are the statistics that show the majority of children in the United States never attend a Bible-believing church! According to research by the Barna Group, most born again Christians accepted Jesus as Savior before the age of 14. And “whatever a child believes by the time he is 13 is likely what he will die believing.”

This underscores Jesus’ own plea “Let [allow] the little children come to me . . . except you come like a little child, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” Today, millions of our kids in this country are never even given the opportunity to know God and experience relationship with him. CEF is working powerfully to change that sad fact.

And in 163 nations around the world, CEF has divided its efforts into eight distinct regions, each with its own director, who is a national from that region.
There’s the CEF Mailbox Club that mails age-appropriate Bible lessons to children and adults who request them. When a lesson is returned, volunteers write encouraging comments, pray for the needs of the recipient, and mail the next lesson. Since this program began in 1999, 4.5 million lessons have been mailed.

There are 2.3 million adult inmates in America’s prisons — and they have an estimated 6 million children, who have a 70 percent chance of ending up in prison themselves. So CEF set up a special unit to reach those kids through their parents.

These people are doing far more than I can tell you here. But they are some of the best news I’ve heard in a long, long time. Please find out how you can be part of this world-changing program at cefonline.com. Let’s spread the great Good News together.