Coming Back to Club Part 1: What’s Essential in Child Discipleship?

At our recent Coming Back to Club online event, we discussed three main things every Awana club can do to prepare for a new ministry year of child discipleship, regardless of what your 2020 was like. Our three guest missionaries and host kicked us off by talking about the reason why you will want to make the 3B philosophy of Awana — Belong, Believe and Become — an essential part of your club philosophy.

As an Awana leader, you are united with every other Awana leader under a common purpose and a common vision to disciple children and youth around the world so that they will come to know the Lord Jesus Christ and love and serve Him throughout their lives. The way in which you minister to kids today impacts how they serve and love the Lord throughout their lives.

Says Tyler O’Donnell, missionary in Kansas and U.S. Field Director, “[As leaders,] we want to be able to build our children’s lives on the Lord Jesus Christ so that when the world around them starts to throw their arrows and the storms of life come through and sweep through, they will bend and flex but not break. They’ll stand resilient.”

In Awana, the best way to accomplish this is through the ministry philosophy of the 3B’s: belonging, believing and becoming.

Belonging is highly relational. “We want children to have a place where they feel safe, where they are secure and where they can experience the love of God through His people,” says Tyler. 

“They need to feel like they are a part of something … like this is the best place they could possibly be,” says Bob Bennett, missionary in New York and Pennsylvania. “And this is true for a lot of leaders and ministry directors.”

Believing is deeply scriptural. “So when children are building their lives in the Lord Jesus Christ and they’re memorizing Scripture, they’re growing closer to Him and in their walk with Him,” continues Tyler. 

Becoming is truly experiential. The purpose of belonging and believing is so that children and youth can become lifelong Christ followers who serve Him, and continue to grow and bear fruit so that others can come to know, love and serve Jesus Christ.

“Kids are in this belong, believe and become circle, and then it kind of layers out,” says Andrea Perkins, missionary serving in the Heart of Texas. “As they belong in ministries and develop through discipleship, they gain a better concept of how many other people in the world also need to be belonging. This drives an awareness of the international need for the Gospel that maybe your [non-discipled] child doesn’t necessarily have. [For most kids] It’s hard to conceptualize that there’s a whole big world out there that has the same Gospel need they do.”

Andrea encourages church leaders to find ways to include kids in mission outreach projects and events as a way to see the needs of others and serve them. 

And, says Host and Community Engagement Manager Melanie Hester, “that may be really specific for each one of you for what your community needs. But being able to go through belong to, believe in and become begins to help you stay centered.” The key, she says, is to find ways to make it possible for children “to see Jesus no matter what.”

In part 2 of our three-part series on Coming back to club, we’ll address the benefits of ministry evaluations and how you can use them to bring new volunteers, energy and success to your club. In part 3, we’ll also help you facilitate change in order to move your ministry forward. 

For more ways to prepare for the coming ministry year, watch the replay of the Coming Back to Club online event, download our Back-to-Club Guide and resources and learn about the Child Discipleship Forum, Sept. 15 and 16 in Nashville and online.