God in the midst of distractions In one of our clubs, a child recently was causing a lot of trouble. He was sitting in the front row directly below the teacher. This little boy, about six years old, was having so much fun distracting the other children from listening by repeating the teacher in a
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In the Good News Club that met at a church in Chicago’s South Side, the children and adults were reeling from recent tragedies. The previous weekend, 50 people had been wounded in shootings around the city. It was obvious that Chicago’s children, particularly the children in this club, were frightened and sad. As the club
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From a Good News Club teacher. As a club teacher I had to teach a lesson about forgiveness to a group of children, but coming from an abusive past, I struggle with forgiveness. How can I teach forgiveness to children when I have a difficult time forgiving people who have deeply hurt me? As I
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“Sylvia, don’t you want to play the water game with the other kids?” I asked the little girl who was standing off to the side at the beginning of our summer 5-Day Club. “No,” she said flatly, looking at the ground. “Well then, can I tell you a story?” I countered. Usually, my little Wordless
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Good News Club changes lives. Sharing the Gospel with a child can bring about a major change in that child’s attitude and actions. As Good News Club teachers go into public schools they only see that effect once a week. Luckily one of our club teachers called the office, very excited to tell us about her daughter, who has
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Two years ago the Mayor of Maywood called the village together to pray. She instructed the police to block off the street in front of her office, put up a podium with a microphone in the middle of the street and invited clergy and ministry leaders to step to the podium and pray. Ministry leaders
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Above is a training class where we are teaching teachers how to present the gospel to children using the Wordless Book method. One teacher who took the training not only used what she learned with children but with adult inmates in the Cook County jail. The following is her story of how God, in His sovereignty,
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As the club teacher shared the gospel with the young girl, she was in tears… At the age of 7, she was sad because she had sinned against God and she recognized that her sin separated her from God. These tears of sadness were the result of the Holy Spirit convicting her of her sin
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As I tried to maintain control over the group of 50+ children who were milling around during our Bible club, I realized that part of the problem was Tyson (name changed), a 13-year-old who we had asked to come “help out” at Bible club. Tyson was too old to be officially part of our Bible
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Prayer is the foundation of everything we do. Without the power of prayer, all of the work in the world will amount to nothing of value. Five years ago, the Chicago CEF team intensified its focus on prayer by praying together every Monday morning via a conference call. During one of those calls five months
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