There's still good news!

Tuesdays and Fridays from October through March, I teach an after school Bible club at two local schools. It’s called Good News Club (sponsored by Child Evangelism Fellowship) and it’s open to first- through fifth-graders. This year I have mostly 7 through 9-year-old girls who attend regularly. I think girls like clubs more than do boys, and it’s hard for boys to sit through another hour and a quarter in a school setting right after school is out. The girls who come are lively, giggly and full of fun. The numbers vary from week to week, anywhere from 5 to 10 kids. They sing enthusiastically and they listen intently to the Bible stories. They participate whole-heartedly in the goofy games we play to memorize Bible verses and to win points for their teams by answering the review questions correctly. They work hard memorizing the memory verse so they can win personal and club points toward an ice cream party. They are totally delightful children.
…and their favorite part is…the snacks(!!!), usually cookies that various people from my church donate.Last week our lesson was about Joseph being thrown into prison for refusing to sleep with Potiphar’s wife. Potiphar was the captain of the bodyguards of Pharaoh. Joseph was falsely accused by Potiphar’s wife of trying to rape her, when in fact he had said no to her when she repeatedly insisted that he sleep with her, and had run away from her, leaving her clutching his cloak. So, the application was learning to say no to temptation by remembering our week’s Bible verse, “…the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.” (1 John 4:4) I encouraged the girls to remember the four steps Joseph had used in order not to give in to temptation: 1) know God’s Word; 2) avoid temptation; 3) say no; and 4) run away (get away) from temptation.I talked about some things kids and teens can be tempted by—lying, smoking, stealing, cheating, and even sexual temptations. Even though the kids I teach aren’t teens yet, I talked about sexual temptations they may face when they are teens, that God wants them to keep their bodies pure and that sex is for married people only. It’s a shame that such things have to be discussed with children, but our culture no longer upholds this value as it has done in the past. Most of these children’s families do not go to church, so they may not hear this from their parents, and they are in danger of being totally influenced by the unbiblical mores of our society today.After the lesson on saying no to temptation as Joseph did, the girls divided themselves up into two teams. There were twelve review questions and the teams alternated answering the questions. If a team got the answer right, one girl would throw a bean bag at a line of plastic bottles (ten feet away) with labels on them (Misuse God’s name-500, Smoking-100, Stealing-300, Cheating-200, Lying-400), trying to “knock down temptations.” The team that got the most points won, of course. Some of them could throw that beanbag pretty hard…one girl knocked down three at once. Even after all 12 questions were answered, they wanted to keep throwing the beanbag at the bottles; finally I had to stop them because of time constraints, and it was snack time and prayer request time and time to pack up and go home.…another energizing GNC meeting with spirited, bubbly little girls; I drove home smiling once again.

P.S. The good news (which is the word "gospel") is that, though we are all born separated from God spiritually (because we are all born with a "want to" to have our own way, i.e., we are all sinners) and we deserve to be separated from God forever, God loved us so much that he sent God the Son to earth to take the penalty for our sin on himself, die on the cross, rise after 3 days, and return to heaven 40 days later, where he is now, preparing a place for us. Our sin has been paid for, and all we must do is believe that Jesus died for our sin, ask him to forgive us and to come into our heart. Then we receive God's "forever" life, and we will not be separated from him in a place of darkness after we die.