How can these simple missions become controversial?Well, in the plainest of terms, Woke Religion ruins everything. WARNING -AWANA HAS HELPED PARENTS AND CHURCHES TEACH BIBLE VERSES TO THEIR CHILDREN FOR YEARS- BUT HAS SINCE 2021 INCREASINGLY FEATURED AND BEEN DOMINATED BY SOCIAL JUSTICE /WOKE / LGBTQ INCLUSION ACTIVIST EVANGELICAL SPEAKERS. Rather, it feels like they use me to feel better about themselves because I check off the black friend box. A Premier Resource for Awana(R) News and Information. Imagine holding your gametime in a fenced in area, much like a school playground, and standing outside the fence looking in were a myriad of children, or even just one child, looking in, longing to be a part. I can't count the times I have nixed the memorization and replaced it with stories that teach simple truths. Awana, I wanna apologize. I work with the 5th & 6th grade boys and girls. (https://www.awana.org/about/), This is part of what my friend wrote to me . Are you familiar with AWANA? I know what I would do. What advice can you give me? Awana provides for us a demonstration of what Woke Religion does; it steals the profoundly simple mission of the church making disciples and spreading the Gospel and replaces it with leftist political rhetoric cloaked in a clerical collar. Jesus makes me happy all the time? My interest was not in the content or the Author but rather in the fame and fortune of walking away with the most valuable prize and the renown of the group, being proven as the best, the winner., Multiple peer-reviewed studies support Mays argument that rewards undercut the development of intrinsic motivation. Awana, in fact, has been used in my own church for over a decade. Try incentives, share with your leaders that they are there to show these kids Gods Love and at this point the handbook (in my humble opinion based on your comments) is secondary. But the marathon is daunting for the uninitiated. You never know, one of these unchurched kids may be a future Awana Commander or Missionary. NextGen4Christ Will they look to the program to reach the kids, or will they get that passion to reach kids back? Why is that weasel like? It almost seemed as if the new [handbook] was geared toward outreach of non-churched/unsaved children.. Markins and Awana show their willingness to bring his poison RIGHT INTO OUR CHURCHES and into THE HEART of our childrens programs down to pre K age -under our very noses and in the name and under the banner oa a long trust ministry which helped disciple millions of Children in the WORD OF GOD AND BIBLE MEMORIZATION. I am one quite satisfied with a sing-pray-preach type of church myself, but also am not against a conservative church which has a fair amount of activities and a minimal amount of programs. It seems many times the parents send them to get them out of their hair. Largely designed as comic books, the new handbooks differ significantly from their predecessors. Continue to follow our tweets using the hashtag #Awana14Launch to keep up to date on what we are learning and to keep up to date as more information becomes available over the next few weeks. Can you, as regards resources for AWANA here are just two links of quite a few that are, https://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/blog/?p=19102, https://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/blog/?p=23653, On the whole issue of Spiritual Formation on my web site is this article, https://www.takeheed.info/pdf/2018/February/spiritual-formation.pdf. For example, kids who come to group with the weeks verse memorized get twice as many coins as those who memorize during the meeting. Why would Awana side against law enforcement when fair trials didnt not convict them? Theres a pretty significant shift in the mindset from leaders as section signers to actually discipling, says CommanderBill.nets Gunter. They acted as though it was Adolf Hitler who was wearing their colors. People lose sight of the ministry and what God has done through it and through them. Its gone from a low prep/no prep scenario to asking leaders to do real preparation. Some good, some great, and some Ive questioned. My husband keeps reminding me that I work in my role only and leave the decisions to the Commander. Valerie Bell, who has served as CEO for Awana since March 2016, has transitioned to the role of CEO Emerita., Matt joined Awana in January 2013 as vice president of Marketing, Strategy and U.S. Publishing, most recently occupying the role of President and Chief Strategy Officer. As I flipped pages and skimmed the lessons, my stomach tightened and my chest clenched. Every time Awana makes a shift you get the same kinds of responses. See something we missed? The best Christians work with Awana, and a few old folk are left for prayer meeting. It is refocusing. Maintains a regular schedule of Leader's meetings for training, problem solving, What Does Wielding My White Privilege for Good Look Like? If youre concerned that you may be losing your passion, then find support, others to pray for you, to counsel you. I want to share now why some Awana Clubs fail. Yet it was reality in parts of the world as clubs could not allow children in to hear the Gospel because of lack of supplies, funds, etc. Here are the best content compiled and compiled by the Thptdonghoi team, along with other related topics such as:. Not only did Awana prove themselves to be without a sense of humor, but their freak-out over President Trump donning a Sparkies vest betrayed their political leanings. The current club model is not slated for extinction because it is one tool that has worked, and still works, effectively having a great impact on many children, youth and adults. The tension is familiar to any ministry trying to mix evangelism with discipleship, newcomers with experienced elites, or leadership development with broad outreach. If they want to do more, there are extra credit questions to fill out and additional verses to memorize at the end of each lesson. A club of homeschooled kids will generally have the perfect club with children coming ready to complete several sections. I can honestly tell you that if you mellow out a bit, that it will drive you crazy because you will be going against what you know you should be doing. In what alternate universe did they live? This can be a teachable moment, a discipleship moment, Marchand says. Some love it, some hate it. Some think the new handbooks have too many verses to memorize, some think too few, and some wonder whether it has too many activities unrelated to Scripture memory. Discovering that these promises, that Jesus makes us happy all the time and that everything in the Bible is always exactly right, are empty and false nearly destroyed my faith. Finally, continually share what God is doing in the ministry and show how it matches up with the mission of the church. True Caring and Teaching is the epitomy of what is taking place with these children in our Awanas program. Feel free to contact me, or another whom you trust, but find support. I was also an outsider I am no longer in a leadership position but am working in Cubbies. From the Awana website we can see that " [Awana] began as a children's program at the North Side Gospel Center in Chicago in 1941. Ultimately, I accepted being a part of this summit and Im glad I pushed past the apprehension. This spurred her to writethis blog., Conflict is necessary when addressing problems of racial justice and equality, as it is required for true transformation to occur, something you may say to couples or parents battling with their teens., Conflict has to be understood and embraced as part of the process.. If it is, thats a problem. Beyond the coins, however, Faith Chapels Awana program has scaled back competition in some ways. But no more. As I hope you are aware, I have been attending the first Blogger Summit ever held by Awana. I am a director with no acting commander of our club. 3.7 Car Leaves Track: Apparently, the legal threat was just idle intimidation. Theyre saying I need someone to tell me the truth. Can you motivate unmotivated kids by challenging them to finish handbooks faster than their friends? Secondly, the lack of the Gospel in the counsel time lesson. Awana has always been and will always be about the Gospel. There have always been some critics of that philosophy (which Awana leaders have called the Instructional-Analytic Model), but only in recent years has that criticism become more public. We, my wife and I, have taken over as the Co-Commanders at a church that God called us to. If you are finding your leaders are lacking passion it is because of one of two things (or, worse, both): 1, lack of conviction. What would you do if you saw children standing outside your Awana club wanting to join in? The kid who is coming in and asking Jesus who? So why is it that the larger reach of Awana is not known? The shift away from handbook time, where kids would recite verses from memory, to small group time, where the kids discuss the verse and its context, is also heavily influenced by innovations in local churches, he says. Add worship time with new songs. ), I was that kid who walked into Awana and had only been to church on Christmas, Mothers Day, and Easter, Marchand says. Awana is seen simply as a mid-week program (club) by a large majority of people in the United States. But again, every time the Bible talks about history, the Bible is exactly right. When extrinsic incentives are involved, it is often the award that is treasured more than the task or content that is learned, wrote Scottie May, then associate professor of Christian formation and ministry at Wheaton College, in the 2006 volume Perspectives on Childrens Spiritual Formation. I cannot allow these ideas to infect and destroy my children. Everything He says is absolutely right and true. The monkey in that cartoon is wearing a big smile for a reason. The New Reformation: Finding Hope in the Fight for Ethnic Unity. You cant. Scott, listen to this. I turned to him, sitting on the other end of the couch. Why We Are Going Away From AWANA. 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