Ky. Baptist churches reach out to schools
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By Ken Walker
State Correspondent
Rush—When Teri Wells enters Ponderosa Elementary School near Garner Baptist Church, the Bible club leader gets the same sensations she experienced in El Salvador and Brazil.
“Going into public school feels like going to the mission field,” said Wells, church secretary and club leader throughout its 10-year history.
“There are some who go to church, but there’s also the children who are unchurched and consider the Bible club their church. It’s very touching when children ‘get it’ and make a profession of faith.”
In addition to Ponderosa, during 2010-11 the eastern Kentucky congregation will oversee a Bible club at Summit Elementary near Ashland.
Over the years, the church has sponsored six clubs, although it has turned over some to other churches that are closer to the respective schools.
Garner Baptist started the initiative after a teacher invited them to begin a Bible club at Ponderosa, where several students had requested one. Pastor Gary Arrington said they patterned theirs after Child Evangelism Fellowship, which helped them avoid legal problems.
The effort has opened doors with parents, too. One time a mother picking up her child told Arrington she wanted more information on his church. That led to a personal visit in her home, where the pastor asked what she thought it would take to go to heaven.
“I don’t know,” she replied. “Can you tell me?”
“The whole family accepted Christ and is involved at the church,” Arrington said.
Other Kentucky Baptists involved in reaching out to students and teachers recommend that churches take advantage of this wide-open opportunity.
For the past five years, Dripping Spring Baptist Church in Olmstead has hosted an annual educators’ luncheon just prior to the school year.
Starting with Olmstead, in 2007 it expanded to Russellville City and Logan County schools.
About 80 administrators and teachers attended this year’s event July 27. In addition to a buffet featuring steak sandwiches, the church gave away $150 worth of gift cards as door prizes.
“It has allowed us to be a more visible witness in the community,” Pastor Jeff Noffsinger said. “We’ve been able to convey to folks we’re not just here to have church. We want to assist them whenever we can. The best way to let people know that is to care for the kids.”
The luncheons have prompted other activities. Dripping Spring supports a backpack ministry that supplies weekend meals to needy students in the area.
Church members have prayerwalked the schools and leaders soon want to assign each teacher a prayer partner. In addition, the church has allowed public schools to use its auditorium for Christmas programs and other musicals.
Noffsinger has forged a closer personal relationship as well by serving as president of Olmstead’s Parent Teacher Organization the past two years. “We look at it as a mission and an opportunity,” he said.
After Labor Day, Munfordville Baptist Church will resume its long-standing Team Kid, which attracts about 100 elementary-age children each Monday afternoon.
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TOUGH DECISION Josie Flaig, who started kindergarten this week at Blue Lick Elementary School in Louisville, tries to choose one of the 330 backpacks that were given away Aug. 6 at Parkland Baptist Church. Each backpack contained folders, notebooks, markers, crayons, pencils, glue sticks, a Bible, a letter from Parkland Pastor Tom Curry and a prayer card. (Photo by Drew Nichter)
Bible class popular
in public schools
By Drew Nichter
News Director
Williamsburg—Since the 1990s, Bible classes have popped up all throughout U.S. public schools. In them, students learn about the Bible’s influence on culture in literature, art, music and so on.
“It helps the students basically become educated people,” argued Bernie Harrington, an English teacher at Williamsburg High School, who recently started his second semester of teaching a Bible literacy course at the eastern Kentucky school.
“If (students) don’t know about the Bible, it really just hurts them when they’re asked to have an intelligent conversation with someone and they don’t even know where (a biblical) reference came from,” he noted.
The textbook Harrington’s class uses, “The Bible and Its Influence,” has become an increasingly popular resource for public school Bible classes.
According to the Bible Literacy Project, which publishes the text, more than 400 schools in 43 states are using it. As many as 19 of those schools are in Kentucky.
Included in that group is Hart County High School which created the Bible class in 2008 at the behest of Superintendent Ricky Line.
Despite some early uncertainty from the school principal, the class was approved, mostly due to the textbook’s broad range of endorsements, from evangelical groups to liberal watchdogs.
“We study Chaucer and we study Shakespeare,” said Line, a member of Munfordville Baptist Church. “Surely we can spend a little bit of time on something that’s a lot more important than that.” (In fact, scholars estimate Shakespeare refers to Scripture more than 1,300 times.)
Harrington said his class has attracted an eclectic group of students, even at a small school like Williamsburg High.
“I’ll have some students who come from church homes,” said Harrington, who attends nearby Main Street Baptist Church. “But I have other students who come in and they just really have no background at all about the Bible—but they’re not against learning more about it.”
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Pastor John Smith said the sessions started about 14 years ago after members realized they needed to offer unchurched children more than just vacation Bible school.
“It’s like a mini-VBS,” Smith said of the Bible stories, arts and crafts, recreation and snacks where about 20 volunteers serve each week.
Munfordville Baptist sees about six conversions annually, as well as a number of older students returning to volunteer as aides.
Directed by member Michele Bryant, Team Kid isn’t the only time dozens of visitors show up. Each fall the church sponsors a festival with games, food and hay rides; it draws about 250 people.
“Families come by the droves to have an alternative to Halloween and the haunted houses,” Smith noted.
The congregation also touches residents through its Upward Basketball league, which spans preschoolers to eighth grade.
“It gets us out in the community,” Smith said. “People know us as the church that has Team Kid and Upward. They know where to find us.”
Parkland Baptist Church in Louisville used its second annual block party Aug. 6 to distribute free backpacks to 330 elementary school students who were among more than 1,000 people who attended.
The backpacks included folders, notebooks, markers, crayons, pencils and glue sticks. Each one contained a Bible, a letter from Pastor Tom Curry and a prayer card.
The project was dedicated to the memory of Parkland’s 8-year-old Cambrey Mudd, who died of leukemia July 17.
Beth Turpin, minister of students and activities, said members decided to distribute school supplies because they sensed there was an economic need in the community.
“Several parents told us how grateful they were—several said it was an answer to prayer,” Turpin said. “In addition to that, we found 350 people who don’t attend church anywhere, which gives us a chance to minister to them.”
One fear that may hold some Kentucky Baptists back from involvement with public schools is potential problems crossing church-state lines.
Recognizing that public schools likely would remove Bibles from 50 leftover packs, Parkland Baptist instead donated them to a mission in downtown Louisville.
Some churches could field gripes from parents who don’t think it is legal to teach about the Bible, even after school.
That is what happened at Garner Baptist, although Wells said such complaints have dwindled in the past two years.
Since clubs are voluntary and parents must give their permission for their children to enroll, she said today they seldom get such calls.
“Child Evangelism Fellowship got a (court) ruling that, ‘Yes, they can do this,’” Wells said. “It’s a very rewarding ministry. We feel each time we pray … that it’s a treasured time.”
Western Recorder issue date: August 17, 2010.
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