So you want to start a kid’s holiday club or perhaps you already have one? The next few posts are for you.

First let me say, it’s wonderful that you are having a crack at this.  You’ve taken a big deep breath, prayed and now you’re mustering a team and probably already thinking about how relieved you’ll be when it’s all over! I hear you.  However, sometimes in our desire to get some outreach happening we can easily undermine our goals. For example, you’ll want to avoid starting a sneaky gospel kid’s holiday club.

A sneaky gospel kid’s holiday club is where a lot is promised to children but the delivery is underwhelming.  In this scenario the club will choose a well known character or movie/TV show as the draw card for children.  Children will come, rightly having high expectations based on the ‘hit movie’, but may find the church’s delivery of activities, games and teaching, despite all well meaning efforts, to be disappointing. Welcome to the world of high production values.  It’s hard living up to Hollywood folks!

We need to pause and ask, ‘can my team really deliver on those expectations or do we need to do something else that allows us to play within ourselves’

Sometimes the kids have a great time with the all the activities and games connected with this hit movie, but unfortunately the gospel is presented in ways that are discordant with the movie or have only a remote connection.  Consequently, children feel that the teaching is a bit of a clumsy ‘add on’ to all the fun things and may even resent the time spent away from the genuine, ‘movie’ based activities.

The apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:1-2

“Since we have this ministry, just as we were shown compassion, we do not lose heart. We renounce secret and shameful ways…”

Now I doubt there will be many people out there starting kid’s holiday clubs who deserve the remark of being secretive and shameful. Most of us are just well meaning and need ideas. But we do need to be mindful of unintentionally undermining the truthfulness of the gospel by our methods. Our gospel is genuine and so too must our methods of presentation and marketing.

In the upcoming July school break Stephen will be presenting the gospel at various hoilday clubs in Sydney and Brisbane through his unique show, Antons Antics. www.antonsantics.com