Our last meeting will be on May 6 from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. at the Purcellville Skating Rink. The cost is $3 per skater. Their web site is http://www.bushtabernacle.com/ If you haven’t been exposed to this ministry yet, you are in for a treat! Parents will be responsible for their own children. Verses can still be recited but you must make prior arrangements with your child’s leader. Food is available on site for purchase.

Our 15th Annual Awana Award Ceremony and Ice Cream Social will be on May 20 from 4:00 to 5:30 pm at Blue Ridge Bible Church. Please bring an ice cream topping to share. All ice cream will be provided. We will have a special slide show looking back at 15 years of our Awana history.

Also, at our Awards Ceremony, we anticipate presenting two Citation awards, the highest Awana honor. Our Citation Award is the most coveted accomplishment representing the completion of 10 books totally over 1,000 verses memorized plus reading through the entire Bible and summarizing each book. This award also requires service and missions projects along the way. We have only awarded eight Citation awards in our 15 years of running Awana at Blue Ridge Bible Church. This year’s awards recipients are David Garber and Christina Webster.

Thank you to all of our Directors, Leaders and Clubbers who worked so hard to make this a successful Awana year! We had 50 dedicated leaders who tirelessly came each week to listen to verses and model consistent godly character to the clubbers. Club nights could not run without their service. Please take a moment to thank each of them. Special thank you to our dedicated Directors who go above and beyond to make sure records are kept and awards are received. They take time each week outside of club to do all the work that ensures clubbers are rewarded. Kudos to Courtney Shipe, Shelly Farley, Leah Garber, Lauren Hyde, Jon Garber, Kyle Niewoehner, Tom & Chelli Monroe, and Todd Harris.

Congratulations to all our clubbers who memorized God’s Word. Our goal is to reach boys and girls with the Gospel of Christ and train them to serve Him. Please consider joining us again on September 9 when we begin our 16th year of Awana.

May 6 – 4th quarter, Club Party Night

May 13 – NO AWANA (Mother’s Day)

May 20 – 15th Annual Award Ceremony and Ice Cream Social

We are counting down to our last Awana days this year! Fools Night will be celebrated on April 1st. Kids can dress like court jesters and come for a special council time message.

Bolivia Night will be an opportunity to focus on our Bolivian missionaries, the Holmans! We hope to have a special message from Joe about how God is moving in South America.

Backwards Night will be a bit different. Our whole club night will run backwards! It will be a mixed-up night of fun!

In honor of the Summer Olympic Games, we will hold our Nonsense Olympics on April 29! We will feature specific Olympic events. You won’t want to miss this night of crazy fun!

Keep memorizing scripture! This is our 15th year of Awana at Blue Ridge Bible Church. Clubbers are committing large numbers of scripture to memory which will reap a lifetime of benefits. We can see God moving in the lives of our young people as they grow in their knowledge of Christ.

April 1 Fools Night

April 8 NO AWANA (Easter)

April 15 I Bolivia Night

April 22 Backwards Night

April 29 Nonsense Olympics

Our missionary emphasis this month will be on Smyrna Ministries. Smyrna Ministries International is dedicated to praying for and financially supporting persecuted Christians in Islamic regions. Each club will take a country that Smyrna touches and research it in preparation for International Night (March 4). The Executive Director will share a special council time message on March 4. This is an excellent opportunity to expose your clubbers to what it means to reach the lost for Christ. You won’t want to miss this! Learn more about Smyrna Ministries at their website.

Measles Payback Night is back on March 11! In the past, clubbers placed a colored sticker on their leader’s face for every section memorized on Measles Night. On Measles Payback Night, the leader will place the sticker on the clubber’s face for each section the clubber memorizes! Prizes will be given for those with the most stickers.

On March 18 Whether Weather Night is a shout-out to our Northern Virginia roots. Our weather here can be fickle and change quickly. We rely on the Hand that created each weather situation. Come dressed for a calamity and see how God is moving.

Five Alive on March 25 is a chance for clubbers to get an additional prize! For every five sections memorized, clubbers can choose from the treasure box for an additional prize! Keep memorizing and hiding God’s Word in your heart !

March 4 International Night

March 11 3rd quarter, Measles Payback

March 18 Whether Weather

March 25 Five Alive

We will celebrate Super Bowl Sunday on February 5 by a canned food drive for our annual “Souper” Bowl Sunday! We will join more than a quarter of a million young people around the country who use Super Bowl Sunday as a way to raise awareness of local hunger relief charities. The food we collect will go to Tree of Life Food Pantry right here in Purcellville. Urgent food needs include: canned vegetables, canned fruits, canned meats, canned beans, canned soups and chili, 100% juices, peanut butter & jelly, honey, rice & pasta, spaghetti and tomato sauce, macaroni & cheese, baking items such as flour, sugar, vegetable oil, pancake mix and syrup, cake mixes and frosting, condiments (ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise), breakfast cereal, ground coffee and tea.

Thank You Night is a chance for clubbers to express gratitude for those who influence and serve for Christ. We want to instill an attitude for gratitude.

On Heart Night we will examine the condition of our hearts. There will be a special council time message and some awesome treats!

Leap Day is only celebrated every four years. We will leap between activities all night long! Join us for some high flying adventure!

Just an administration note: When we have to cancel Awana due to weather, we will make every effort to call all our clubbers to inform them. The church website will have up-to-the-minute information as well. And don’t forget to follow the church on Twitter for all the latest information.

February 5 – Souper Bowl Sunday!

February 12 – Thank You Night

February 19 – Heart Night

February 26 – Leap Night

By Geni Hall

816 children logging 2,172 clubber-years and 143,000+ Bible verse recitations
315 families
600+ parents
1,300+ visitors
288 directors and leaders logging 700 leader-years including:
53 Leaders-In-Training (older teens groomed to become leaders)
86 Patrick Henry College students
63 young adults
Hundreds of Romanian children and adults through our sister Awana Club run by missionaries, Adrian & Lavinia Dreana
1,500+ third-world children through our annual participation in Operation Christmas Child

Thousands of children and adults have been impacted by God’s work in and through Awana at Blue Ridge since it began 15 years ago. It plays a vitally effective part in our church’s outreach, discipleship, family ministry, volunteer training and leadership development efforts, aligning directly with Blue Ridge’s Mission, Values, and Vision.

What is Awana?

Spawned in Chicago 60 years ago, Awana is a fully integrated evangelism and discipleship program that appeals to both churched and non-churched kids, leading them to trust Christ for salvation and grow them in enduring faith and service to God.* Fun games, engaging materials and methods, and involved parents and leaders all come together for an exciting experience that helps shape kids for God’s eternal purposes.

Awana blends biblical instruction, evangelism, scripture memorization and tons of fun for kids ages 2 to 18 along with their families and entire communities while helping instruct parents, train volunteers and making a life-defining, long-lasting spiritual impact.

Today more than 1.5 million children and youth, 250,000 volunteers and 170+ field staff take part in Awana in over 22,000 churches from 100 different denominations in the U.S. and internationally each week.*

Its Philosophy

God intends parents to be the primary spiritual nurturers of their children. He designed the home to be the center of discipleship where kids are molded into spiritually-mature Christ followers and where parents and children grow together in faith, building stronger families and churches along the way.* Awana helps parents fulfill this calling.

The ages of 4 to 14 are the golden hour of evangelism. Research, anecdotal evidence and even common sense all clearly identify the childhood years as the window of opportunity for the greatest life-saving impact for eternity. For a large majority of people, if they do not respond to the gospel as a child, they likely will not do so later in life. All the ages of youth form the silver day. The teenage years as well provide a prime opportunity to evangelize. - Rock-Solid Kids, Larry Fowler

When parents and churches work together to teach God’s Word across kids’ formative years, they produce young adults marked by steadfast biblical faith and character.*

Its Impact

Today’s church is in crisis. The trends are troubling:

• Over half of all church-going teens abandon their faith after high school.
• As few as one in 10 possesses a biblical view of God and the world.
• Bible knowledge among college students has plummeted to all-time lows.
• The majority of children from Christian homes leave the church by age 19.*

Unfortunately, these are more than mere statistics. They represent millions of young people around the country. The crisis they face—and that churches and parents must confront—is all too real.*

By contrast, most kids trained in Awana continue to faithfully follow Jesus as adults.* Independent research demonstrates that young adults with 6 or more years of previous Awana experience are dramatically different from their peers:

• Church attendance – 92.7 percent of Awana alumni continue to regularly attend church as adults, and only 1.8 percent said they had dropped out of church since high school. By comparison, 36 percent of Americans surveyed by Baylor who attended church at age 12 said they are now unchurched as adults.*
• Belief in God – 93.7 percent of Awana alumni said they wholeheartedly believe in God as opposed to 65.8 percent of Baylor respondents.*
• Jesus and salvation – 98.6 percent of Awana alumni believe Jesus is God’s Son compared to 70 percent of Americans and 85 percent of Protestants. 93 percent of Awana alumni believe Christ is the only way to salvation. 69.6 percent of Americans believe many roads lead to salvation or do not believe in salvation.*
• Belief about the Bible – 94 percent of Awana alumni believe the Bible is God’s Word compared to 58 percent of Americans and 73 percent of Protestants. Awana alumni are also 3.6 times more likely than other churchgoers and Americans to read in virtually every case the Bible several times a week.*
• Church service – At 74 percent, Awana alumni were five times more likely than Americans polled by Baylor to serve their church 11 hours or more each month.*
• Personal evangelism – 70 percent of Awana alumni said they share their faith with friends at least once a month compared to 35.7 percent of the national average, 48.7 percent of Protestants and 59 percent of the most devoted churchgoers.*

Awana alumni were found to be more devoted to God, His Word and their local church than even the nation’s most committed churchgoers.* Why? The evidence indicates that consistent, long-term participation in Awana—accompanied by spiritual training from parents—reaps long-lasting results.*

By Earl Hall

* Content reprinted from material available on the Awana website at www.awana.org

In addition, clubbers often struggle with inviting friends and neighbors to join us at Awana. Our focus is outreach. We do want to reach our neighbors for Christ. Our goal is to lovingly open our doors and share the Good News about Christ to the lost. Because of that, we plan to do a literature drop in Purcellville neighborhoods advertising our Awana program with doorknob hangers. For the Awana clubbers in uniform who join us to help, this will count as one visitor requirement in their book. The outreach event is planned for Labor Day, Monday, September 5th. Watch the bulletin for further details.

Leadership training will take place the end of August! Be praying how God can use you in this dynamic ministry. Positions fill up fast so contact us today!

Contact Earl and Geni Hall for further information (earlwmhall@aol.com, genihall@aol.com)