Good News and JYC clubs what they do and how you can help
By Dean Honeycutt
Mitchell County
While sharing with students and Parents about the JYC (Jesus and You Connection) club at Harris Middle school open house in Spruce Pine, a parent walks up to our table and asks about our afterschool club. The father is standing at our table with his children and asks what our club is about. My mind immediately thinks I may have an opportunity to share the Gospel with this father. I am excited about the opportunity but sense hesitation on his part. I could tell he was skeptical about our club. I had just seen him at another table hosted by a different group where he was excited about getting his children involved. I gave him a copy of our registration form that explains what the club is about. He looks at the form and says we are not religious and proceeds to place the form back on the table and walk off. My heart was saddened, and I became more aware of the burden I need for the lost to be saved.
One rarely meets families in our mountain communities that have no religious affiliation at all. This same evening, I met three other people who had moved into our mountain communities. Natives to this area generally have some religious affiliation. They attend church somewhere or grandma goes to church, or they believe in God but do not regularly attend a church. Last year in our JYC afterschool Bible club only two in six students regularly attended church. This reflects Mitchell County; less than a quarter of the population regularly attends church services. Regular attendance would be anytime a particular church is having a church service. Faithful church members will attend church every time the church doors are open. So, we have a large, unchurched population in Mitchell County that need a relationship with Jesus Christ.
The Barna Group analyzes cultural trends in values and beliefs and has found that only one in four Americans practice Christianity and that twenty-one percent of Americans have no religious affiliation. (Barna: State of the Church 2020; Signs of Decline and Hope among Key metrics of Faith). The concern I am raising is that lost people are all around me and the work I need to be doing is obvious. Families need the Lord. However, do I have a burden for the lost? The Bible says the fields are white unto harvest, but the labors are few, who will go and work in the harvest?
I need a burden for the unsaved. I need to put my burden into practice and witness to the unsaved. The Bible says if my faith is not accompanied by works then my faith is dead.
This reminds me of the school that was built on a mountain and at the end of the playground, there was a cliff. Sometimes during recess, a ball would roll off the cliff and a child would go running after the ball and get too close to the edge and fall off and be injured. An ambulance would pick the child up and rush them to a hospital in another town. Sometimes the child would die on the way. The town got together and discussed what to do. And one person said we need to build a hospital. And everyone agreed to build a hospital. However, an elderly lady stood up and said a hospital would be nice but what we really need is to build a fence. But everyone was excited about the hospital. So, they started to build the hospital. But the elderly lady started building a fence and only a few joined to help her.
Christians are in the life-saving business. And our job is to witness to the unsaved. I thank the lord for the Good News and JYC clubs in Avery, McDowell, Mitchell, and Yancey counties. These clubs are a ministry of Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF) a “Bible-centered, worldwide organization composed of born-again believers whose purpose is to evangelize boys and girls with the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and to disciple them in the Word of God and in a local church for Christian living.”
Through the ministry of these clubs in our public schools’ children are saved and sometimes entire families come to faith in Jesus Christ. Our director is Dianne Neal who serves the Mountain Chapter of CEF. She loves the Lord and does a fantastic job. If you are looking for Good News or JYC club for your child to attend, if you love working with children and have a burden to see children saved and want to serve in a club, or if you would like to financially support the work of CEF Mountain Chapter you may contact Dianne Neal @ (828) 442-7392.
All club teachers are screened, background checked, and trained to work with children.
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Pastor Dean Honeycutt shepherds Snow Hill Baptist Church in Bakersville, NC. He may be reached at 828-385-0213, snowhillbaptist@gmail.com, or visit their website at www.snowhillbaptist.com.
You can read more good Christian news from Dean HERE.
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