Public Elementary School Good News Clubs
Recruiting Ground for Fundamentalist Churches
The Good News Club is, among other things, a staging ground for recruiting families fundamentalist
Bible churches.
CEF recruits fundamentalist churches to sponsor Good News Clubs in public elementary schools
CEF’s “Adopt-A-School” program recruits “church partners” to sponsor clubs in
public elementary schools. CEF workers actively contact “Bible-believing”
churches — churches that agree with CEF’s 15-point Statement of Faith — to
introduce them to and train their volunteers to use CEF’s materials in Good News
Clubs. While CEF describes itself as “inter-denominational,” its focus is so
strictly sectarian that it forbids volunteers from encouraging children to attend “a church that does
not teach the Word of God as outlined in CEF’s Statement of Faith.” CEF USA Organization Policy
Manual § 200.1.3.3.
CEF does not welcome or recruit doctrinally liberal churches to become partnering Good News Club sponsors. In 1981, Mr.
Reese Kaufmann, CEF’s current President, wrote to Dr. Ian Paisley of Ulster’s vituperatively anti-Catholic Free Presbyterian
Church, which has close ties to Bob Jones University, to assure Dr. Paisley of CEF’s strong separatist fundamentalist
credentials:
CEF does not desire to work with each and every group, denomination, organization, church, or individual. CEF will
work only with Bible-believing churches and individuals which are in agreement with our doctrinal statement, which
are practising separation from the world in doctrine and practice, and which do not work with any group or individual
in a ministry context that would be contrary in doctrine or practice and would in any way cause compromise to the
Fellowship. For example, CEF does not work in any way with those who participate in what is commonly known as the
charismatic movement; CEF is not associated with the National Council of Churches; CEF is not involved in what might
best be described as the ecumenical movement by sponsorship, cooperation, or participation; [and] CEF is not working
in any way with the Roman Catholic Church.
CEF, in turn, describes Good News Clubs as an opportunity to grow the sponsoring
church
CEF’s website declares that “God has opened the doors of public schools to the
Gospel!” and that “CEF is ready and eager to help churches enter the schools, fully
equipped to share the Gospel and teach the Bible to school children and extend the
biblical influence to families.” A CEF Adopt-A-School brochure offers the following
inducement: “Personal follow-up to children and their families can increase your
church growth....”
CEF encourages partnering churches to seed the clubs with children whose families already attend the church. Those
children are then encouraged, and provided incentives — as discussed in the “Peer Evangelism” section — to get classmates
and school friends to come to the club. As suggested by CEF’s “Team Leader’s Handbook,” children are also given flyers “at
the end of EVERY club so they can invite their classmates,” rewarded with “incentives” for bringing friends.
© Intrinsic Dignity
