The Narrow Path Ministries

My oldest, who is 6 years old, has started attending Awana. He is really enjoying it. When we signed him up, my wife and I knew some things regarding Awana (ie. memorize bible verses, learn about the bible verses, interaction with kids from Christian parents, etc) but as the year has continued, we've learned a few other things that have given us pause.

The first is that they say the pledge of allegiance to the US flag at the beginning of each meeting.
I find the mixture of learning about God and patriotism somewhat disturbing, although I realize it isn't uncommon in the US.
They also say a pledge to the Awana flag, which is as follows:

I pledge allegiance to the AWANA flag which stands for the AWANA clubs whose goal is to reach boys and girls with the Gospel of Christ and to train them to serve Him.

Why would you need to pledge allegiance to the Awana flag? I think the goal presented in the pledge is laudible, but shouldn't the staff of Awana recite it rather than the kids who attend?

Another concern is mixing performance-based education with Christianity. I wonder if that gives the wrong impressions..

On the flip side, my son is motivated to memorize verses, and we are using that to ensure that he not only memorizes the words, but understands the meanings. He would also be crushed if we pulled him out.


Have you had kids in Awana?
If so, were you OK with the pledges?
Is there any other kid's club thing like Awana, without the baggage?
Any other feedback is appreciated...

Thanks.


Dave

Dave,

We had our oldest in Awana's a few years ago when he was 4 I think. We had the same concerns you did (wait til you get to the awards ceremonies at the end ). Although we didn't yank him, we decided not to re-enroll him when it was done.

It does have the positive effect of inspiring bible memorization, and our son absolutely loved it as well. He still reads his Awana book occasionally.

However, for us, it wasn't worth the cost of the emphasis on performance based Christianity. If I remember right, AWANA stands for "A Workman Approved Not Ashamed" based on 2Tim 2:15. That just wasn't the way we wanted a relationship with God represented to our 4 year old.

I don't mean to sound like a broken record, but we had the same concerns as well. Our daughter was there when she was 4. There wasn't an allegiance to the US flag, since we're in Canada. They had them learn the Canadian national anthem instead but there was an allegiance to Awana (kind of a freaky thing to do in Canada since we're not used to pledging allegiance to anything). We've always found it most productive when reading the bible together with our daughter. I've personally never done bible memorization and yet I remember much of the bible because it has become a part of my daily life and mediation. I guess I'm hoping this will be the same with my daughter. We've since tried have her involved in things that are not preformance based. She's now 9.

We never actually put our kids in AWANA, though we knew other families that did so. I never heard anything negative from our friends about AWANA, though I didn't know about the pledges of allegiance, which would have disturbed me also.

Like SteveF, I never did a lot of Bible memorization, and neither did my kids. I am not against it, and I did some when I was a kid. My children knew the Bible as well as theirt friends in AWANA, I think. They and I simply learned by immersion, not memorization.

christopher wrote:Dave,
We had our oldest in Awana's a few years ago when he was 4 I think. We had the same concerns you did (wait til you get to the awards ceremonies at the end ). Although we didn't yank him, we decided not to re-enroll him when it was done.

Chris,
(If you don't mind my asking...)
What are the award ceremonies like?
What did you tell your son about not returning?

Dave

Sorry Dave, I'm just now noticing this post.

The awards ceremony was like one would expect from a points based system. Some kids were celebrated, held in high honor and received fancy prizes for achieving so many points, and others (like our son) were kind just left out on the sidelines. We came in half way through the program so William didn't have an opportunity to "earn" as many points. The points system also held kids accountable for things they had no control over (like if their parents didn't buy them a uniform ). It seemed to be fostering a spirit of "spiritual" competition (look what you can aspire to kids) and not a spirit of getting to know Jesus as much and enjoying the company of other saints. The whole thing just gave us an uneasy feeling the time and we couldn't wait for it to be over.

We really didn't need to tell our son why we weren't re-enrolling because we left the church during that summer (and the house church we went to was doing AWANA ). I'm not sure what we would have told him had we continued going to the church. That probably doesn't help any, but that's about all I can offer unfortunately.