County kids connect with Church

Home Features County kids connect with Church

When His disciples turned them away, Jesus said, “let the little children come to me.”

On Wednesday nights, the children go to Hillsdale Free Methodist Church. The church opens its doors to the kids of Hillsdale County for Kid’s Club: two hours of fun, games, and Bible teaching. Most of its attendees are unchurched, elementary-aged kids.

Kid’s Club reaches children like Kennedy, a fifth-grader who started coming with her neighbor when she was in kindergarten.

“It’s just really different from a lot of other churches,” Kennedy said, explaining what it is that has kept her coming all these years. “A lot of other churches, you go to and you just sit there the whole time. This church, you get to play games and stuff and learn about God, but it’s in a fun way.”

Jody Saunders, daughter of Pastor Keith Porter and Jean Porter, who has been involved with Kid’s Club for six years, remembers when Kennedy first expressed an interest in the God they talked about so much.

“One day, I was doing a lesson and all of a sudden she said, ‘Who is this Jesus you keep talking about?’” Saunders said.

At one point, Kennedy and her four siblings regularly came on Wednesday nights, even though their parents never attended church at Free Methodist.

Most of the kids who attend hear about it by word-of-mouth. Often, their school friends or their neighbors will tell them about it. If their parents call in to the church, they can request that their child be picked up by one of the three vans sent into the community for Kid’s Club each week.

When Saunders first started helping with Kid’s Club, there were about 25 to 30 kids who came on a regular basis. Last year was the first in which the number of kids present on Wednesday evenings consistently exceeded 50.

But the church would not be able to host the program without volunteers both from their church body and from the college. About half of the volunteers are either current Hillsdale College students, recent graduates, or faculty. Professor of History David Stewart, a church member, tells the Bible stories that are so central to the club.

Church member Gartha Hazen leads crafts and has done so for more than 20 years. She came to Free Methodist when the Porters did and has been leading crafts for Kid’s Club ever since. Before that, she prepared crafts for children’s ministry at Addison United Church in Addison, Michigan., and for the nearly 200 kids who came to summer family camp at Somerset Beach Campground. She also worked as a paraprofessional educator in local schools.

Hazen’s motto is to make crafts the kids will remember, even years from now, as some of her former students have done.

“If I’m going to do a craft, it’s going to be something that they’re not going to take home and throw away,” Hazen said.

She usually tries to integrate part of the Bible story or memory verse into the craft somehow.

Senior Caroline Green is one of the students from the college who volunteers at Kid’s Club. Her favorite part of the evening is seeing the kids respond to Stewart’s Bible story, even though they may seem distracted or disengaged.

“He’ll ask questions and they’ll raise their hands, and you’ll realize that they actually were paying attention,” Green said. “So that’s just encouraging, to see that they’re getting something out of their time here that will hopefully stick with them.”

And apparently, things are sticking. At the end of the school year last year , according to Jean Porter. Two were baptized just a few weeks ago.

“Seeing kids who don’t know anything about God or what He has done for them understand it and be excited about it, Saunders said. “That’s what’s most encouraging about all of it.”