Like Vacation Bible School, your Pathfinder and Adventurer clubs are a gold mine for outreach to the community. Can you think of a better program for youth? Who wouldn’t want their kids to be in a club that taught camping and taught survival skills, that offered age appropriate leadership training, that sponsored activities to promote community pride and involvement, that taught the value of volunteering, that provided personal encouragement and mentoring by a caring staff member? Pathfinder clubs offer this and more. If parents are looking for the moral equivalent to the neighborhood scouts, this is it!
Pathfinder clubs need to be promoted. Many churches aggressively advertise and recruit kids at church; the same must be done in the community. What about the complaints regarding problem kids? The kids in the neighborhood are probably no more a problem than the ones at church. Interaction with community kids can provide an early object lesson on the importance of outreach that hopefully will raise a generation to be more mission-minded than their parents.
Having competent, dedicated leaders is the key. Often Pathfinder clubs struggle to find and retain good leaders who don’t get burned out. Pray for and recruit enough gifted leaders to share the load. All the information necessary for a dynamic club is readily available at your local conference office. Don’t hesitate to solicit the services of the conference Pathfinder Director. That person can help turn this traditionally in-house ministry into an outreach success.
