Waco Section Royal Rangers

The Waco Section Royal Rangers held our quarterly round table at First A/G – Belton on April 12, 2007. The meeting began a few minutes after 7:00 PM with a decent group. We had commanders from 9 or 10 churches present at the meeting. There were 11 sectional staff members present. We were also blessed to have our district commander, Jonathan Trower, present at the round table. We had a full agenda and a great time.

We opened with a quick word of prayer which was followed by David Trower, the Waco Section web and publications coordinator, brought the devotion.

Is it worth it to teach Royal Rangers?

Is it worth it to teach Royal Rangers? I grew up in a home with a godly father and mother. It is becoming more common for kids to grow up in dysfunctional homes than to grow up in a two parent home. I am direct result of what Royal Rangers can do for a boy. I grew up through the ministry, even achieved the highest medal Royal Rangers has, the Gold Medal of Achievement. I am not the only one in this room that has accomplished that. I am not the only one in this room to grow up through the ministry, and live in a two parent home. However, there are boys in your churches and in your schools that they do not have that godly influence in their lives.

Consider for a moment that boys that grow up in a fatherless home are:
• 5 times more likely to commit suicide
• 20 times more likely to have a behavioral disorder
• 14 times more likely to commit rape
• 19 times more likely to drop out of school
• 10 times more likely to abuse chemical drugs
• 9 times mores likely to be in a state operate institution, and
• 20 times more likely to be incarcerated in prison

Let’s also consider:
• Over 30 million children in the U. S. do not have a father living with them and over 1/3 will not see their father at all in the next twelve months.
• Ninety percent of all homeless and runaway children are from fatherless homes.
• Over 71% of high school dropouts are from fatherless homes.
• Young children growing up without father’s involvement are ten times more likely to be extremely poor.
• There are 20 million children living in single parent households.
• Sixty-three percent of youth committing suicides come from fatherless homes.
• Of all the children that exhibit behavior disorders, 85% come from fatherless homes.
• The majority of teen mothers come from homes without fathers.
• Seventy percent of the juveniles in state operated institutions come from fatherless homes.
• And if you examine the prison population, 85% of all youth sitting in prison grew up in a fatherless home.

It has become abundantly clear that we need godly men to stand up and help fill in this gap. I firmly believe that while there is no complete substitute for a dad, a godly father figure can go a long way.

In Royal Rangers we have the four gold points on our emblem to represent the four ways a boy grows: Mentally, Physically, Spiritually, and Socially. This comes from Luke 2:52, “And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.”

Royal Rangers is designed to actively help a boy grow in each of these four areas. As godly male figures, you can transform a boy by just living your life for God. You can also transform a boy by spending time with him. We are blessed to be able to be a part of a ministry that allows us to minister to the whole boy. Boys need godly men. In some ways, boys are more fragile than girls. Have you ever watched a boy with a dream have that dream torn to shreds by an abusive father? That can be devastating to that boy. Yes, in some cases, it can be a motivator to that boy to prove everybody wrong. But how many times has a boy had a dream, and someone tell him that the dream is no possible, or that it is a stupid dream, or that it will never amount to much. Yet it be a dream that could have changed lives. The old adage, sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me, is the biggest lie grown ups tell kids. The emotional effect that words can have can have far reaching and long-lasting effects. The Bible tells us that the tongue is a powerful instrument. It can bring forth words that are edifying and can build someone up and bless them, or it can bring forth words that tear down, bring destruction, and curse them. We need to be careful what we say, what we do, and how we live our lives. Boys all around us are watching. Are they seeing Jesus or are they seeing another man?

Is it worth it to teach Royal Rangers?

After the devotion, we heard a report from National Council by Jonathan Trower. He briefly mentioned how Richard Marriott, Mike LaLiberty, and Rick Dostal were honored for their work after they stepped down from national staff. He also discussed Doug Marsh’s vision for Royal Rangers. For more about Doug’s vision, go to National Council Thursday Brief Report.

Next on the agenda was a brief update concerning Round-Up. We showed the t-shirt and bandanna for Round-Up as well as the Round-Up patch. We also discussed the different upcoming events in the section and district.

Pow Wow Work Day – is April 14 at Lakeview. We have a lot of work to do to get ready for the Great Texas Pow Wow as well as cleaning up from the recent storms. There is plenty of work that needs to be done to get ready. There will also be another work day on May 19 to finish getting ready for Pow Wow.

Commanders Conference – is April 21 at First A/G – Euless. There is going to be two general sessions where we will be hearing reports from National Council as well as hearing the status of the district and the vision of our district commander. We will also be having modules and classes that are offered. During lunch, we will be having a ceremony to honor Paul Patterson. After the 2nd general session, we will be having the awards ceremony for the leaders awards. For more information concerning the Commanders Conference, please go to our district web site.

Sarge SIT – this is a camp for the staff for Sarge Training Academy. Any commander that is interested in being a staff member or instructor for Sarge needs to be in attendance at this SIT camp.

Great Texas Pow Wow – this is going to be a once in a lifetime opportunity for many boys. This is also a historic event. The three Texas districts will be joining together and holding a combined Pow Wow May 31-June 3. The cost is $55 and there is a pre-registration deadline to get that cost. There are many activities planned, including water park slides, shooting, and ropes course (for Expedition Rangers only). Make plans now to attend. For more information, please see the Great Texas Pow Wow web site.

LTA Training Day – we are working on finalizing the details for this training day. We are going to be offering the Transitional module at this training day. For commander that earned either the old blue LMA or the old red LMA and have not yet taken this transitional module, need to make plans to attend this module and become current with the Royal Rangers training.

Waco Area Yuck Night – this is scheduled to be an area event, however if any church in the Waco section wishes to attend, the would need to contact Del Follis. Yuck night is an event for Royal Rangers and Girls Ministries (formerly known as Missionettes) get together and get messy. The event culminates with a spiritual message about how God can take even the dirtiest sinner and make him clean.

Sarge Training Academy – is an event for boys were they can come and learn camping skills as well as leadership skills. The camps being held at this event are DAC (Discovery Adventure Camp), AMC (Advance Merit Camp), FBC (Frontiersman Brigade Camp), JTC (Junior Training Camp), and AJTC (Advanced Junior Training Camp). DAC is $90 while the other camps are $125.

Discovery Training Camp – We are also working on finalizing a location for this event. The cost is going to be $40. We encourage all Discovery Rangers to make plans to attend this training event.

Basic DTC and Basic JTC – we briefly mentioned this and asked the churches present, and the interest is there to hold these on the same weekend on the sectional level. The staff is going to begin looking at the calendar and for a location and we will publicize this information as the details are finalized.

Expedition Rangers Campout – we are also working to finalize the details for this event. We are looking at having a canoeing trip as part of this camp. We are currently looking at having it at Fort Parker State Park in Mexia where they have a three mile canoe trip that you can take as well as canoeing on your own and on the lake. We will publicize this information as it becomes available.

Next on the agenda was the Academy Sporting Goods. Del Follis has been in contact with the corporate office, and we have a great opportunity to work with Academy and get camping equipment for the churches of the Waco section. We are currently developing our wish list, and if you are a commander in the Waco section and there is an item that you think we need to add to the wish list, please contact Del Follis, as soon as possible.

We briefly covered the RRI Ready Evangelism Force and showed a short video clip named “Great Leaders Are Made.” We talked about what RRI is, what their mission is, and what you as commanders can do or what your church can do to help support RRI. There is a limited patch and print set that RRI has developed that for a donation of $25 to help cover the costs of materials needed for the Africa Summit that is taking place in Africa at the beginning of May, you can receive. For more information contact David Trower.

Next we briefly talked about RR - QLC (Royal Rangers – Question, Learn, and Change). We had passed out a list of questions that we asked commanders to look over and be prepared to provide feedback. Due to time, we decided that we would hold this RR - QLC time on Friday night at Round-Up. For those commanders that weren’t able to make it to the meeting, the questions can be found on the sectional web site. Also, if you can’t attend Round-Up, you are more than welcome to answer these questions and send them to David Trower.

We finished with hearing briefly from our district commander. He answered several questions, as well as spoke briefly about his thoughts concerning the district. We finished with prayer.