Waco Section Royal Rangers

Attention AOL and Road Runner subscribers: We would like to apologize for the recent problems that we have experienced with the Waco Section email list.  It is our understanding that all subscribers received the Week of Prayer article posted on Sunday, January 6, 2008, entitled “Week of Prayer: Core Values of the Assemblies of God“.  However, our AOL and Road Runner subscribers have not received the Week of Prayer articles that were posted on Monday, January 7, 2008, and Tuesday, January 8, 2008, entitled “Week of Prayer: The Need for Leaders” and “Week of Prayer: The Needs of Royal Rangers.”  These articles are available for reading on the Waco Section Royal Rangers Blog (http://www.wacoroyalrangers.org).  We hope that the problems that we have been experiencing the last couple of days have been resolved and that all of our subscribers will receive the rest of our Week of Prayer articles this week and all future emails.  If you have any questions, feel free to contact our sectional web and publications coordinator, David Trower, at JDTrower@royalrangers.net.

Royal Rangers is a great ministry that is of great importance and can be of a great benefit to your church and your community.  However, there are pastors out there that fail to realize how the Royal Rangers ministry is able to benefit their church and the vision that they have for the church.  For this reason we are seeing some churches that are adopting co-ed programs such as GPH’s HighPoint or Awana’s for their children, without sitting down and looking closely at the programs and without considering the effect that these programs are going to have.

Awana’s believes in once saved always saved, which goes against the beliefs of the Assemblies of God.  HighPoint, while it may be effective in some cases, it lacks the effectiveness of Royal Rangers, because it is co-ed and the boys don’t have the opportunity to be boys.  Boys learn differently from girls, and there is a time where it can be beneficial for them to be together in class, such as in children’s church or in youth, but there are times where they need to be separated, such as in Royal Rangers and in Girls Ministries.  That is the flaw with programs such as Awana’s and HighPoint.

It has been stated throughout the years and has been reaffirmed by different general superintendents and other national and district leaders that Royal Rangers is the number one soul winning ministry in the Assemblies of God.  Girls Ministries (formerly known as Missionettes) was number two.  I believe there is a good reason why these two ministries are more effective at reaching boys and girls.  One, Royal Rangers use methods that are conducive to learning by boys and Girls Ministries use methods that are conducive to learning by girls.  Another reason that we see these two ministries being so effective at soul winning is the fact that they are ministering to kids in grades kindergarten through 12^th grade (Girls Ministries also has Rainbows which is for boys and girls in pre-school).  Barna research shows that a majority of people that get saved do so before that age of 13.  The group that is least likely to get saved are those between the ages of 13 and 18.  A majority of those that attend Royal Rangers and Girls Ministries are those under the age of 13, because a lot of churches force boys and girls into youth once they turn 13.

Another benefit that Royal Rangers has is that through the weekly meetings, boys are learning about spiritual truths and they are learning about God.  The Bible tells us that we are to train up a child in the way the he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.  Royal Rangers does just that.  We teach the spiritual truths and the promises that boys need and when they go through the trials and temptations of this life they have the spiritual truths and promised hidden in their heart and our able to resist the devil and stand on the promises of God to make through the trials and temptations.

Royal Rangers works to help boys grow physically, mentally, spiritually, and socially.  All of our meeting plans are centered on activities that are related to each of these four areas.  I know some pastors view Royal Rangers as just a baby-sitting service or a group of fun and games.  Yet when run correctly, boys are doing more than just playing games.  They are learning spiritual truths and also learning how to live a godly, Christian life in today’s world among the peer pressure and temptations that surround them.  While I haven’t been a commander all that long, I have heard stories that other commanders have told where they can be walking through the grocery store or attend some Royal Rangers event, like Camporama, and have a young man walk up to them and ask if they are commander so-and-so.  These young men then go on to talk about what they have experienced and how they remember their experiences in Royal Rangers, and how what they learned as a boy, has been beneficial to them as an adult and have helped them make it through the difficult times in their lives.

Royal Rangers as a ministry reaches not only the boys that attend on a weekly basis, but quite often when a boy gets saved through Royal Rangers, he starts ministering to his family at home, and many times we see families start coming to church as a result of their sons involvement in Royal Rangers.  Once the family starts attending this allows the gospel to be ministered to the whole family.  We have seen countless times over the years where whole families have been saved through their son’s involvement in Royal Rangers.  What better way for the gospel to reach the whole family then through the sons and daughters.  These parents then go on to become active members in the church and in ministry and we have many leaders in Royal Rangers beyond the local level that are saved and involved in ministry today, because their son or daughter attended Royal Rangers or Missionettes (now know as Girls Ministries).

Royal Rangers can also be an effective tool to reach out into the community.  Royal Rangers that are working on the Bronze, Silver, and Gold Medals of Achievement have to spend several hours of Christian service.  There are also different merits that require community or Christian services.  I can remember one year, I was really young, I would have been a Straight Arrow or just starting Buckaroos (these were under the old program, in the new program I would have been a Ranger Kid).  My family and I were living just outside of Minneapolis, Minnesota, while my father was working on his Ph.D. at the University of Minnesota.  On July 5 the Royal Rangers group at our church went out to the park where the fireworks display took place the night before for the Fourth of July.  We spent the morning cleaning up the park from all the firework debris.  There are many other ways that Royal Rangers can do that help benefit the community and helps shine the light on Royal Rangers and the church.  It is also possible for churches to use the Royal Rangers and Girls Ministries programs in an after school setting that allows kids in the community to have something to do after school.

I believe that Royal Rangers needs to begin doing things out in the community to show that we are interested in the welfare of our community.  We also need to do this to be a light to those that are lost and dying in our communities without Christ.  Royal Rangers already includes ways that can help your church begin to reach out to the community.

Dear Heavenly Father, we just come to you today and we thank you for the blessings that this ministry has had on the lives of over a million boys since its beginning in 1962.  We ask you Father God to continue blessing this ministry, and guiding the leaders as they continue to tweak the program and make it more effective for today’s boys.  We also ask you that you be with all the leaders in this ministry, that you give them the strength to continue ministering.  While we may not see the fruits of our labors today, give us the knowledge that your seed will not go out void.  Father God we ask that you give the ministers of this fellowship the knowledge and understanding of how you desire this ministry to be an integral part of their church’s outreach and ministry.  Give the commanders the vision on how they should reach out to their community and to the boys in their communities to be able to spread your Gospel.  We ask Father God that you bless those ministries that are already actively doing things in their communities.  We thank you for the blessings that you continue to pour out into Royal Rangers all over this nation.  We ask all of this in your precious name, Amen.

David Trower
Sectional Web and Publications Coordinator