Fred Pry, CEF Vice President of Administration:
‘Training Christians to effectively minister to children has been a key to our ministry since it was founded in 1937’
ST. LOUIS — For 88 years, Child Evangelism Fellowship® (CEF®) has been reaching children with the Gospel through community-based programs such as the Good News Club® and the 5-Day Club®, and teaching courses for the teachers.
CEF provides this invaluable training for ministry workers, available on campus, online, regionally, internationally and through seminars and conferences.
According to Fred Pry, CEF Vice President of Administration, “Training Christians to effectively minister to children has been a key to our ministry since it was founded in 1937. Training is offered throughout the U.S. and around the world through seminars, conferences and formal courses.”
This training has equipped workers around the world, including the country of Fiji. With a population of nearly 900,000, Fiji is a small yet important mission field where the Gospel is having an impact.
CEF’s Fiji Education Coordinator reflects on how CEF training has made a crucial difference in reaching children there.
“CEF Fiji began training workers through two-day Good News Club seminars in an effort to start more clubs. Afterward, one pastor’s wife came to me and said, ‘I want to thank the CEF team for training us so well these past two days. I always wanted to start a Good News Club, and I bought a lot of CEF Bible lessons, but I didn’t know how to start a club or use the materials. Being here for the two-day training has really helped me.’
“Two years ago, CEF Fiji trained churches on the northern side of Fiji. Two ladies were so motivated to make the Good News Club a part of their ministry to children that they gathered ten other Sunday school teachers and taught them what they learned from the seminar. Now the group runs ten Good News Clubs in the valleys and high mountains around their village.
“Another worker, Elina, attended one of the Good News Club training seminars, where she learned how the clubs impact the spiritual lives of children. She decided to start one with her five children in her own home. Now, after teaching two Good News Clubs for more than two years, Elina runs three Good News Clubs each week.”
CEF’s recently retired Asia Pacific Director of Education added, “My first trip overseas was to Nigeria, where a pastor took us to his village. There were two churches: one for children and one for adults. After I returned home, I received a letter from the pastor, who wrote, ‘I just want to thank you, because 400 of our 600 children have received the Lord! Thank you for coming and training us on how to study the Bible, teach a Bible lesson, give an invitation, and counsel the children.’
“Years later, we offered a Teaching Children EffectivelyTM course on the island of Vanuatu. A man and his wife wanted to reach the children around their church. His wife took the course and taught her first club to 57 children. She gave an invitation for the children to respond to the Gospel. She asked the children, ‘If you really mean it and you really want to believe in Jesus to save you from sin, get up from where you’re sitting and go to the other side of the church.’ In one motion, all 57 children got up and moved to the other side; the children learned what it means to believe in Jesus.”
For Pry, these stories — and many more — offer emphatic encouragement for CEF’s ambitious goal for 2032.
Pry said, “We are well on the way to our long-term goal of sharing the Good News of the Gospel with 100 million children per year.”
To read more about CEF training seminars to strengthen children’s ministry around the world, click here to read the latest edition of the CEF IMPACT Magazine.
Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF), which was founded 88 years ago, has been establishing the Good News Club in countries around the world for decades. Clubs are thriving worldwide, in countries including Australia, Cambodia, Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Indonesia, Kenya, Malaysia, New Zealand, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Uganda, and many more.
In 2024, through the combined ministries of CEF, more than 31 million children worldwide heard or read the Good News. More than 533,000 teachers were trained around the world.
For more CEF news, see the ministry’s latest edition of the online magazine Impact.
CEF is an international, nonprofit, Christian ministry that has been dedicated to seeing every child reached with the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, discipled and established in a local church since 1937. CEF is located in all 50 American states and in most countries around the world, with over 3,500 paid staff and tens of thousands of volunteers around the world.
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To interview a representative from Child Evangelism Fellowship, contact Hamilton Strategies, [email protected], Beth Bogucki, 610.584.1096, ext. 105, Dawn Foglein, ext. 100, or Daniel Moyer, ext. 104.