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RENDEZVOUS

Breakfast of Champions

by Bill Wohlers, Deer Lodge

The Christ Fellowship Church of Deer Lodge has begun a "Breakfast of Champions" outreach program. Members sensed the need of student athletes to be won for Christ, and this creative approach was born.

The breakfast takes place before every high school home sporting event. Athletes, coaches (football, girls' basketball, and cross country), and school officials come to the church fellowship hall at 7:15 a.m. A five-minute devotional message is followed by breakfast then the students and adults head for class.

Sixty-seven people came to the first breakfast. The program has been so well received the high school booster club budgets to pay for the food.

A good working relationship with the school officials and food merchants is a must! Now local merchants are contributing, and the booster club only pays for what they don't donate. A poster announces the morning's sponsor to those who attend. A local grocer said, "If we are helping kids, we are helping the community."

As I told the superintendent of schools, "We have good kids here; we just want to keep them good." We want to share the Good News that makes kids new.

The key is having your local church involved. Members and friends of Christ Fellowship Church do all the decorating, set up, and clean up following the breakfasts. Another by-product of this excellent outreach is that the church is up early and working together. Yes, it is key that the pastor be there, but I'm only the "gofer." The church people have taken this over.

Other local evangelical pastors are included in bringing the morning devotional message. It is important for like-minded believers to work together.

We have to go into their world; they're not going to come into ours. When we show interest in their kids, the parents notice and appreciate it.