Books

The main printed book materials are the Commander's Manual, OPS manuals, Journals, and Family Guide. Each of these are described below.

 

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Commander's Manual

The Commander's Manual is the primary source of information a Commander would use to understand and implement FrontLine Clubs. It gives detailed information and ideas about all areas of club.

 

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OPS manuals

The "OPS" (Operating Procedures) manuals provide leaders with a well-organized, comprehensive notebook of lesson plans, visual aids, record-keeping forms, and more. There are different OPS, one for each grade level grouping:

• Scouts
• Marchers
• Keepers/Sentinels
• Defenders/Protectors
• Standard Bearers/Armor Bearers

Each leader should have his own OPS manual to be properly prepared for each club meeting. Leaders should read the specific information for each club meeting prior to coming to club. Then they will know the meeting's theme and be prepared for everything which is scheduled to occur in the meeting.

OPS manuals are very thorough. They give general details such as: the FrontLine motto, pledge, and theme song; award categories, requirements, and placement; a club time schedule; and weekly club themes and scripture passages for all clubs. They also give very detailed information about each club meeting.

Proper use of the OPS manuals will keep all your leaders informed and prepared!

 

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Journals

Journals are the clubbers' handbooks. They give general club information as well as detailed tasks for clubbers to accomplish.

 

Objectives of the Journal

The Club meeting engages the clubber's attention. It is exciting and fun, a place to meet with friends and feel cared for, and a place where the Bible is taught and explained. But then the kids go home and get caught up in the cares and distractions of school, home life, and entertainment. The purpose of the Journal is to bring their minds back to God's Word and to what they learned in club. Good habits require the element of repetition.

• Help clubbers develop a daily habit of Bible study and prayer.
  We strive to accomplish this goal by presenting one clear truth from God's Word each day, that the clubbers can discover, understand, and remember. We require the clubbers to do each daily activity page on a different day to reinforce the principle of faithfulness.

• Help clubbers practice and memorize the weekly Scripture memory passage.
  Incorporated into each day's activities is instruction on practicing the memory passage. Specific tasks are given to accomplish this. Instead of saying "practice your memory passage," the children will be told to "read it out loud three times," or "say it twice while marching around the room," or "write it on a piece of paper," or "recite it to someone in your family who can check for mistakes." This helps them carry out the activities that will help them memorize nearly effortlessly. We have found that children who say the passage out loud as they practice it, retain it better than those who just go over it in their minds.

• Make the Journals appealing to and appropriate for each age group.
  For the younger children (Scouts and Marchers) each daily activity will give them a simple truth about God, with an age-appropriate activity that holds their minds on that truth for a few minutes. Their daily activities will require the help of an adult, but should be easily accomplished in ten minutes or less. For the children who can read and write, the objective is to provide activities that lead them more and more toward independent Bible study and prayer. A secondary objective is to present the material in such a way that the daily activities can be accomplished by the clubber with little or no help from a parent.

• Make the Journals attractive and interesting.
  We desire that each page should be designed so the clubbers are eager to grab their pencils and get started.

 

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Family Guide

Purpose of the Family Guide

The Bible clearly teaches that parents are responsible for the discipleship of their children. The FrontLine Family Guide puts into the hands of parents the same rich resources and teaching that the FrontLine Officers are using to teach your children in the club meeting.

We want to stress that this aspect of the program was created to be a tool for families, rather than a requirement. It was developed to encourage families who may not be having family devotions on a regular basis. The beauty of it is that the daily material in the Family Guide reinforces the same truths the clubbers have been learning in their club meeting, all week long. It also brings the rest of the family in on the blessings of biblical discipleship and teaching.

The Family Guide combines the Bible doctrines, stories, and memory passages learned in each club with interesting object lessons, songs, and questions to help the family leader present the weekly truth in an interesting and varied way every day.

The main objectives for the Family Guide are:

• To inform parents of what each of their children are learning in his club.
• To teach basic Bible doctrine in a devotional format for families.
• To help families apply God’s Word to their lives.
• To promote a time of fellowship and unity among family members.

An Overview

Like the Journal, each Family Guide contains fifteen weeks of material, five days per week, with two books per club year.

The layout of the Family Guide is very similar to the Journal. The introductory material includes general information about FrontLine Clubs, the uniforms and awards, and a scope and sequence chart showing the lessons covered in the book.

Each week of material includes a memory passage chart showing what portion of the memory passage each age group is required to learn.

Also, the "Hymn of the Month" is mentioned. In the club meetings the clubbers will be working on learning this song with the goal of teaching classic hymns to the children. The Family Guide reinforces this effort in the home by including the whole family.

Like the Journal, each week of material offers five days of devotional ideas for the family. Five days, rather than seven, have been provided to encourage families to have a time of family devotions, without overwhelming them with too much material.

A menu allows you to pick and choose what you want to eat at any given meal; you are not required to "eat the whole thing." Families should choose and alter the activities each day according to how much time they have, what the ages of their family members are, and what fits best with that particular day.

Each day's menu features the following items:

• Appetizer
  Songs to sing that include the FrontLine Club song, the Hymn of the Month, and songs whose theme goes with the day’s teaching.

• Bread
  A reminder to review memory passage Simply reading the passage each day will aid greatly in the memory of it. By day three or four, parents may ask each child to recite his part of the passage.

• Salad
  An object lesson or activity to focus attention on the truth being taught that day.

• Main Course
  A Bible story to read from God’s Word and discussion questions which parents may adapt to make them age-appropriate for their children.

• Dessert
  A reminder to pray together.