De-Briefing Time

When soldiers return from a mission, they are immediately sequestered with their commanding officers and must endure a period of de-briefing. They are questioned extensively about the mission they have performed. What happened? What went right? What went wrong? What was learned? It is a valuable time of learning and gaining new information.

In the FrontLine club meeting, the De-Briefing time occurs at the very beginning of the club meeting, as the clubbers are arriving. Like the military debriefing time, it is a period of accountability, relationship-building, and review.

During the De-Briefing time, the same officer sits in a small group with the same 4 or 5 clubbers every week.

 

Accountability

The primary objective of De-Briefing time is accountability. De-Briefing time begins as soon as the first clubber arrives. During De-Briefing, the officer takes attendance, listens to each clubber recite his memory passage, and checks to see if he has completed his Journal and Barracks Duty. If you have been a Sunday school teacher or a club leader in other programs, you know that the tendency is for each child to just fill in the blanks. This small group format should afford an opportunity to get them all thinking and answering the questions.

 

Relationship Building

Truly, this brief period of time is one of the most vital parts of the club meeting. During the other portions of the club meeting, with the exception of craft time, all the clubbers are together in a large group. But the De-Briefing time divides up the clubbers, putting only four or five children together with one officer. The second objective for this time is for the club officer to build a genuine relationship with each of his clubbers. He will be listening to their prayer requests and becoming aware of the unique challenges each clubber faces during the week. He will be the one to sense whether or not a clubber is truly saved, and perhaps have the opportunity to reach him. He should take these kids to heart, pray for them daily, ask God to use him in their lives to help them along in their Christian growth. De-Briefing time is "FrontLine Family time."

 

Review

The third objective for the De-Briefing time is review. The OPs Manual instructs the officer on how to carry out this review, but the goal is simple. You are reminding the kids one more time of the truth they have studied for the past week. Your officers will accomplish this with questions, discussions, and sometimes with a simple object lesson to give a concrete picture of the week's lesson. You are pounding another nail in that board, attaching it to their hearts a little more firmly, before moving on to the next theme.