Because Children Matter - The Bible Club Movement Turns Seventy!

By: Dan Schmidt

Why leave the comforts of home and career for an uncertain future? To Bessie Traber, founder of BCM International, the answer was plain—because children matter. Joyce Sacher, a long-time BCM missionary, remembers Miss Traber when she came to their home as a dinner guest.

"After a few moments of polite conversation with the adults, Miss Traber focused her attention on our kids. Over the years, her questions deepened as our daughters matured. She really was interested in what they had to say, and what they were going through.”

It was an interest that Miss Traber showed for many boys and girls over her lifetime. Leaving a career in teaching to enter missionary service in the Philippines, Miss Traber was forced back to the States by illness after one term. When the door to return closed, she walked through another, taking the model of Bible clubs she’d used in the Philippines to inner-city Philadelphia children. As her volunteer force grew, Bible clubs and other children’s ministries spread across North America and in time all five major continents.

Howard Taylor, son of well-known pioneer missionary Hudson Taylor, writing about his father’s “spiritual secret,” mentions the latter’s “simple, practical attitude to-ward spiritual things” that solved problems and eased burdens. His words might have just as easily described Bessie Traber as she embraced with simplicity, straightforwardness and deep faith the enormous challenge of introducing thousands of children to the Savior. So was born the Bible Club Movement, today known as BCM International (Bible Centered Ministries).

More than facts and figures...

BCM’s development and expansion across the US, into Canada, and then Europe, Africa and Asia, is more than a matter of facts and figures. Read through a different lens, it is the story of how guiding principles take root and flower. ‘How Many Loaves?’, writ-ten by BCM missionary and author Bernice Jordan, describes how these principles emerged during BCM’s first quarter-century. Quoting Amy Carmichael, Miss Jordan highlights three necessary factors in any lasting work of God: Vision. Faith. Hard work.

The legacy of BCM revolved around all three, as missionaries and volunteers caught the Lord’s vision and shared it, lived by faith in God to provide what was necessary, and poured themselves sacrificially into the work He assigned.

Vision

The formative vision seen and expressed by Miss Traber centered on children meeting, then learning to love and serve Jesus. Integral to this vision was exposure to and interaction with the Scriptures. It is no accident, then, that while the mission’s name has undergone changes over the years, Bible has not been removed. Miss Traber was adamant that children hear, study and memorize the Scriptures (in 1938, more than 68,000 verses were memorized by Bible Club children - a fact recorded because awards were given out for this prodigious effort).

Miss Traber’s experience in the Philippines kept her from a parochial vision. In 1946, she sent Miss Jordan to Cuba to explore the possibility of reaching young people there. A camp soon began on that island, and BCM, already active in Canada, has had an international flavor ever since. Over the years, this vision expanded to a vital church-planting commitment, ministry among people with disabilities, and other matters related to BCM’s initial interest in children.

Faith

Those gripped by this vision soon discovered that the Lord had more to teach them than what was necessary for reaching kids. Here is where faith comes in - because those who take up the Lord’s cross find that it cuts deep. Health issues. Financial pressures. Family situations. Ministry concerns. All take a toll. Aware of this, Miss Traber would write that the Lord permits difficulties so as “to conform me into the likeness of Christ.” A collection of her letters edited by Marge Livingston Dickinson features a perspective on the urgency of faith in preparing missionaries to deal with the afflictions and pressures common in ministry.

Strong faith was certainly evident. Take this 1949 report from Audrey Magee, a woman who left her job with a British bank to assist with opening the new BCM office in London. Tasked with securing rent money, necessary equipment and printed materials in a country just emerging from a scathing war, she wrote, “We are committing the matter to the Lord and trusting Him to supply the need.” Her records note, “He spoke to the hearts of two dear friends to send a check as a thank offering to the Lord.” Countless others had similar testimonies about the Lord’s hand on their personal lives and public work.

This commitment to faith explains the dominant role prayer played in the foundation and progress of BCM. “We are looking to the Lord in this coming year to raise up prayer groups to definitely wait on the Lord for the salvation of boys and girls and young people,” wrote Bessie Traber in a letter at the end of 1945. “What a great ministry this is!” Confident of its role in effective mission efforts, Miss Traber instituted a daily noon-time prayer session in the ‘home office’, a routine still in evidence. Around the world, BCM missionaries continue to gather regularly to pray for ministry issues.

Hard Work

The life of faith is characterized by hard work, another foundational characteristic of BCM. Teachers and helpers for clubs saw their groups expand and routinely fielded requests for additional meetings. Curricula for these clubs was created by teams of skilled artists, trained Bible students and effective communicators. An interest in Christian camping led to renting, then purchasing properties, which required extensive development and maintenance. Dealing with foreign cultures and governments added a new level of complexity, as did the need for staying current with teaching methods. Around the nation and across the globe, people poured their lives into kingdom service, giving themselves fully to the work of the Lord (1 Cor 15:58).

‘We might be inclined in this commemorative year to rest on laurels.’

Seventy years of BCM ministry bears testimony to the Lord’s grace. We might be inclined in this commemorative year to rest on laurels. Or to sigh wistfully and think that the best days are behind us. Or we might assume that a significant past guarantees an equally impressive future.

But at this juncture we do well to pause and reflect on how essential vision, faith and hard work are for effective ministry. They continue to offer direction in the face of the important questions and significant challenges before us today.

As we celebrate this seventieth birthday of BCM International, we can look back at people who encourage us by their example. We can look around and give thanks to the One who has inspired and enabled this work for seven decades.

Then we can look ahead, and ask: “Lord, what do You have for us yet to do?”

Milestones in the life of BCM:

• The tremendous expansion BCM experienced during Oscar Hirt's presidency.
• The move into Church Planting and the birth of Handi*Vangelism and its ministry to the disabled.
• The refocusing of BCM, placing our ministry to children as a priority once again with the added dimension of partnerships to strengthen local churches while continuing to plant new ones.
• Having international representation on the Board of Directors.