Dear Parents,
Thank you for choosing to send your child to spend an hour each week with us in Truth Trackers this year. The leaders and workers in this program are thankful for the opportunity to invest in your child while teaching the basics and fundamentals of the Christian faith. The Truth Trackers program for the 2024-2025 school year begins Wednesday, September 4, 2024. We will meet every Wednesday night from 6:30-7:30. The only exceptions are around major holidays (see attached calendar) or when the weather necessitates cancellation. Any weather-related cancellations will be communicated via email and announced on Twin City Baptist’s Facebook page.
The Truth Trackers program is a 3-year program. We are on the “Red” year this year. As you will read on the following pages, Truth Trackers is a program that focuses on teaching children the basics of the Christian faith. Each year, we focus on 6 key doctrines of the faith and base the children’s devotions, verses, and lessons on those doctrines. The doctrines that will be covered this year are My Struggles, The Law, Jesus Christ, God’s Goodness, Solving Problems, and Evil Forces.
Twin City Baptist Church desires to worship and glorify God in all that we say and do. As a ministry of TCBC, the Truth Trackers program is no different. Along with teaching every child the basics of the faith, our desire is to encourage and instruct the children on the importance of following the rules of behavior established during the initial week and reinforced throughout the year. Emphasis is placed on specific areas so each child can enjoy an environment that is conducive to learning, memorizing, growing spiritually, and having fun.
- Students will show respect and courtesy to other people at all times.
- Participation and compliance during lessons and activities.
- No use of electronic media devices during class.
- No inappropriate language or topics.
- Students will show respect for property inside and outside the buildings.
- Students should not be left unattended before the beginning of class.
- Students should respect personal items and church property to avoid damage, loss, or theft.
- Students will behave in a manner that does not endanger themselves or others.
Failure to follow any of these rules will result in parental notification to discuss appropriate disciplinary actions. Actions may include loss of reward points, loss of game privileges, removal from class, and/or suspension from class, including one week and up to the remainder of the program year.
Thanks again for making Truth Trackers a part of your child’s year. We look forward to a year of learning the truth found in God’s word and having fun doing it. Please read and complete the permission form included in this packet. This form must be signed and returned before your child can participate in the program. If there are additional questions you would like answered or would like to learn more about something, please see Isaiah & Kendra Wilcox.
Sincerely,
Truth Trackers Leaders and Workers
Mission of Truth Trackers
Truth Trackers systematically and purposefully disciples children. Children can and need to learn the basics of the Christian faith. We accomplish this with weekly memory verses, daily devotions, weekly lessons, and fun activities. In Truth Trackers, children enjoy learning and applying Biblical truth!
The Truth Journals for Scripture Spies and Faith Force teach elementary-age children by having them learn through verse meditation and daily devotions. Children meditate daily on their verses with multidisciplinary verse reviews and complete simple daily devotionals.
Goals
- To disciple children in the basics of the Christian faith
- To help children memorize the Bible and daily spend time with God
- To incorporate the family into activities and Bible memory
- To give opportunities for strategic evangelism
Age Groups/Where We Meet
Tiny Trackers 3 years thru kindergarten Fellowship Bldg across from the nursery
Scripture Spies 1st thru 3rd-grade Fellowship Bldg across from the kitchen
Faith Force 4th thru 6th-grade Fellowship Bldg across from the kitchen
Typical Activity Sequence
Tiny Trackers
Song
Word of the Week & Verse Introduction
Puppets
Bible Story
Game and/or Craft
Lesson (illustrated through a story)
Memory Verse Practice
Truth Trackers
Review of Devotions
Verse Recitation
Prayer
Bible Lesson
Game Time
The nightly schedule for both groups typically comes to a hard stop around 7:30 p.m. It would be greatly appreciated if you returned to pick up your child at this time. At 7:45, two or more Truth Trackers leaders will escort all children not picked up to their parent(s) or approved guardian. Thank you for your support in this matter.
What should my child bring to class?
The Tiny Trackers children do not need to bring anything. Each child is given a weekly handout that includes the word of the week, verse, and coloring craft that applies to the week’s lesson. There will also be a secondary coloring page or craft to reinforce the theme of the lesson.
Scripture Spies and Faith Force children are given a Truth Journal that is used daily throughout the year to review the week’s verse and complete their devotions. Please have your child bring their Truth Journal to class each week. A worker will listen to the child recite the verse for both the current and previous week, help the child add up the week’s points, and sign that week’s points page.
Awards information
Tiny Trackers are given weekly recognition (stickers) if they can say their verse to a worker. They are also given small prizes periodically, typically around Christmas and at the end of the program year.
Scripture Spies and Faith Force earn up to 48 weekly points through daily devotions, verse memorization activities, and accurately reciting the current and previous week’s verse to a worker during class on Wednesday. This point structure is designed to encourage daily consistency and deepen their long-term retention of Biblical truth. The Truth Journal lists the point value for each activity on every week’s points page. Additionally, they can earn 10 points for bringing a first-time guest to class.
How can I help my child?
Help your child memorize their verses. Build and establish a routine for your child to do their devotions. Bring them to Truth Trackers every time we meet. Pray for their growth and understanding of the basics of the Christian faith. Identify friends and neighbors your child can invite and bring to Truth Trackers.
Daily Verse Review
A child in Truth Trackers uses the Truth Journals to daily review the week’s verse and then recite their verse at the end of the week.
Truth Journals are wonderful tools to help parents put the Word of God into the hearts of children.
Truth Journals work best when one understands the philosophy on which the books are based. Truth Trackers’ approach to “locking in” truth is to have children review their verses daily through a multidisciplinary approach focusing on qualitative Bible memory.
To encourage daily verse review and meditation, children use their Truth Journals each day to review the week’s verse in three different ways:
- Tap—Review the verse by tapping on each word as the child reads the question, verse, and reference out loud. After the child completes this, he or she can mark the points page indicating that the task was completed.
- Tell—Review the verse by reading the question, verse, and reference to another person. Each day, a child will read their question, verse, and reference out loud to an adult or another child. After the child completes this, he or she can mark the points page indicating that the task was completed.
- Write—Review the verse by writing the first letter of each word and referencing it on a separate piece of paper. After the child completes this, he or she can mark the points page indicating that the task was completed.
End of the Week Verse Recitation
At the end of the week, the child brings his book to class and recites the week’s verse and the last completed week to a verse listener. Then a leader will help the child add the week’s points and signs that week’s points page.
Daily Devotional
A child in Truth Trackers uses the Truth Journals each day to review the week’s verse and complete their devotions.
After a child completes the daily assignment, he or she can mark the points page indicating that the day was completed. Younger children usually need the assistance of a parent or an older sibling to complete the devotionals.
FAQ
Question: What if a child misses a week of Truth Trackers?
Answer: The program is designed so that all the children learn the same verses at the same time, so they should all stay on the same week, no matter if they need to “catch up” or if they missed a week. However, since the awards are based upon points, the children who come into the program late or miss a week can just jump in with the rest of the club and start/continue earning points with that week’s verse and devotions.
Question: What about making up a week?
Answer: Your child can make up a week missed due to sickness or travel by working through the missed week along with the current week’s activities. However, we strongly discourage cramming more than two days’ worth of lessons into a single day, as this is rarely profitable or memorable for the child.
Question: What if my child doesn’t say his/her memory verse for the night?
Answer: The workers will encourage your child to work hard each week to review and recite their weekly verse. However, if a child does not recite the week’s verse, he or she can still receive points for their daily devotions and verse practice. We will encourage them to keep reviewing to try to recite the verse next week.
Question: What if my child begins attending in the middle of the year?
Answer: The child will start in the middle of the book, starting on the week corresponding to the week everyone else is doing. Depending on how far along in the year it is, the child can go back and make up previous weeks (with a limit of one per week). But workers will encourage the child to work hard on the doctrine the whole club is currently on. Since the awards are points based, it is not necessary to “make up” past weeks. If they jump right in, they can keep earning the same weekly points as the rest of the children.
Question: How can a child recite the LAST COMPLETED WEEK if he has not said any previous weeks or has not said any verses for a couple of weeks?
Answer: You’re right, they can’t. The child is only asked to say what he has ALREADY said the previous week. If the child only comes to Truth Trackers for the fourth time within a couple of months, then he will only say the last week he completed 4 weeks ago, even if those weeks are in a different doctrine.
Question: Why can’t the children recite as many verses as they want?
Answer: The memory program for Truth Trackers is meant to be different. We focus on qualitative learning rather than quantitative. Most children who can spit out 4 or 5 new verses a week are not really retaining them anyway. The Truth Trackers’ goal is qualitative, long-term memorization. Also, this is meant to be a family memory program. It helps families memorize together when everyone works on the same doctrines and verses.
Question: Do the children learn the verse during lesson time?
Answer: No, the verses are not learned in lesson time. The children review their verses during the week and recite them before class. The doctrine taught by the memory verses will be reinforced in lesson time. The week’s verses and devotions correspond with the lesson’s topic. In other words, the lesson wraps up their week of learning about a particular topic they learned in their Truth Journals.
Question: I forgot to remind my child to work on their verse this week. Can’t a worker just help my child learn and recite their verse right then?
Answer: A child who spits out a verse they glanced at in two minutes will not retain that verse for two hours, let alone for the long term. We would not be helping that child by assisting them to “get by” for the week. We want to teach children spiritual disciplines. Spiritual growth takes God’s grace and hard work. Scripture meditation and memory takes hard work.