Competition Coming

Is Royal Rangers getting less and less support from Springfield? Do they not see us as viable in the long run? Today, the AG KidMin Roadmap became available for use. It's a one-year program with videos, graphics, lessons, curriculum and more. I imagine that as time goes on, more will be developed each year.

The Roadmap also includes "mid-week clubs."

Why make it even harder for Rangers to survive in our churches?

Kind of feels like they have just been milking all the dollars they can out of it before they kick to the curb.


But then I may be biased

ccm2361 wrote:Kind of feels like they have just been milking all the dollars they can out of it before they kick to the curb.

I am right there with Chris.

It seems that, just about the time that Johnnie Barnes passed away, and when Rangers was a HUGE national program, Springfield saw it as a "cash cow", and they were going to milk as much out of the local churches as they could.

"Like What?", you ask.

Changing the uniforms. Discontinuing merits that slid onto the award bars on the boys' uniforms. If the Outpost maintained the uniforms and a kid left, no problem; put the ribbons back in the awards box for the next boy. Instead, they required that you purchase a khaki Awards Vest (and then later a Blue one), and sew or glue the merit onto the vest, at $1.49 each; and of course, the Awards Vest was trashed, because it was full of merits that didn't pertain to the next kid that it would fit.

Why?

Well, the old ribbons on the khakis looked "too military", they said. But then they had ribbon bars on the uniform with a color for each merit, and numerals that referred to the merits on the vest. So how is that different? It's just something else that you had to purchase. And I noticed that, every time that I went to a District Event, all the Staff had uniforms that were decked out like Generals in the Bolivian Army.

Then, changing over uniforms and teaching materials, with no prior warning. You could literally go onto the GPH site and purchase $200.00 worth of uniform items (like the old "red" merits for Field Skills), and GPH would sell them to you, knowing that they were being declared obsolete, the next week, and not let you know - just let you waste your entire purchase.

And then, when we have purchased workbooks for 19 boys, and we get 2 more, we cannot get replacement books. We need to purchase workbooks and merit books on-line, provide our own ink, paper, & binders, and we get to pay for it again, each year - for each age group.

And when there is no juice left to squeeze from the lemon, because commanders aren't playing the game of paying over & over for the same materials, Springfield comes up with this "Every Boy Initiative", which I see as just another way to get big-hearted sponsors to pay for something that the Commanders have gotten burned on and burned-out on (sorry, Mark. I know that you have hopes for this program.)

So what is the subject of this rant? I believe that Springfield's love for Royal Rangers is directly proportional to the amount of money that flows in from the Program.

Twelve years ago, our little church was fielding about 16 boys in the Royal Rangers. Now, we have 3 or 4 in a meeting. I don't take it personally. I am the Head Usher and do the Sunday Service Attendance Count, and there are no boys in the sanctuary (or Children's Church) that are not coming to Rangers.

We all know the value of Royal Rangers. We have gotten feedback from that 8% of the boys that were REALLY encouraged by the Program, and went on to be leaders in business, the community, or the government. We have to remember that GOD's MATH and our math are totally different. He may see those 2 boys who would be lost without the Program as just as important as the 17 boys who can coast through life.

But I don't think that Springfield does.

Claymore wrote: Twelve years ago, our little church was fielding about 16 boys in the Royal Rangers.  Now, we have 3 or 4 in a meeting...We all know the value of Royal Rangers....But I don't think that Springfield does.  

Man, can I relate to that. My little church had about the same number of boys back then, and the children's pastor killed Rangers off, in favor of his own ideas. (Documented in the "Breaking in the new guy" thread.) Reading your post brought up a question in my mind. Do the AG colleges teach up-and-coming pastors what ministry programs are available within the AG? Are they taught about the rich heritage of successful programs? Or are they left to "google" ideas that come from who knows where?

joecool wrote: Do the AG colleges teach up-and-coming pastors what ministry programs are available within the AG? Are they taught about the rich heritage of successful programs? Or are they left to "google" ideas that come from who knows where?

I would guess "Not..."

My reasoning behind this is that the Assembly has a correspondence program for persons to get credentialed at different levels (which I believe is a fantastic value).  But I would seriously doubt that they teach much about Rangers, any more than they would teach about supporting other "programs" in the church.

Full disclosure: Uneducated Guess.

Now was Rangers destined to fail, or was it unintentionally sabotaged? I think that the current age of electronic games and youth "disengaging" from organized activities, along with some enlightened non-Americans attempting to re-create Rangers in their own image was just an effective slow-acting poison.

Claymore wrote: I think that the current age of electronic games and youth "disengaging" from organized activities, along with some enlightened non-Americans attempting to re-create Rangers in their own image was just an effective slow-acting poison.

It is interesting to chart the de-evolution of Royal Rangers:

It was an AMERICAN, Pro-Cowboy, Nationalistic, Christian Scouting Organization that took the Nation by storm.

It was so popular that the Assemblies of God created from this Royal Rangers International, but they took out some of the specifically American, Nationalistic, and Patriotic elements, in order to fit with other cultures.

A new National Commander, who came from South America, and was NOT raised in the United States, and attempted to re-write U.S. Royal Rangers, to be more like RR/International, and so not so American, Nationalistic, or Patriotic.

Royal Rangers USA was strangled by its own Offspring.

Claymore wrote:

joecool wrote: Do the AG colleges teach up-and-coming pastors what ministry programs are available within the AG? Are they taught about the rich heritage of successful programs? Or are they left to "google" ideas that come from who knows where?

I would guess "Not..."

I believe you are correct....but I have no direct knowledge