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The three main responsibilities of an Awana secretary are tracking attendance, recording achievement, and managing materials. Depending on the size of your club, that can be quite a lot to do - and those are just the "main" responsibilities. This website is designed to provide tools to deal with all of the possible jobs a secretary can face. Sections 1-4 can be read straight through, as if you were attending the Awana Secretary Basic Training Extreme workshop (which is where all this comes from in the first place), or you can use the buttons below to skip to a section that you're interested in.
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All the documents referenced on these pages are provided. Relevant links will be in each section, or you can click the "Resources" button below to access all of them. Every sample document is an editable Word or Excel file, which you can download and personalize for your church.
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Before you begin, just a word of encouragement.
This course was originally designed by Brenda, a veteran secretary of over 20 years. What follows is her story and one of the reasons she started teaching Basic Training in the first place.
A long time ago, in a galaxy not-so-far away, Brenda's daughter was a Sparky. They were at a new church, and Brenda ended up being drafted to help with Awana. Their program had no secretary for that year, so she agreed to help.
Instead of being given training on how to do her job, instead of being sent to Basic Training or a Ministry Conference, instead of being given a role book telling her some of what her responsibilities were and how to handle them, she was given a LARGE box.
A box piled high with papers. Random, messy papers. No instructions on what they were for or what she needed to do.
Just a box.
Of stuff.
After she had been a secretary for about 4 months, she was very discouraged. She saw the Pastor, the Commander, the Directors, the Leaders, and all the Listeners getting to share the Bible with children and their parents, but all she got to do was push a pencil. She was still struggling to understand what she was supposed to be doing, and felt like an utter failure. She cried out to God and wanted Him to send someone else to push the pencil and let her do what they did instead. That very morning, during her quiet time, she was in 1 Samuel.
She read the story of a man named Dave, the commander of an army. One morning, Dave and his army got up early and began the long journey home. After 3 days, they were almost there. But when they got closer, they saw smoke rising in the distance. Their city, Ziklag, was burned to the ground. Their families had been toted off, along with all their stuff, their flocks, and their herds.
Fortunately, there were still tracks on the ground, so Dave and his tired men took out after the marauders. As they crossed the brook Besor, 200 of his 600 men were just too exhausted to continue. They stayed behind with the supplies while the other 400 pursued the Amalekites.
After successfully defeating the enemy and retrieving their wives, children, livestock, and loot, the 400 turned once again toward home, retracing their steps to the brook Besor.
But when they got there, the 400 victorious men agreed to return ONLY the families of the 200. They refused to return their livestock or share the spoils of war.
And this is what David said to them:
A long time ago, in a galaxy not-so-far away, Brenda's daughter was a Sparky. They were at a new church, and Brenda ended up being drafted to help with Awana. Their program had no secretary for that year, so she agreed to help.
Instead of being given training on how to do her job, instead of being sent to Basic Training or a Ministry Conference, instead of being given a role book telling her some of what her responsibilities were and how to handle them, she was given a LARGE box.
A box piled high with papers. Random, messy papers. No instructions on what they were for or what she needed to do.
Just a box.
Of stuff.
After she had been a secretary for about 4 months, she was very discouraged. She saw the Pastor, the Commander, the Directors, the Leaders, and all the Listeners getting to share the Bible with children and their parents, but all she got to do was push a pencil. She was still struggling to understand what she was supposed to be doing, and felt like an utter failure. She cried out to God and wanted Him to send someone else to push the pencil and let her do what they did instead. That very morning, during her quiet time, she was in 1 Samuel.
She read the story of a man named Dave, the commander of an army. One morning, Dave and his army got up early and began the long journey home. After 3 days, they were almost there. But when they got closer, they saw smoke rising in the distance. Their city, Ziklag, was burned to the ground. Their families had been toted off, along with all their stuff, their flocks, and their herds.
Fortunately, there were still tracks on the ground, so Dave and his tired men took out after the marauders. As they crossed the brook Besor, 200 of his 600 men were just too exhausted to continue. They stayed behind with the supplies while the other 400 pursued the Amalekites.
After successfully defeating the enemy and retrieving their wives, children, livestock, and loot, the 400 turned once again toward home, retracing their steps to the brook Besor.
But when they got there, the 400 victorious men agreed to return ONLY the families of the 200. They refused to return their livestock or share the spoils of war.
And this is what David said to them:
David replied, "No, my brothers, you must not do that with what the LORD has given us. He has protected us and delivered into our hands the raiding party that came against us. Who will listen to what you say? The share of the man who stayed with the supplies is to be the same as that of him who went down to the battle. All will share alike." David made this a statute and ordinance for Israel from that day to this.
- 1 Samuel 30:23-25 (NIV)
The version she read that day actually said "stay by the stuff." That spoke to her. She stayed by the stuff, and God assured her that her reward would be exactly the same as the Pastor, the Commander, and all the others.
So whenever you get discouraged and feel like you're not making a difference or what you do doesn't even matter like all those "important" jobs, remember this story. Go back and read it in 1 Samuel.
Your job is important, and your reward is the same.
So whenever you get discouraged and feel like you're not making a difference or what you do doesn't even matter like all those "important" jobs, remember this story. Go back and read it in 1 Samuel.
Your job is important, and your reward is the same.