AWANA stands for “Approved Workmen Are Not Ashamed”, and is derived from a letter by St. Paul in the New Testament, 2 Timothy 2:15: “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.”
My children participate in AWANA when they are with my wife’s ex-husband; given his attendance at a church with a strong reputation for being unfriendly to queer folk (and his own directly expressed homophobia), it didn’t seem unlikely that the youth group associated with that church would be problematic, so I wanted to find out more about it.
I searched far and wide through Google for a site offering an informed critique of AWANA, which describes itself as “a nondenominational ministry that assists churches in reaching children and teenagers with the gospel of Jesus Christ and training them to serve Him.” Since I couldn’t find one (not one single page critical of it, except from an even more fundamentalist Christian perspective than AWANA itself), I decided to create this page, as a resource for parents searching for information about AWANA - especially parents in a situation similar to mine, who share custody with another parent whose beliefs and values differ radically from their own (both my wife and I are out bisexual activists, so obviously having our children indoctrinated with homophobic fundamentalist Christian propaganda is less than pleasant).
AWANA is careful to present itself in a very neutral fashion, so even moderate Christian folk might not understand the full implications of having their children participate in AWANA - I hope a broad cross-section of people find this page useful. Email me at awana-feedback@thomasleavitt.org with your thoughts. Note: life is short, if you want to flame me for attacking AWANA, being bisexual, accuse me of being a Satanist, or anything else along those lines, don’t expect a response. I’ve no interest in being “saved”, either. I’m very happy being a Gnostic Christian, and attending Church at the Ecclesia Gnostica Mysteriorum and Ecclesia Gnostica (when I am in Los Angeles).
