Child Evangelism Fellowship

Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF) is an international evangelical nonprofit organization founded by Jesse Overholtzer (1877-1955) in 1937, headquartered in Warrenton, Missouri, United States. The organization lists as its purpose teaching the Christian Gospel to children and encouraging children's involvement in local Christian churches, especially in teaching children the Bible. It has programs established in all US states and 176 countries, with 750 full-time workers in the US, an estimated 40,000 volunteers in the US and Canada, and over 1,200 missionaries overseas, approximately 1,000 of them nationals. During the reporting year ending December 2010, they reported teaching more than 10.9 million children, mostly through face-to-face ministry. CEF is a charter member of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA).

The primary ministries of CEF are the 'Good News Club' and '5-Day Club'. Both of these programs focus on training church members from various evangelical churches to effectively teach children in homes, neighborhood centers and schools. On June 11, 2001 the USA Supreme Court ruled in favor of allowing Good News Clubs to meet in public elementary schools after school hours, based on equal access and protection from viewpoint discrimination. Since that time CEF has been working to establish Good News Clubs in public schools around the USA. Currently, there are Good News Clubs in over 3000 public elementary schools.

5-Day Clubs are taught by youth that are trained through 'Christian Youth in Action' (CYIA). CYIA is a program all around America that trains teenagers to effectively teach children Bible stories, missionary stories, Bible verses, and the Wordless Book as well as organize games and interact with the children.

The 'Children's Ministries Institute' is CEF's official training institute, and holds 12-week training sessions in at least 15 countries every year including two on the CEF campus just west of St. Louis, Missouri. The organization has fair, camping, open-air, telephone, and correspondence outreach programs for children, and provides classes to train its workers and other Christians tasked with evangelizing children. Additionally, CEF Press produces and distributes Bible and missionary lessons and related teaching materials, and promotes evangelistic tools such as the Wordless Book.

Since 1999 CEF has had a high volume correspondence program called the 'CEF Mailbox Club'. It was renamed the Truth Chasers Club in 2011. Lessons are available for every age group of children and for adults as well. The program is staffed primarily by volunteers who come from all over the country to help with the work. Hundreds of thousands of students have enrolled in the program and more than 10,000 lessons are graded and mailed on a normal week. The program is used by several other organizations as a discipleship program for the children whom they reach. These partnering agencies include the Jesus Film Project, Prison Fellowship International and Samaritan's Purse with the Operation Christmas Child program. Children are enrolled from around the world.