09 Jun Vacation Bible School begins June 13

After years of disappointment and changing plans due to the pandemic, our church is going to have VBS! This is an incredibly important development and I’m very excited about it.

Promotion, planning, and preparation are all coming together to make this year’s experience one of the best ever! I’m especially grateful to our Children’s Minister, Lauren Neal, for her leadership and all our volunteers and staff for pitching in to get things ready in the Family Life Center.

This year’s material is from Group and the theme is “Monumental: Celebrating God’s Greatness.” There are some amazing stories that will be told to our children during this week, and my hope is that a number of them will result in lives changed for Jesus. 

My first recollections of VBS related to crafts, food (cucumber slices?), games, and Bible stories and singing–and those VBS songs were incredible. Some of the best songs out there have been used during VBS. And, some of the earliest and most formative spiritual experiences I’ve had occurred during the week of VBS.

Dr. Ron Crawford, who once served as President of the Baptist Theological Seminary of Richmond, wrote about his experience teaching in VBS for the first time (he had a group of 4th graders). Crawford writes: “I learned a lot and remembered things I had forgotten. I learned children are better Christians than adults. Children are as honest as the day is long. They can be incredibly kind and generous. Years of living does something harmful to people. It tends to beat us down, diminishing our capacity to believe the best and trust others. While children have a lot to learn, we adults have forgotten a lot of really important things.”

I want to thank all those who are spending their time for the Lord with these children this week. It’s going to be an inspiring (and tiring) five days but it will be totally worth it. And may the Lord help us “remember a lot of the important things” during our time together.–DC