The Ups and Downs of VBS

Tonight is the last night for our Vacation Bible School: Outrigger Island. As usual, it is always a time of ups and downs. First there is the process of recruiting workers. After that, you have to plan the work and work the plan. That includes staying within the budget, placing workers in the right area and with the right people to complement each other. Making sure the week is advertised. Having a great kick-off. Getting kids to actually show up. Working towards family night. Presenting the gospel to kids. Meeting parents. Counting millions (not literally) of pennies and lose change. Filling out registration cards....

I could go on but for the sake of time I won't. There are many ups and downs. Our VBS runs from a Sunday through a Thursday so we get each of the 5 lessons and complete rotations in. Then we have our program on a Friday. I have found this schedule seems to work really well for everyone. Then we schedule the time from 6-9pm. So, it makes for a long and sometimes tiring week.

The benefit, the 'up' to VBS comes in many forms. I get encouraged when I see church members pull together and set aside preferences for the sake of unity and sharing the gospel with kids. This year, we have nearly 50 volunteers working on VBS. This is absolutely amazing. There are mother daughter teams teaching, senior adults leading 6th graders, grandmothers and grandsons, youth volunteers, and everyone in between. I love to see the church come together like this! This has been probably the best year of VBS I have ever led, which is my 8th one.

The other benefit is sharing the gospel and seeing children begin to think about the Bible in a completely different way. They find discover the Bible is true and learn about how God sent Jesus to die for their sins. They learn to admit they are sinners, believe that Jesus is God's Son and died for them, and confess Him before others.

I don't utilize a 'say this sinner's prayer and come forward approach'. I do present the gospel, share a sample prayer, and ask children who prayed that to raise their hands. Then I tell them to let me or their teachers know if they made a commitment to Jesus. At the same time we let the kids know any question they have is important and we want to help them.

Using this approach may not lead to 20 or 30 kids 'making a decision' but it does present the gospel and allow them to begin thinking about salvation. There have been a couple of kids who indicated they made professions of faith, a few others who need to be baptized and countless others that need to be discipled. It is amazing how many kids would come to church if their parents would get up and bring them. Too often they send them on a van, no matter what church it is, and stay home.

I pray that our church implements a better follow-up plan than we have before and the seeds that have been planted this week will grow into a great harvest in time.

To any church member reading this, thank you again for your commitment and sacrifice this week. VBS is what it is because of you! I love and appreciate you all.

Pastor Ricky