What Do You Love About VBS?

One of our church’s 2 major church-wide evangelistic efforts is Vacation Bible School (VBS), and it begins next Monday morning!  I will be preaching the Sunday from the VBS focus passage of Romans 10:17, and we’ll be encouraging our people to pray for our witness through the week.

Here are a few things I love about VBS:

• Children receiving Jesus as their Savior because they understand who He is from the teaching of Scripture.
• A lot of people around the building for a week.  There aren’t too many people in here usually during the week, so new energy is always nice.
• Meeting new families of the children who we can possibly minister to in the future.
• Seeing people in our church serving the Lord together in one place.
• Getting to see our church members every day of the week.  This rarely happens.
• Giving a gospel presentation on “ABC day.”  I try to do something creative to help them understand what Jesus did for them and what our response should be.

What do you love about VBS?  

VBS 2010 Recap

A view from the back during last night's Family Night

VBS is officially over!  I’m not sure why I just an exclamation mark there though, because there is a strange feeling when you tear down all the decorations that we’ve enjoyed throughout the week.  There are great memories associated with the week, and all of a sudden, it just all goes back in the box.

Here’s the exciting thing, though– this is just the beginning for Central’s focused outreach efforts!  I meant to use an exclamation mark there because we had 5 children receive Christ as their Savior this week, made some meaningful connections with unchurched families last night at Family Night, and have a great follow-up plan in place for the rest of this year to consistently reach out in unique ways to unchurched families.  VBS workers don’t have to feel like all their hard work is now over.  Not only did they make an eternal impact on children this week (and that’s enough to exhaust ourselves for), but there’s more that can happen.

So the recap:

4 Days of VBS Down, 3 New Christians!

This VBS update is one of great celebration!  I was able to meet with 3 children today who indicated that they wanted to receive Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior!  I talked with them and they understood what they were doing, one of them even in unexplainable tears.  What a blessing today!

There is a steady number of children each day, teachers giving their time consistently, and no major issues!  It’s been fun getting to know the children more now as the week goes on.  They’re starting to attach themselves to workers and develop some unity together, and hopefully we can keep those connections going beyond this week with some of the children and their families.

Tomorrow is the last day of VBS in the morning and Family night closes out the night at 7:00pm.  I’m hoping that many in our church who couldn’t be at VBS during the day will be able to make it out for Family Night and support the work that happened through the week and meet some of the families who have been part of VBS.

VBS Day 1- Milking the Cow

Day 1 of Saddle Ridge Ranch went extremely well!  52 children came out for the fun and learning, and a great team of workers served diligently to make the day go very smoothly.  In my experience, it seems that day 1 of VBS can be very hectic as you work out the kinks and forgotten details that come up.  But we had no major issues and it seemed to be a great time!

The highlight of my day was being able to meet so many parents who I’ve never seen before as they brought their children.  From what we know now, it seems that many are unchurched, so we have a great opportunity to show the love of Christ to them and the importance of a church family.

One of the highlights for the children seemed to be the chance to milk the cow!  If a child recited their memory verse, they got a ticket to go milk the cow that was built by someone in the church.  This cow is made of wood and has a bucket with a pretty realistic udder that shoots out milky-colored water when the kids milk it.  It’s kind of funny to watch, and very creative in its design!  Here’s a picture of a child milking the cow:

I’m looking forward to day 2!

Saddling Up for VBS!

This week is one of the most exciting weeks around our church building–it’s Vacation Bible School!  Every morning we’ll see children making crafts, eating snacks, playing games, singing and dancing, and enjoying time with their friends and teachers.  But most importantly, we’ll be teaching them about Jesus and showing His love to them!

Today we had a great worship service where we commissioned our VBS workers and the follow-up efforts we’ll be making.  I’m really hoping that VBS will be a catalyst to even more great outreach efforts.

Here’s what’s saddling up as we move forward this week:

• A fun theme!  Saddle Ridge Ranch is this year’s theme, obviously a western theme, which has been pretty fun to work with.  The theme verse is James 1:5– Now if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives to all generously and without criticizing, and it will be given to him. The motto is “Need Answers? Ask God!”  More info on the theme can be found here.

Why VBS Is a Major Outreach Tool for Our Church

Every year many children come to Central Baptist Church for Vacation Bible School and have a great time hearing Bible stories, singing and dancing to songs, creating crafts, eating snacks, and playing games.  After a week of being with them and meeting their families, what do we do about the unchurched families that we have met?

This questions was seriously considered this year, and I am excited about our VBS Follow-Up Plan that will help us reach out to unchurched families through personal connections for the remainder of the year, not just doing a quick follow-up phone call or visit and then hoping the families will see the need for Christ and a church family on their own.

Why is VBS a major outreach tool?

Back in Gear…

It’s been one month since I’ve posted anything here.  Partly that was because of traveling.  Partly that was because much has been in the works that was not finalized to be revealed yet.  And partly, that was because when tasks necessitate prioritization for completion, blogging is not the top on my list!

It’s been a busy summer with family as we tried to use vacation time to travel and spend as much time as possible with family.  And it’s been a very busy time with the ministry work at Central as final touches are placed on VBS (next week!) and Fall outreach initiatives.

Some things to expect: