We just finished a week of Vacation Bible School at our church. Vacation Bible School is one of the highlights of the church year for me. I have lots of reasons. First, it’s TONS of fun! As an older adult who loves having fun, I really get into the upbeat songs and the hand motions, even though I can’t seem to sing and do the motions at the same time and I probably look ridiculous (adding to the fun)! I LOVE watching 150 kids from 6-11 years of age just being kids: active, exuberant, curious, energetic (even in the early morning!!), creative, and thoughtful. I love watching their parents watching them when they come to pick them up.
I also love reaching out with the love of Jesus to so many families in our neighborhood who don’t even go to our church. This year we had 100 of those families represented! Whoo hoo! We love their kids, we provide great activities, we tell them about Jesus, we throw a great barbeque at the end, we have an awesome slip and slide for Water Wednesday – and many of them come back every year – and are hugely disappointed when their kids are too old to continue. We pray that the impact of the week will extend not just to the kids, but to whole families.
For the last 3 years, I’ve worked in “service projects”. Every day we created a project that was given away – this year it was topiaries for Meals on Wheels recipients, birthday greeting cards for elderly residents of a local nursing home, thank you cards for our military personnel (we even had a Navy guy come and tell the kids how much the cards are appreciated), no sew blankets to a crisis pregnancy center, and on Water Wednesday we served the VBS staff by washing their cars. I think it’s never too early to teach our children how to show the love of Jesus to others through selfless service. I always hope and pray that what they learn making service projects in VBS will be the start of a lifelong habit of serving the Lord by serving others.
Since the kids all move from room to room for Bible stories, crafts, service projects, games and snack, I didn’t know what was going on in the other rooms, but I’m confident it was quality stuff, organized by very capable, organized volunteers, some of whom take the week off from work to do VBS!
But the thing I love most about VBS is watching the Body of Christ at work, especially the younger ones among us. All of the workers are from our church, and most are adults, but having a day time VBS makes it hard to find enough non-working adults for staff, so we rely heavily on our kids – junior and senior high kids, and college kids home for the summer. The older ones among them work as crew leaders with the responsibility of shepherding a group of kids through the day and getting to know them. Others work as crew assistants, or helpers in crafts, or service projects, or games, or snacks. Some led the worship and skits. Some worked with the pre-schoolers or helped in the nursery with the children of staff members.
Okay, so imagine yourself on the first full day of summer vacation. What did you want to do most of all? SLEEP LATE, right???? Well, Imagine all these VBS helper teens and young adults, the first full week school is over, choosing to set their alarms so they can get to church by 8:30??? No, really, they actually DO that, and they LOVE it – well, maybe not the getting up early part – but certainly the VBS part.
So often we think of our junior and senior high kids and young adult college kids as on the fringe of the church. They have their youth groups and their college age groups and that’s where they stay and do their own thing. Maybe they volunteer for nursery now and then. In our church, VBS has been the only ministry in which they are consistently engaged in important places of responsibility and are a valuable and integral part of what goes on there, and they rise to the occasion! Sometimes I don’t want to work, I just want to watch THEM! VBS is a great place for adults to identify the gifts God has given our kids and encourage them to develop them. It’s also a great place to move aside and give a teen an opportunity to do the leading under your supervision.
Having had the added blessing of going on several missions trips as a chaperone with our senior high group, I’ve grown to love a lot of teens! Sometimes I’m blown away by their evident love for the Lord lived out in a commitment to doing the hardest, most demanding work, without complaining. And they are amazingly compassionate, loving, and caring with the people to whom we minister.
In 1 Corinthians, chapter 12, beginning with verses 12-13, the Apostle Paul compares the Body of Christ (which includes all those who profess a sincere faith in Jesus) to the human body. He says:
“The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts. So it is with (the body of) Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body – whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free.” May I add, "teens, or young adults, or older adults" too?
The presence of the Holy Spirit in each of us, given when we trust in Jesus, makes us an organic whole, His body. Paul goes on to describe how each of the members of the body is important to the whole and has unique gifts that contribute to the body’s spiritual health and working in unity.
It’s exciting to me to see the Lord developing and encouraging the spiritual gifts of these younger members of the Body of Christ.
I can’t wait until next year’s Vacation Bible School, but I hope we don’t have to wait that long to include the younger members of our body in the overall work of the ministry of Jesus in our desire to be the church. Our church is launching a new vision in the fall. I hope that some of the things we plan in our efforts to be "A Christ-centered community of good neighbors" will include lots of opportunities for teens, young adults and older adults to work side by side for the kingdom.
Wow, the possibilities of what we'll learn from each other and accomplish for the glory of God and His kingdom just might exceed our wildest imagination!
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