I Love VBS!

I am approaching my fortieth VBS as a pastor, and it continues to be one of my favorite activities on the church calendar.

I attended several VBS programs as a child at Concord Baptist Church and Tenth Avenue Baptist Church.  In all honesty, I can't say that I really enjoyed them.  The missionary stories were good, but most of the schedule was a bit boring to me.  The highlight of each day was the Kool-Aid and the butter cookies.

When I became a pastor, I determined that VBS would be much different and no child should ever go home complaining that they were bored.  During the early years of my ministry, we wrote much of our own material and we designed a lot of action into the final program each evening.  We had giants a few years, we even designed our own "Teenage Mutant Ninja Vegetables", and we almost always had someone dressed up as the Devil.  Fortunately, we always saw the Devil soundly defeated on the last day of VBS.  I still remember the year that the Devil and I had a boxing match.  When I knocked him out, a little boy wearing cowboy boots got so excited that he left his seat and kicked the Devil in the ribs while he was on the ground.  I wish more of us could hate the Devil that much.  I will always be thankful for Hazel Brewer's labor to fashion and sew our costumes, along with all of our faithful workers that labored every day to put on the best event possible.  I also remember with great thankfulness Jim Strong, Marty Snodgrass, and others who played the part of the giants and the Devil.

During my ministry at Rentz Baptist, I have been in awe at the faithful work of our folks who give their best to make VBS work.  Sherri Knight, Leann Skipper, David Gay, and many others sacrifice their time and talent into this annual outreach program of the church.  I love VBS because it gives us the opportunity to reach children and their families that we may not reach otherwise.  I love VBS because it draws our people together to work for a common goal.  I love VBS because it gives us the opportunity to fulfill our duties according to the Scripture "And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.
But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them;  And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus."
(Luke 1:17; II Timothy 3:14-15)

I remember a preacher friend of mine telling me that he took his vacation every year during VBS so he wouldn't have to be bothered with it.  I still believe that's a great waste of a good opportunity to impact the life of a child for Jesus.

I still love VBS!