Saturdays are for Newspaper Articles… a Day Early

As usual, the following is my weekly article for the Canyon Lake (TX) Times-Guardian. But, it is a day early this week, since I will be in Houston overnight tonight (Friday) to do a funeral tomorrow (Saturday) afternoon.

“V.B.S.”

By the time you read this, Comal Country Church will have completed its Vacation Bible School for 2008. While our numbers were not particularly large, I am happy to focus on the “quality” angle instead of “quantity.” What happens in the individual lives and families of children is what truly matters most.

Are you aware of how Vacation Bible School came to be? Even though I had been involved in one or another V.B.S. at various times since I was a small child, it was not until I did some research on the matter that I understood its origin.

In 1894, a former school teacher in Rosedale , Illinois named D.T. Miles decided to start a daily Bible school during the Summer months. It lasted four weeks.

Over time, the occasional Summer Bible schools became more frequent. The number of churches and other ministries choosing to do vacation Bible school continued to grow. V.B.S. had officially become a movement by 1922, when the World Association of Daily Vacation Bible School was begun.

It is also interesting to see how V.B.S. has continued to adapt to the needs of the culture around us. Although our church is still going with the traditional morning format (our schedule runs 9:00 a.m. to noon ), Monday through Friday, more and more churches are doing V.B.S. at night, because of parents who are not available to bring their kids during work hours. Some of those are still running only one week, Monday through Friday evenings. Others, however, are scheduling the same night five weeks in a row.

In 11 years of full-time pastoral ministry—not to mention several more as an interim pastor while I was teaching, I have had the opportunity to observe quite a few churches doing V.B.S. Each has been fun in its own way. But, I freely admit that the best part is always when various children come to saving faith in Jesus Christ. Such faith appears to be very special for the Lord Jesus, given His emphasis on the need for “childlike faith” by anyone who wishes to enter His kingdom (Matthew 18:4).

I did not become a Christian through either Sunday School or Vacation Bible School as a child. If I had, I might not have some of the emotional and spiritual scars in my life, which have been painful to deal with over the years. But, the sad part is that I could easily have become a Christian through V.B.S., given that I attended at least one V.B.S. every Summer of my childhood.

What happened? Or, better, why did I not become a Christian during one of those V.B.S. sessions? First, something very good did happen. I memorized many Bible verses—at least 250 —because my grandmother was the superintendent of V.B.S. every year I was a child. She “bribed” the kids, especially my siblings and me, to learn Bible verses with candy and quarters (and quarters would actually buy something back in the late 1950s and early ‘60s!). After I did become a Christian in college, knowing those Bible verses was a tremendous advantage for me.

Still, it could have happened much earlier. Tragically, I was not in a church where you were asked if you had trusted Jesus Christ as your Savior. Far too much went unasked, being either overlooked or assumed. We must never make assumptions about the ultimate issue of “life and death”. Your eternal destiny rides on your response to that question: “Have you trusted Jesus?” You must take it seriously and respond in childlike faith… or face the never-ending consequences of your unbelief.

PS- I am aware that the last several paragraphs are indented, while the earlier part of the article is not. But, I cannot get the format to cooperate. To you perfectionists, I offer my heartfelt apologies!

Coming Tuesday: “Looking over My Shoulder (IV)”