it’s vacation bible school time at parkview.
i’m not the biggest fan of vacation bible school. actually that’s not correct. i’m not the biggest fan of v.b.s. the way it is done now. originally v.b.s. was a means for the church to go “out” and reach people where they were – one of the first v.b.s.’s was held in a beer parlor in order to reach the kids who lived in the slum around it. it seems to me that now most v.b.s’s are more about doing something for our “church kids” and hoping they will bring a friend or two with them (i.e. another “come join us” program). many of our churches (my own included) spend a decent chunk of change putting on this program within the church walls. i know and love many people who think v.b.s. is one of the greatest things ever. we have within our church some volunteers who put tons of effort into v.b.s. and do an amazing job with it. i’m amazed at some of the creativity involved in what they do. for example of this just walk into the student center – it’s been turned into a bedouin tent community.
i just wish we were doing something that involved going out into the community. the one v.b.s that i have seen that has done this actually involved moving the v.b.s from the church building into a local city park. the whole program was staged at a city park so that it would draw kids from the neighborhood. they spent just as much money on the program but had a very different goal. their goal was to move into the community and impact it. it was great. heck the pastor even drove a harley into the v.b.s. worship service one day. imagine 400 six to ten year olds in a worship service and a motorcycle driving into it. the place went crazy.
my point in this semi-rant is how interesting it is that great ideas for reaching out into the community slowly turn into programs for staying within our churches and out of the community. sunday school is another example of this. sunday school was originally an amazing movement of social justice to educate kids who would never be able to receive an adequate education during the industrial revolution. like v.b.s it slowly went from revolutionary to programaic. to continue being relevant and reaching out the bride of CHRIST has to constantly be reforming and questioning what it does. i’m not sure we do this very often.
when we start jar (which is slowly becoming “tapestry”) it would be real easy to just do church things – but that’s not what i feel called to do. the problem will be once we get the whole thing started, we’ll we continue questioning things? i hope so because i believe we must.
my run for the day
distance – 2.5 miles
time – 23:28
pace – 9:23/mile
[tags]vbs, church, sunday school, questioning[/tags]
I didn’t know it at the time, but I think this is what chisholm baptist church did when I was a kid in vbs. We met at a ballpark on land owned by the cotton mill. Kids came from all over, I knew only a few of them, but made some good friends.
yep that would be my guess. the church i mentioned above is springhill baptist in mobile. they did that when their present pastor first arrived. they may still be doing it – i can’t say for certain.
Our VBS is in our church, but 2 daycares in town bring their school age kids. It is a huge outreach for us. More that 75% of the kids are not associated with our church, and for many of them this is their only exposure to the gospel.
that’s great amy. it sounds like your church is really using v.b.s. as a good thing. obviously i’m not trying to trash on churches that are making it work for real ministry. i was more talking about my experience with v.b.s. thus far. i’m glad to hear y’all are using it well.