Vacation Bible School is fast-approaching for Church of the Redeemer. It’s a week full of activity, and we pray that it’s a week full of joy and love. In this week’s post, Anne Calvin shares her childhood memories of VBS.
Vacation Bible School and I have a history together. It began many years ago in my small Southern Baptist church: 5-year-old Anne lining up and processing into the sanctuary for the opening worship time, doing a craft involving glue and a pipe cleaner, singing songs about the fruits of the Spirit, eating vanilla sandwich cookies and drinking Kool-Aid served by the older ladies of our church, playing red rover on the back lawn (pretty sure that’s a game my own children will never play), and hearing about God’s love for me and for others. I can remember it clearly because it happened the same way each of my eight years attending VBS at my church. I dearly loved it, and I wasn’t the only one.
Was it the cookies, red rover, and pipe cleaner that kept me coming back each year? Perhaps, but in the midst of the joyful noise and activity, God was quietly calling me by name and my heart was responding. Sometimes one tiny step at a time, other times with a huge leap. This is the beauty of VBS: God will speak to the hearts of His children, and they will have an opportunity to respond. How will He speak and what will be the response? Only He knows, but this beauty isn’t limited to the children who attend next week, it’s an invitation to each of us. As we volunteer our time and talents, invite friends and neighbors, and prayerfully ask God’s Spirit to be present, we respond to His call. How might you respond to His invitation?
None of us can ever predict the ways that God will speak to us, or how He will gently lift our faces to His, yet we know that that is His desire. Let us join together to ask that the Holy Spirit would be free to work in the hearts of the families of the children who attend, the volunteers who are serving, and our entire body at Church of the Redeemer. May each heart’s response be, “Yes, Lord Jesus, yes.”
Vacation Bible School is July 13-17 at Bethel Lutheran. Click here for more information.
One Comment
Dan Leafblad
“God was quietly calling me by name”. How true, Anne! I remember VBS fondly, and our church sent high-schoolers and youth group leaders to places like Ft. Frances (Ontario), Braham Minnesota, and the Red Lake Indian Reservation north of Bemidji to set up and lead VBS. We will be praying that the kids will come to feel the pure joy of learning about Jesus. We will pray for the teachers, helpers, artists, and drivers. We will pray that many children will come, and that many will begin a journey with God, and bring their parents and families along with them on that journey. Thank you, Anne (and thank you Sarah and team!).
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