BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) - It's a wonder vacation Bible school made it out of the 1960s.
Back in the days of black-and-white TV, churches offered kids lemonade, cookies and flannel-board stories about Jesus, all set to a clanging piano. Children sat in short wooden chairs and listened to the tales for what seemed like an eternity.
Things are different in 2008. DVDs and video screens are everywhere, along with professionally recorded music, dancing and slick lesson books. Kids are as likely to jump on inflatable moon bounces or go to water parks as play on a church swingset once Bible time is done.
Vacation Bible school, once a homestyle tradition, has become big business, with families helping to foot the bill through registration fees and donations. A handful of Christian publishers provide the curriculum, thereby setting the summertime agenda for millions of elementary-age kids at thousands of churches nationwide.
"Gone are the days of making bird houses and golden macaroni frames," said Kevin Clark, children's pastor at Life Church in suburban Birmingham for the last eight years. "It costs a lot more compared to what it did when I first came here, but it's really good."
At Mountain Brook Community Church, volunteer John Byrd pulls on a black wig, puts on a long white coat and gyrates at the front of the chapel for his role as a professor in this year's "Power Lab" VBS, a curriculum produced by the Colorado-based Group Publishing Inc.
Jumping around with a keyboard slung around his neck, he lip syncs a song with about the power of Jesus — the most powerful thing there is, the lyrics say.
"What did we learn yesterday?" a leader calls out above the buzz of excited children.
"Jesus gives us the power to be thankful!" they yell back.
Used by hundreds of churches this year, the "Power Lab" theme incorporates music, DVDs, crafts and handouts. Children's pastor Walter Arroyo said the $2,000 investment was well worth it for the non-denominational church.
Small groups of children move between classrooms every few minutes rather than sitting in one place, and all the activities and lessons tie in to a central daily idea. Arroyo acts as the supervisor, patrolling the church campus with a walkie-talkie and clipboard.
"What it has helped us do is organize and keep things moving," said Arroyo. "We're committed to the message of the Gospel, but we also have to engage them in their world."
For children's pastor Chuck McCammon, 38, VBS 2.0 is all about using new tools to reach children who have grown up on TVs and computers.
"The biggest difference between now and when I was a kid is we try to make it more interactive, with things that are more tactile," said McCammon. His church does its best to pull in children from a wide area. This year, Valleydale Baptist advertised VBS with a billboard on Interstate 65.
The roots of vacation Bible school go back at least 130 years, when Christian summer camps began operating. A doctor's wife in New York City is widely credited with having the first true vacation Bible school in 1898 in a rented beer hall.
Baptists began publishing vacation Bible school materials in 1922, and the format was mostly unchanged for decades, according to Mary Katharine Hunt of LifeWay Christian Resources, the Southern Baptist publishing arm.
But in the 1990s, LifeWay, the non-denominational Group Publishing and other companies began turning out expansive packages with everything from Bible-based curriculum to craft supplies and professionally produced music and videos. Continue >>
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Thank you believer, you take care too and have a good night.
scitsonga, and I too respect your views as well and I don't say this smuggly but I do pray for you that God will reveal Himself in such a way that there is no way you can deny that He is truly the God of the Bible and as a result you will come to know Him in a very real and personal way. Take care and have a good night.
believer, I appreciate the time and effort you put into your post to me. I respect your views and faith, but I do not relate to them at all. I am a confirmed agnostic, and I am perfectly content with that. If there is an after-life, which I seriously doubt exists, then I will deal with it if it comes. I'm told by my Christian and Muslim friends that I need to discover the "truth" before its too late (before I die), otherwise I will go to hell and be tortured for an eternity. Well, I'll put it this way, I'm not too worried about it. As far as my son is concerned, I leave it up to him to decide what religion means to him. It would appear he is similar to me, an agnostic.
Have a good day.
Over the years, my wife and I have attended shape note singings, sometimes known as sacred harp singing. We drive a good distance to Zion Primitive Baptist Church. Of course, these Primitive Baptists don't believe in VBS, or in organs or seminary or Sunday School or missions, for that matter. They don't believe in anything that is not mentioned in the Bible. (I've often wonder what they thought St. Paul was doing, traveling all over creation! Was that not "missionary work?") Anyway, when we are with these fine people at Zion Primitive Baptist Church, it almost makes me wonder if the rest of us have done it all wrong. They seem so very fine to me, so genuine and so comfortable (if that's not a criticism) in their faith and practice. Now, frankly, because of certain cultural and social reasons, I don't think I could ever attend (or join, I should say) a Primitive Baptist church. Still, I do admire these strong and sweet-spirited Christians.
Vacation Bible School is first and foremost a chance to "school" children in the truths of the "Bible" during their "Vacation" from school. It is a time for Christian children to go deeper during a concentrated week of study. Of course, fun and fellowship times occur due to the nature of a Christian collective gathering. Many churches have now vacated that original intent and made VBS a time for child evangelism. Unfortunately the lost parents and children both are "on to" what the churches in their neighborhoods are offering. For many it is nothing more than an opportunity to dump the kids off for several weeks at competing churchs' programs while the parents enjoy some free daycare. Some kids go to three or more VBS programs during a summer. My point is, churches should not forsake the intentiional discipleship of their own emerging children to enter the competitive market of "who can have the most secular type of VBS". Let's keep our eyes on Jesus-style of VBS and not the Hollywood-hype version. It's not thast we can't compete...it is that we should not compete!
The 2nd, most recent comment, I mean, especially.
I think that is a well-thought-out, sensitive, earnest and loving comment, believer.
scit, if what happened to your son is true and I unfortunately know that happens I am truly sorry. One of the most meaningful classes I took in college lasted one hour, it was on the dangers of child evangelism and how careful we need to be in presenting the Gospel to kids. I personally have been very cautious and sensitive when I do or am around programs that work primarily with kids. Kids are very vulnerable and many kids we would minister to come from backgrounds where love and acceptance were almost nonexistent and were ripe for cheap grace child evangelism and evangelists. But at the same time I'm amazed at how many youngsters do understand what sin is and that they are sinners as we all are and they want to have a relationship with God through Christ. My wife and I both when a child said they had accepted Christ would let their parents know as well as sit down with the child individually and allow them to tell us what has happened in their life. And yes sometimes they really did not understand, but many times the child did understand what they had done and they had done it for the right reason. That's why I never gave public invitations in child ministry events but rather asked kids who had made a decision to share it with their teacher, myself, or most importantly one or both of their parents. Since there was no hoopla about it I believe it eliminated much of the possibility of kids doing it to get attention or because everybody else was. They were making a genuine heartfelt decisions.
c and scit, thank you both for affirming how powerful an evangelistic tool Vacation Bible School is. Here the secular humanists have access to our children close to nine months out of the year to indoctrinate them or as you call it brainwash them with the false teachings and lies of secular humanism, political correctness, and so on. And then in ten to fifteen hours during the summer God uses Vacation Bible School to show them and teach them about His love, the fact that He loved them enough to send His only Son to die for them and that if they would turn from their sin and turn to God by putting their complete faith/trust in the person and work of Christ they can become a child of God and one day they will go to heaven to live with God forever. And low and behold after 10 to 15 hours of songs, snacks, crafts, games, and Bible stories some of these kids are brainwashed into believing God really does love them and they want to become a child of His and they say a prayer that they mean with all their heart and they become a child of God. Oh what is this country coming to!
As I posted somewhere else on this Web site (It does feel like a maze sometimes, doesn't it?): Years ago I complained about the college dorm refrigerator magnet that our son's roommate had. It read, "I spent my summer at Bible camp learning to be more judgmental." I have often thought of phoning that young man (the roommate) to apologize for my complaint. I just didn't know what the evangelical movement was like at its height (a few years ago).
cccccccc, yeah my wife sent my 4 year old son to a christian day care center, one day my son came home with a sticker on his chest that read "jesus died on the cross for my sins". i asked him what he thought that meant, he wasnt really sure but uttered something about how he was bad and a sinner, i asked him what that meant and of course he wasn't sure, he was only 4. they started the brainwash treatment on him, that was his last day there, i found another place that didnt do that nonsense. today, he is a well adjusted agnostic.
"But if Barna is right and 96% of people who become a Christian do so by time they turn 11 can we afford not to get serious about and committed to doing effective Children's Ministry year round."
Right. Get to them before they're 11 years old. Brainwash them before they're old enough to think for themselves. Don't let them have a chance of living a normal life. Make them a deluded Christian just like yourself. Do it now. If you let them grow up first, they will laugh at the idiotic Christian beliefs.
Evangelizing kids is child abuse. Why not let them grow up first? Wait until they have the ability to think for themselves before starting the Bible brainwashing. Wait until they learn about science. The Christians won't wait because they know an adult could never believe the idiotic Bible stories.
"Jesus gives us the power to be thankful!" they yell back.
It's so easy to brainwash a gullible young child, isn't it?
"Scientific education and religious education are incompatible. The clergy have ceased to interfere with education at the advanced state, with which I am directly concerned, but they have still got control of that of children. This means that the children have to learn about Adam and Noah instead of about Evolution; about David who killed Goliath, instead of Koch who killed cholera; about Christ's ascent into heaven instead of Montgolfier's and Wright's. Worse than that, they are taught that it is a virtue to accept statements without adequate evidence, which leaves them a prey to quacks of every kind in later life, and makes it very difficult for them to accept the methods of thought which are successful in science."
-- J.B.S. Haldane
VBS is one of the most if not the most effective tool for evangelizing kids, I love it and as a pastor I was actively involved in it at every church I pastored. But I have two concerns:
1.VBS has gotten so high tech that sometimes I believe the Gospel can get lost or ignored in all the activity and we can lose sight of the importance of presenting the plan of salvation to the kids we minister to and too focused on doing the best program.
2. Follow-up sometimes is sadly lacking and kids who make professions of faith as well as their families fall through the cracks, never more to be seen until the next VBS. Churches need to have effective Children's Ministry going on year round. Sunday School is great, but they also need to have some type of effective ministry going on during the week as well. Fortunately there are many good solid Bible-based programs out there, but adult Christians need to be willing to step-up and be committed to reaching kids for Christ and training them to serve Him and yes I know that is the AWANA Theme. But if Barna is right and 96% of people who become a Christian do so by time they turn 11 can we afford not to get serious about and committed to doing effective Children's Ministry year round.
people. that was sarcasm.
Yeah, let's charge to give people the Gospel. That's a good idea.