September 7, 2024
Summer is here, and in many churches across Georgia, that means it is time for Vacation Bible School. VBS has been a mainstay of children’s ministry programs for decades, if not longer.
Robert Raikes, an 18th-century Sunday School founder, has been given credit for what was originally called the “vacation church school.” He was primarily interested in giving children religious instruction during their idle summers to keep them out of trouble and to help them develop patterns for upright living.
Sunday Schools, tent revivals, and Bible institutes in early American Protestantism eventually required the gathering of children to receive instruction over a prolonged period, and VBS organically developed from that reality.
VBS provides children with sound spiritual truth that is age-appropriate, includes great fellowship, and emphasizes missions. Children can often learn more about the Bible in one week of VBS than they can learn in several months of Sunday School. As a bonus, VBS is barrels of fun as well!
Ivy Creek Baptist Church in Buford pulled out all the stops in promoting their VBS this summer. They fervently prayed for God to bless this strategic ministry to children. On the Sunday that Vacation Bible School started the church emphasized the importance of the VBS in their worship services.
Caroline Dale, director of Creek Kids, explained how the church uses VBS to reach parents as well as their children.
“On the first night of VBS”, she remarked, “the parents joined us for a worship rally and then we dismissed the kids to their classes. We had a Java Joy truck on campus to serve coffee to the parents. Our staff and key leaders were there to meet the parents and build relationships with them. On Thursday night, we had a closing rally that we invited the parents to attend.”
Ivy Creek had approximately 300 children for their VBS and had 20 children who indicated an interest in trusting Christ as their Savior. “Our pastors and teachers prayed with most of these children,” Dale said,” and we are following up with their parents over the next few weeks.”
The church is looking forward to inviting the children and their parents to a luncheon and baptism class next month to talk with them about “next steps.”
In addition to learning about Jesus, kids at VBS were given an opportunity to love their neighbors. One of the activities this year was filling backpacks with school supplies for Mission Georgia’s Backpack Project.” Dale said the kids filled 225 backpacks during VBS.
The church began preparing for VBS months ago, Dale explained. “One of the reasons for our success is that we took a team of about a dozen VBS leaders to the Georgia Baptist Mission Board training at 1025 Church in Monroe,” she said. “It was fabulous!”
First Baptist Church in Hazlehurst also had a superlative VBS under the leadership of the Children’s Director, John Brunner. John took several of his Vacation Bible School leaders to the training session provided by the GBMB at Springfield First Baptist Church.
“The training provided by the Georgia Baptist leadership,” stated Brunner, “gave us great insight on the materials we were planning to use. They also gave us some excellent ideas about how to follow up with the parents of the children who attended our VBS.”
First Baptist Hazlehurst had 170 children and 81 workers with 21 children making professions of faith during their Vacation Bible School.
Both Ivy Creek and First Baptist Hazlehurst used the LIfeWay VBS Breaker Rock Beach curriculum. “This material was full of Gospel teaching and Bible study material throughout every day,” Brunner said.
Brunner explained that First Baptist also hosted a Thursday night program to which parents were invited.
“First and foremost,” he said, “the Gospel was clearly presented. The parents were shown what the children had learned during the week at Breaker Rock Beach, and the kids were able to showcase some of the songs they learned and some of the truths they had been taught.
During VBS, students are taught about missions and are often given an opportunity to contribute to the work of sharing the gospel. At First Baptist, that opportunity was tuned into a competition between boys and girls.
“We raised over $2,000 to support international missions,” Brunner reported. “The kids did such a great job, we permitted them to pummel the staff and some of the workers with water blasters.”
GBMB Kids Ministry Consultant Krista Staton, said, "VBS continues to be one of the most evangelistic events in the life of a church each year. This one event brings children together for a gospel-centered, fun, engaging week while uniting the church to serve together and minister to children and families. It’s so worth it!"
The intentional outreach to parents at what is typically a children’s activity often leads to fruit. Chris Parkin, pastor of First Baptist Church in Auburn, described an encounter with the parents of a 3-year-old girl who attended VBS this year.
Parkin had made it a point to be available to the parents of the children who came to his church’s VBS, and in a conversation with the girl’s mother and a subsequent visit with her father he discovered that her parents were not married. The mother was dealing with some painful experiences. Both the mother and the father had professed faith in Christ but admitted that they had drifted far away from God.
The parents shared that they wanted to have a closer walk with the Lord and realized the need to be married. They asked, “Can we come to your church? Do you do weddings? Could we get married in the church?” Parkin said yes and will begin premarital counseling with them in the very near future.
In that same week, the husband of one of the VBS workers told Parkin that though he joined a church and was baptized as a child, he had not been baptized since becoming a Christian. “I feel the need to obey the Lord by being baptized following my true conversion experience. Would you baptize me?” the man asked.
As Vacation Bible Schools take place across Georgia in the coming weeks, please pray that the Lord will continue to use them to reach children and parents with the Good News of Jesus Christ.
