Sunday, June 8, 2008

God's Big Backyard is over (and was a huge success!!!!)

Wow! What a blessing this past week was. We held our first VBS in 15 years, and it was wonderful. God was (and continues to be) so good!

Just to give you an idea, we have 15 kids in our church that are VBS age. Well, we had 123 kids that came to VBS! It was awesome. Yes, many of them have a church here in town that they go to, but many do not. We had an opportunity to show them God's love. It was just an amazing week.

Then this mornings sermon was so relevant, too. Our teenagers were our crew leaders. They guided the kids around to each "site" or class. At the beginning of the week, they tried to lead by being "bossy" to the kids. Our teens are great, but they just didn't really know how to handle kids. Then by the middle of the week, they began to sit with the kids and by the kids and it was amazing how the kids began acting. It's the same way with Christianity. We sometimes are guilty of "telling" others how to be a Christian (whether they are a Christian or not). But what we really need to do is get into the "muck" with them and become involved in their lives. Many times, the people we so desperately need to reach are the ones who don't "look" or "act" right. It does them absolutely NO good to have someone tell them how to do it. They need it modeled to them. Steve pointed out in his lesson this morning that Jesus wasn't usually in front of the crowd of people. He was IN the crowd. He didn't keep His distance.

So, VBS was incredible. Now this week is band camp, and then my summer will officially begin. What a great way to begin summer though, by having a chance to serve others!!!