It’s summer time and churches all across the nation are gearing up for Vacation Bible School. Although many churches may hold VBS, only a chosen few are dedicated to using these hours and photocopied RBP materials to teach the attending children great doctrinal truths about such foes of our soul as the wiggle worm. For indeed he may be “smaller than a tiny germ” but he has got “a great big appetite.”

But VBS isn’t just about learning about doctrine, it’s also a time of great stories. There are stories about heathen in foreign lands such as Ti-Fam the Witch Doctor’s Daughter (a story of Haiti) or the somewhat less popular Joey the Dentist’s Kid (a story of New Jersey). There are also stories of great missionaries such as Mary Slessor and Amy Carmichael — women who have been granted special fundamentalist dispensation for  spiritually instructing men since the men in question were several shades darker than they.

Time would fail to tell of the other wonders of VBS. There will be the making of construction paper art projects, the consumption of the thrice-blessed snack time treats, and no less than 238 verses of Arky, Arky (wherein the Lord shall have instructed Noah to build said arky to escape the floody floody and get out of the muddy muddy).

The week will draw to a conclusion with an awards ceremony in which parents are forced to pay their dues for having had a whole week off from their children’s company by sitting in metal folding chairs and listening to a dozen young voices recite and sing. A sermon is preached, the numbers of children saved (no less than 108% of the total attendants) and surrendered to African missions are tallied up and recorded for next week’s bulletin, and everyone goes their merry way leaving the VBS workers the task of removing half a ton of decorations before Sunday.

For the record, I loved VBS. It was the best.