Tag Archives: VBS

Children's Ministries

VBS Day #3: A Memo

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Memo: Notes On The Upcoming Vacation (King James) Bible School

Dear V(KJ)BS Laborers:

As we approach this year’s V(KJ)BS I’d like to take a moment to thank all of our workers, especially the teachers from our Christian school who normally get paid to work with kids but are now doing it for free since school is out and they really have nothing better to do with their time anyway. You are laying up treasure in heaven. (On a related note, our members-only food pantry is open extended hours during the summer. Please attend promptly as that week-old bread surely isn’t getting any fresher.)

As you may be aware, this years theme is “KJV Man Rides Again!” Each night the pastor dressed as our KJV hero mounts his trusty pony Byzantine to do battle with various enemies of the Bible such as Wescott & Hort, Barack Obama, and the entire cast of Glee (which I’m given to understand is a TV show). The children will no doubt be very excited to see our hero pastor and the rule about them being quiet in the sanctuary will not be enforced if they want to cheer or ask for autographs whenever the KJV Man approaches.

It is worth a reminder that after last year’s unfortunate incidents with our “Flee Youthful Lusts” V(KJ)BS theme last year, teachers of the younger groups should avoid overusing the words “fornication,” “adultery,” and “evil concupiscence” in their lessons. Any child who continues to have questions about these from last year may be referred to the pastor or the church secretary as they have the most practical experience in that field.

I expect to see everyone present and in their place thirty minutes before the start of each V(KJ)BS day so that we can have a time of prayer requests, read memos from the pastor, and swap “bus kid” stories. My motto is: “To be on time is to be late, to be early is to be on time.” It’s a matter of character.

Let’s have a great V(KJ)BS!

Dr. Reginald C. Crossbench
Youth Director/Sunday School Superintendent/Bus Mechanic
Sound Doctrine Baptist Church

Children's Ministries

VBS Week

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The days are growing longer and hotter and school is out for the summer. Time for churches everywhere to get kids out of mom and dad’s hair for a week with the yearly Vacation Bible School! But, of course, fundamentalists have their own way of doing VBS and the memories that are made there last a lifetime.

For Day 1, here’s a flyer received by an alert SFL reader from a church run by one of the bastions of fundy craziness: Peter Ruckman. Doesn’t it just scream “kid friendly”?

(In the interest of full disclosure my own child just finished VBS at a local Southern Baptist church where she also goes to Pre-K. When asked what she learned she informed us that free hot dogs are good.)

Children's Ministries

Vacation Bible School

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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.