Baling Hay and Saving Souls

Today was good, long day.  Winding down watching the NBA Finals with Joseph.

After the last day of VBS, we went out and helped Charlie Derrickson and his grandsons bale hay.  Johnny keeps his calves at Charlie's farm, so it's kind of like rent.  It was a really good time for Johnny to see what it's like to bale hay.  May be the first kid who has never complained about it... It was, strangely enough, a great way to cap off a great day.  The hot work burned off some energy.  Doing something really productive on top of an amazingly productive Bible School just seemed perfect.

Bible School... you have no idea if you weren't there! We have been dissatisfied with the VBS packages put out by various publishers.  Dave Sheffel has been asking for a few years that we just write our own. We wanted something that had more evangelism, more discipleship, more spiritual formation.  I have to say, as soon as we started working on it, I was stoked.  The ideas for crafts and skits and content was so energizing. To sit around the table with Jessie, Dave, Peggy Fannin, Mike Breeze, Adam Foster and Emily Neal was a highlight of any week we did it.  I looked forward to the energy and excitement.  We settled on Jonah, and we were going to intentionally, every day, share the Gospel with the kids.  My contribution was I wanted slime to throw at the kids to remind them of the whale's belly.  Really, just any excuse to have slime!

Doing this set our people free to do the best work they have ever done.  It was an amazing bible school for start to finish. Drew and Mary Ellen McNeill did a great job leading an awesome worship that taught kids lots of Scripture. It was like a vision of how we could do awesome worship with families and help kids know Scripture and Jesus... 85% of people make a profession of faith between the ages of 4 and 14!!!

I think we made some great strides in meeting young families.  And then there was a Chinese woman, who has only been in the country for a week.  She brought her son. Anyway, I had one last Chinese Bible and gave it to her.  She ended up sitting on a couch in the lobby, and did not put it down for three hours.

I may blog a little bit more about some the specifics of VBS this year, but here is what I really want to get to.  I got a chance to ask the kids to give their hearts to Christ.  And it was so easy.  All I had to do was walk them thru the 5 points, one of which was the theme of each day.  They had sung the theme, watched a video about the theme, had a bible story time about the theme, did crafts about the theme, and journalled about the theme in a reflection time.  16 kids gave their lives to Christ today!!  We should do VBS all the time!!!

I had more people tell me they wished it wasn't over.  Three youth volunteers said, "we should do it just like this next year."

16 kids gave their lives to Christ today!!!