As I see signs throughout the community; as I read about VBSs on Facebook; as colleagues share their experiences this year … I think about two quite different experiences with children, the church, the community and Bible school events.
The first was in a student appointment during seminary. I served a small membership church 50 miles due west of Atlanta. Temple was centered between Bremen and Villa Rica (west and east of the town) and between Carrollton and Rome (south and north of town) and was on the main railroad run between Atlanta and Birmingham. Every 10 to 15 minutes, around the clock, a train … a long train … was heading in one direction or the other. We had three crossings in this small town … three long whistles … all night long. I didn’t get much sleep that first week, but that is another story for another time.
The major employer was a Sewell Suit manufacturing plant. Oh, you’ve never seen the label, but you have worn their suits if you purchased a store brand at Sears, Penney’s and Monkey Wards. A high percentage of the citizens of the town worked at the plant. Both sets of parents worked at the plant. And, when the plant went on vacation – the first two weeks of July – the entire town shutdown ... another experience for a preacher who liked to take his vacation in August.
The churches responded to this phenomena by planning their VBS in coordination with each other. The first week of summer vacation the children were in a VBS in the community at one of the churches and they were in a VBS every week thereafter except for the two weeks when the town went on vacation.
This reality didn’t faze me until I realized that on Friday evening, when everyone and their families would gather for the closing celebration, which included a covered dish dinner, we would be responsible for feeding a mess of folk. It kind of blew me away.
I remembered covered dish dinners in my home church. There never was enough food. If you were in line as a part of the last third of the people you didn’t get a whole lot. I had determined that under my ministry that would never happen. Therefore, with great fan fare and dramatic illustrating the challenge facing us I requested that everyone bring 2 dishes on Friday evening. “Are you sure preacher? Two dishes?” they started asking. I stuck to my guns … and learned a hard lesson that when people respond I really need to ask why they were asking what they were asking.
Friday night arrived and the food started piling in. Dish upon dish upon dish upon dish. We had enough food to feed the entire town for the rest of the summer. I had never seen so much food. Extra tables had to be set up just to hold all the dishes. What nobody explained to me, but I soon learned was that a dish, as in 1 dish, included a salad, 2 vegetables, a starch, a meat and a dessert – for a total of 6 dishes and I was asking them to bring 12 dishes. In their mind a single dish was one complete meal.
Everyone got a good laugh at the new preacher’s expense. Nobody really minded since leftovers were a mainstay in these blue-collar homes. Besides, we really impressed the people of Temple, GA that year. The Methodist made a lasting impression!
Tomorrow I will share the second experience called Vacation Kingdom in Knoxville, TN with the youth from St. Luke’s UMC in St. Petersburg.
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