Vacation Bible School vs. entertainment for a week…

My former church had a week long camp for kids with training for soccer, basketball, art, cooking, skateboarding, and dance/cheer. It was fun. It was also in place of vacation bible school.

I am not sure why this thing couldn’t have been called VBS, why they couldn’t do the same kind of thing and yet still had the focus on Christ and the bible. Yet, the church decided they would team up with a Fellowship of Christian Athletes and make it a camp-like week. The thinking is that it would be a draw for kids who had no exposure to church.

I cannot remember, but I think the cost for the week was something like $40 (I could be wrong, it might have been $25, cannot remember). Anyway, there was a cost because kids were getting instruction.

My kids did get something out of that week. My daughter still can make pizza from scratch, and rolls. She loves to cut up fruit, even pineapple and she’s a 10 year old. It was great for her to learn these things and I’m not opposed to a church teaching them.

However, when I ask what the bible lessons were for that week they cannot recall. I taught the bible section (which was a copied lesson with questions with very little scripture). I don’t recall what they taught. I know they had themes each day with a word for the day starting with D. Discipline was one word, but I cannot remember them all.

There was very little presentation of the gospel. The one time it was presented wholly, it was a variation of the bridge illustration on stage. Kids got up, said a prayer with the pastor, and that was that.

There were mini lessons that had something to do with the activity and the theme of the day, I recall a bible reading at that point. I was a group shepherd who took a small group out for a little lesson every day. I recall going through the lessons ahead of time and adapting greatly to inject the gospel back in. Sometimes the D word for the day was hard to make fit.

Fast forward a year, and my kids attended vacation bible school in our new (to us) church. They had a craft every day that had something to do with the gospel. They had verses to memorize every day. They had a story every day acted out on stage, the basis for the fun little story time was to bring the kids back round to the point that they should share the gospel. It seemed simplistic, but it wasn’t wrapped in glitz and glitter.

My kids learned their verses pretty well, and by the end of the week each one could tell me the basics. They used colors to represent the different aspects of the gospel with a verse.

All have sinned which means we all are sinner and need salvation. God so loved the world that He gave His only Son for whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life. The children were taught that they sin, but the Holy Spirit can draw them to God for repentance.

They were also taught that Jesus had to die in our place for sin, that His blood (nothing but the blood of Jesus) makes the believer’s heart white as snow, cleanses the sin. They learned in this life once we are saved we grow and we learn more about God. When we die, if we are believers who have trusted in Christ by His grace and mercy, we will go to heaven.

Simple gospel message. My six year old can recite it. My three year old is starting to get some of the main points.

I asked my older kids which they liked better, the cool camp with the instruction in different skills including prizes, slick songs, and all that youth…or the simple traditional VBS. They said it was VBS. Why? Because they learned more about the gospel.

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Fellowship of Christian Athletes Contemplative?

INSIDE OUT is about transformation, and it can only start by looking in the heart. As much as you desire to change behavior, it will never stick unless you change the inside. There needs to be a renovation. Before you begin to think about changing the world…or your teammates, you need to change – on and off the field … or wherever it is you are! 

 

 

Here’s a link to Fellowship of Christian Athletes, it appears they are very much into spiritual formation:

 

 

 

http://www.fca.org/vsItemDisplay.lsp?method=display&objectid=21AA2D71-C29A-EE7A-EF4B0FF37169BEEF

 

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Some Speeches Can Sound Right

I was checking out a friend’s dramatic interpretation of a woman from scripture which lead me to my former church web site and former pastor’s sermon.  I still obviously check things out there though we’ve been gone for over six months.  The pastor spent time discussing demons and Satan’s tactics both on the world and on the church.  At one point, in the online sermon he began speaking about how Satan uses division against the church.  If we hadn’t gone through what we did at this church, the comments would not have caught my attention.  I transcribed the following;

We also know that division is one of his key strategies.  Get the Christians fighting against themselves. 

“I am here to tell you as your pastor I am tired of people changing churches over trivial issues (uses music as the example).  And don’t expect me to come knocking on your door and begging you to stay…If you’ve got a trivial issue that isn’t relevant to the kingdom of darkness conflicting with the kingdom of light and you want to change churches over it have at it…people are going to hell and the church is spending all of it’s time battling over trivial stuff…reads(2 tim 2:23-26)  If you’ve got a legitimate concern and you’re hurting I’m there with you but if you’re just mad that you don’t think the church is just living up to your expectations why did God charge you not to be a part of the solution???  Why is it that when everybody looks at something that’s going on in the body they say well I need to change churches?  Why not say I see a need I see an area that’s what this Steven ministers are doing (as if this wasn’t already a plan in the church to get going…)…that’s a solution,  amen?  I want to encourage you if you see something that’s not right with the church roll up your sleeves ask Jesus how you can make it right and be in the battle don’t just transfer clubs.”

To be fair, his example had nothing to do with us.  We did not complain about music, or anything trivial.   Our fears were that our church was focused off Christ and on man’s methods, and that emergent was creeping.  This is not a trivial thing, a small disagreement.  Though it’s tempting to believe he could be speaking about us, it’s been a long time.  It’s more likely there are others commenting about issues now and maybe some have left without comment.  Still, he may be intending to speak to people just like us who are very alarmed and are thinking of leaving because they perceive the fight is going to be of no effect on the direction the church is taking.  Considering the issues I’ve heard a few have left for besides us, his comments are interesting.  He is “tired of people leaving” and “switching clubs.”  If he does have folks like us (or even us) in mind, we did not leave without some sort of fight.  We did not leave for trivial reasons.  We did try to be a part of the solution.  We are still working to be part of the solution by praying for our former church.  We also cannot watch our children be taught dangerous things while we try to rescue the church that will not listen.  We had to move on and find, not a club (as that is what small group can become) but a church and a place to hear scripture preached properly and where we can fellowship and worship.  Not a social club, not a small decision.  I can only guess whoever he is talking about and to (and this pastor has a habit of talking directly to a few people or about a few people) that they are not as petty as he makes this all sound.

 

On another note, he did not mention this outloud in his sermon but instead directed people to his notes…and the online notes contained a  high recommendation for two books both by Neil Anderson.  He told his congregation to read them because they are the “best books” he knows of on the subject of spiritual warfare.  They are Victory over Darkness and The Bondage Breaker.  Just from reading a few book reviews, it’s possible this author teaches that demons can posses Christians (they cannot) and he promotes the idea of demons over kingdoms and that people can be oppressed by “the spirit of bitterness” meaning a demon is bitterness and hangs out with a person which makes them bitter.  This is an odd ology to be sure.  What else can this pastor be into?  He already approves of seeker friendly stuff, has defended Lectio Divina and contemplative practices, claims to not be emergent as a church and yet sends his children to a camp run by emergence thinking people and allows people on that staff to be also on church staff, brushes off our concerns of New Age and emergent leaking into sermons, and now we’ve got this superstition.  Earlier, when we still attended, this pastor also referenced the Nephalim stating they were angels who mated with humans and he cited the “book of Moses.”  He’s certainly all over the place!  No wonder we could not get a clear handle on the direction of our former church. 

 

 

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