Today I want to say thanks to every VBS promoter, teacher, transportation provider, ice cream churner, learning center participant, craft artisan, and hoarse Booster belter in our great fellowship. I’ve been to VBS somewhere for at least 60 years, excepting one COVID year, and most years, to multiple ones. I’d say I’ve been a booster. I’d say, in all of that time, I’ve had hundreds of people encourage me through the various Bible schools in ways that I can never even fully know. Here’s to all of the people that made some great VBSes happen this summer.
You’re tired. But I know you. You are already on to the next evangelistic opportunity. But the next one might not be as effective as all that amazing tender-heart-touching that you just finished at those learning centers after those kids quietly filed out hoping to win the quiet banner.
A friend, Bob, told me a true story a few years ago, about the power of one invitation to VBS. Bob was visiting in another area of the country and was eating supper with the local preacher, Dan. The conversation went something like this:
Bob: So how did you become a gospel preacher?
Dan: Well, I grew up in a non-religious home and I went to college and married Sara. But marriage was harder than we thought. We were young and selfish and the children were taking a lot of energy and, to tell the truth, we were both ready to call it quits. We fought all the time and our marriage was in bad shape.
Bob: I’m sorry… but you made it!
Dan: Yes. As you can see, we have survived and we are very happily married. To make a long story short, one night was very bad and Sara said “Let’s just get a divorce.” We had thought of that many times, but this time it was an awfully dark time and I said “Why don’t we try to go to church somewhere before we give up? Let’s just try that one more thing. Who knows? Maybe there will be someone there who can help us…talk to us…direct us.
But Sara said “Where would we even go? I don’t even know where to start. Church seems like a big thing to do if you have no clue.”
Bob: Well, she was right about that.
Dan: Well, I knew that, but I was desperate. I told Sara to wait a minute and I went upstairs and pulled out a little trunk of things I’d kept from my growing-up years. I rummaged through and found a little Bible that I had been given when I was a little boy at a Vacation Bible School in our community. I could not remember the name of the church, but I opened up the Bible and there it was, stamped on the inside cover. It was the church of Christ in the little town where I grew up.
Bob: Well, how about that!
Sara (beaming at Dan): He said, “Why don’t we try the church of Christ?” The rest is history.
Dan: The people were kind. The preacher there and his wife became our friends. They helped us immensely.They studied with us and he baptized us. They modeled a good marriage. A lot of people did. Christianity saved our marriage. We kept learning and growing and one day, a couple of years later, we decided to go to a preaching school and here we are.
I don’t need to comment further. This couple was doing a great work in a place where the gospel was desperately needed. Their providential direction was on the inside cover of a VBS award Bible. No one in that little Bible School likely ever knew of the great good being done because of one invitation to VBS, one teacher, one effective Booster, Booster. Colleyanna sat at my dining room table and carefully thought about friends and made her little invitations for them to come to our VBS last week. She sent out a bunch of invitations. (Ezra did his at home.) 
Wouldn’t it be so great if some marriage is blessed, some soul is baptized one day, or some little boy grows up to be a gospel preacher because Colleyanna or someone else who brought visitors to Bible School, took the time to invite?…And then all that army of people took on the massive effort to build, craft, churn, teach, sing and be a Booster?
Photos credit: Katie Holder.
Today is Colleyanna Mae’s fifth birthday. She’s Covid-quarantined, so I will not get to see her today, but I cannot wait to get to celebrate with her. She’s bright-eyed and her smile’s possibly the most infectious of the family. She loves tiny things that sparkle (Right now I have to make a trip to the church building because she thinks she left her red crystal there. She’s hoping it is in the lost-and-found. I think it is probably in the “lost-and-trashed” because that’s what any finder [or vacuum] would do with that teeny piece of plastic, but I bet she gets another crystal. She even called to ask if I’d checked lost-and-found.) She loves the Lord, too, and she prays for Baxter, her cat, faithfully.
So, start digging into my favorite study, so far. (It’s always the one I’m doing right now! His Word is so good like that!) What He did, on purpose, for me is what I need to be thinking about these days. It will keep us going in challenging times and add to our joy in the times when faith is soaring. So get going, get inviting, and get excited with me. The eleventh year is about the eleventh hour of the life of my Lord. It’s riveting to any spiritually-minded person. I hope you can get some friends who need the Lord to do it with us!
A Paw Patrol cup.
I was the teacher for the ladies Bible class. I proceeded to try and get there early, so I could put a chart on the board comparing Melchizedek with Christ. I dropped off Colleyanna, my sweet two-and-a-half-year-old granddaughter, who’s staying with me this week, in her classroom and hurried to room 119. I was a minute early, but there were lots of girlfriends in there already and they were chatting about potty-training…all about the stress you go through when your kids are first out of diapers—You have about ten seconds to find the bathroom when they tell you they’ve got to go. There was advice about not rushing it…”My Joy’s only been potty trained for a couple of weeks and she just turned three.”
They got their food to go. The parents, for the first time ever, let the three-year-old hold his sister’s hand on the way across the parking lot to the car. Ezra took that job very seriously and talked with her gently about being careful to watch for cars. He never let go of that sweet little hand till they reached the car and climbed into their car seats. The little family distributed the chicken nuggets and asked Ezra to say the prayer before they ate their food. This is what he prayed from that back seat where hearts are really pretty fresh from God, Himself: