Walking in the Way at VBS

You remember going to Vacation Bible School, don’t you? VBS seems to be one of those childhood experiences that most of us recall with fondness. I bet some of you could go back 50, 60 or 70 years and pull out some snapshots of friends, craft projects, memory verses or Bible songs that have found a home in your heart all this time.

For me it’s been more than 35 years since my early VBS days at Trimble Bible Church, but it sure doesn’t seem like it.

This coming week we will host VBS at the First Baptist Church. And my prayer is that your children and/or grandchildren will have such a joyful experience that it will lodge in their hearts and minds for the rest of their lives. 

Our theme this year is “Journey off the Map,” where our aim is to lead children to know that Jesus is our ultimate Guide and life and can be trusted to take us into the uncharted territories of obedience to God. The journey begins this Sunday, July 19, and runs through Thursday, July 23, from 6:00-9:00 each evening. All children who have just finished Pre-K up through those who have just finished 6^th grade are invited to come. 

I don’t have to tell you that times aren’t what they used to be. I’m not just talking about the fact that today’s country music shouldn’t even qualify as country music. 

Let’s face it. Your children and/or grandchildren are growing up in a world that’s completely foreign to the one in which most of us were raised. Our culture now has a different set of values, different priorities, different languages, different technologies, different social demographics, different educational systems, different governmental influence, and a different definition of marriage and family. It’s just not the same. 

Change can be good or bad, and there have been some of both. But one of my big concerns for the younger generation is that many of the cultural lines between right and wrong have not only been blurred – they’ve been erased. 

There are myriad voices speaking enticingly into their headphones every day trying to lure them away from the path you’ve taught them to walk, and those voices are getting louder and louder every day. Our children face pressures and temptations and opportunities to sin that you and I would never have even known existed. We have unwittingly made it easy for immorality to flourish, and have created a culture where doing so doesn’t seem so bad. 

Can I tell you that we as a church are praying for your children? Personally, I’m not ashamed to say that I’m praying that God will save your children from the way of sin and death. I’m praying that they will put their faith wholeheartedly in Jesus – in His death on the cross for the forgiveness of their sins and in His victorious resurrection from the dead. I’m praying that they will know Him, worship Him and follow Him as Lord and King of their lives. 

I’m praying that they will love Him more than anyone or anything else. I’m praying that they will choose to keep obeying His Word no matter what the cost. I’m praying that their lives will shine brightly with the holiness and light of Christ Jesus as a witness for all the world to see, and that God will use them to advance the work of His Kingdom in their homes, their schools, their neighborhoods, communities and world. 

I’m praying that the words of Isaiah 30:21 which they’ll learn in VBS next week will be one of the snapshots they’ll keep hidden in their hearts for the rest of their lives: “And whenever you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear this command behind you: This is the way. Walk in it.”