The Pastor’s Piece – June 25, 2023

The Pastor’s Piece

FCFI

June 25, 2023

We just finished Bible school week at MCC. The place was overflowing with excitement and action. We had over 90 excited students and 55 enthusiastic adults there most everyday. Our cup runneth over. But what is really important is that everyone involved was experiencing God doing something special in their lives. We are the community of God enjoying each other and learning about Him in many different aspects of life. We’re praising God together as one big group in the sanctuary through songs and laughter before the Lord. We are showing God’s love to everyone from small children to senior adults. We’re serving each other and allowing others to go first. We’re holding children in our arms and we’re holding their attention while we help them assemble the craft of the day, or play the game, or enjoy snacks and fun in the snack room, while hearing about Jesus and learning about Him from the Bible.

VBS holds a prominent place in many of  our lives. I have my own VBS memories as  a child – all of them great. God used my parents’ commitment to Him to get me there, and He used the people in charge when I got there to build on the foundation of Jesus and the Word of God. For others, VBS is the only time they’ve had any teaching at all about the things of God. We all have a story it seems. I remember cutting a cross out of cardboard and gluing matchsticks with the tips burned off to it. I kept that cross for years and years all the way into adulthood. I also remember some of the songs we sang – which were new to me then but the words have lived in my mind for decades now.

We send a sign up sheet around before VBS starts asking people to bring cookies. One lady asked if she could bring Oreo cookies. She told me her first memory of Martintown VBS was sitting on the grassy knoll outside the lower doors drinking red Kool-Aid and eating Oreo cookies. She said they never had either of those at home and that experience has stuck with her her entire life.  

Every now and then I get a phone call from someone whose mom or grandma brought them to VBS when they were little. Not too long ago a gentleman called and told me he had attended VBS at Martintown years ago as a little boy and had learned about Jesus and His love for him by dying on the cross to take his sins away. Since then, his life had taken him down a long, dark and dreary road away from God and he wondered if it was too late to come back to Him now – at 48 years old? I said, “As long as you’re still breathing – it’s never too late.” He asked me to pray for his salvation, and I did. I told him he needed to repent and turn from his sin and the path that was leading him away from God and turn to the loving Savior. We prayed together over the phone and he confessed his sins to God and asked forgiveness and for Jesus to wash it all away and come live in him. Through his tears and regret he pleaded with the Lord to restore in him the joy he had as a little boy at Bible school. I believe God heard his prayers that night and answered them. Three weeks later he passed away. 

So we plant seeds and we build. And we know that for some of these kids, this will be the only exposure they have to God until they are older. And someday, we will see the fruit of our “labor” – although right now it’s mostly pure joy for us.

It’s funny because as adults we get all caught up in the semantics of VBS – and necessarily so. We have to be at a certain place at a certain time. We must be prepared physically and mentally for the children and be ready to meet the demands of each day. We study and review, plan and execute and it can be exhausting even though we wouldn’t trade the joy for anything in the world. Then when it’s all said and done, and we look back and analyze, it suddenly hits you – God did all of this. This was a supernatural event orchestrated by God. Grandma may have been dropping them off at the door, but God brought them there. It’s pure joy for us to be in His right place, at His right time and to be included in His great Kingdom work.

“This is the Lord’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes,” (Psalm 118:23). 

(Kevin Cernek is Lead Pastor of Martintown Community Church in Martintown, Wisconsin).