THE IMPORTANCE OF VACATION BIBLE SCHOOL

 BY STEVE DUNN

One of the most popular forms of outreach for a local church is that of the Vacation Bible School. With more and more working parents looking for meaningful experiences for their kids during the summer, the potential for VBS remains undiminished.  It is clearly the front door to the church that even secularized parents appear willing to open.

Some people within the church resent being used as a babysitting service  and even seed the soil negatively by expressing that thought within the church.

Resist that feeling.  It comes from hell and smells like smoke.  Do we think Jesus resented the people who came to him in crowds out of their unspiritual needs?  No, Matthew 9:38 says clearly, “He saw that they were harassed and helpless … he had compassion on them.”  He prayed for more harvesters.

VBS is important for these reasons—especially within an increasingly unchurched culture.  (1) People like Jesus but not the church.  It is a chance to let them the love and joy found in the real church. (2) It allows people to learn what’s in the Bible and find practical applications for life.  This may be the only time these children receive any Bible teaching (and God’s Word does not return to Him void.)  (3) This babysitting can be the first step in building redemptive relationships—building bridges to the Bridge.(4) VBS is not a tool of church growth—it is a resource for evangelism and discipleship. (5) VBS gets your people interacting with the community in practical ways. (6) VBS gives your people practical ministry experience as a team. (7) VBS says “children matter God” and they matter to us as a church.

(c) 2014 by Stephen L.Dunn

THE KEY TO WORKING WITH A SCHOOL--A SERVANT'S HEART AND A SERVANT'S ATTITUDE

 BY STEVE DUNN

Part 2 of a Series

Schools have become the center of most communities, often supplanting the position a key church once else. This acutally makes them now a prime mission field for churches who seek to build bridges of truth and grace,.  The key here is to surrender any idea of controlling the school or asking the school to serve your mission.  The key is to seek to influence a school by showing it how the church can help the school accomplish its mission.

The primary goal of most schools is to provide a quality education by giving kids academic knowledge and lifeskills necessary to function as useful members of the society. What that involves varies from community to community and is often dependent upon three things:(1) the graduation requirements of state departments of higher education (2) the constraints of budgets available from the taxation system (3) the socio-economic needs of the community they serve.

Many school superintendants or principals will tell you that there are many competing groups trying to control that agenda.  As such, school administrators have an instinctive reaction against anyone who wants to use the schools for their purposes--whether it by the federal government, taxpayer groups, political parties, or special interests (in which category they often place churches).

It is not without accident that Jesus taught us that true leadership comes through humility and self-sacrifice.  These are the two key ingredients in servanthood.

You demonstrate a servant's heart when you pay attention to the "little people" (i.e., the support staff) and offer to help them.  One church gained inroads because their youth staff visiting school lunch rooms helped the kitchen bus the tables.

You demonstrate a servant's heart when you help the school do the community research it must have to make its reports and justify its proposals for funding.

You demonstrate a servant's heart when you ask that principal, "What's one job around here that you have trouble getting people to do?" and then you go do it.

You demonstrate a servant's heart whenyou give your Christmas offering to support the "family emergency fund" that most office of student services must have to meet lower income needs.

You demonstrate a servant's heart when you don't feel the need to brag about what you do for the school on your websites.  You let the school do the bragging about you.

(C) 2013 by Stephen Dunn

 

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LEARNING TO WORK WITH A SCHOOL

 

 

 BY STEVE DUNN

Part 1 of a Series

 

 

There was a time when the church was the center of the community.  That position has long ago been supplanted by the community's schools.  As our society has become more secularized, as youth sports have grown, and through a variety of other factors, schools have come to definer of community rhythms and the schedules of countless households--even those without children.
 

Many churches have come to recognize that those same schools are a vital part of the mission field outside their front door.  Although such courtesies as "dark nights" in the school schedule to protect the church's priorities have been swallowed up the burgeoning demands of the schools, churches are wise to shun the attitude that sees the school as an adversary.  We need to see schools as a vital venue for building redemptive relationships with the larger community beyond the church's walls.

The church should begin by prayerfully examining the question: "How can we be the best church for community's schools?"  But do not assume you know the answer? Schools ultimately need the life transforming presence of Jesus Christ, but first a church must respond to the school's felt needs

Here are some simple steps to getting started.

Prayerfully ask God to identify the school He wants your church to build a redemptive relationship with.

Learn all you can about the school so that you have a sense of their needs and assess if you have the resources to help them.

Have the pastor make an appointment with the principal.  Be sure to schedule it at the principal's convenience.  Simply explain that your church wants to provide some volunteer assistance for his or her school. Ask him, "What is something that we could help you with to relieve some of the work load of himself or his staff, or to help the school save some money, or to achieve something the school needs but currently lacks the time, manpower and resources to accomplish?"

Do NOT ask him to do something for you.  There will come a time when it will be appropriate to ask the school's support or participation, but that tends to come in at later point when you have earned that right.

Offer to fund items for this.   

  

If he has something, and most will--tell him you will see what you can do to meet his request--and do so quickly (not hastily).  Report back to him promptly.

  

Next post: The Key to Working with the School: A Servant's Heart and Attitude

 

(C) 2013 by Stephen L Dunn 

 

Reprint permission: You have permission to reprint for your ministry or repost as long as you do not alter the post and give credit to its author. An email note from you would be appreciated by the author and a link back to this blog is always appreciated.

 

INWARD FOCUSED KIDS OR OUTWARD

I was talking with a youth pastor who has an effective outreach to the unchurched children of his community.  Like all effective youth pastors, his first concern is to make disciples of children.  He wants them to have a life-transforming relationship with Jesus Christ while they are still young.

But as he spoke, I heard another motivation for a children’s ministry that is clearly outward-focused in its vision and strategy. It had to be do with the health and faithfulness of the church.  This is what he said, “THE CURSE of the internally focused church is that it develops internally focused children and internally focused teens. Without intervention the curse will be handed down from generation to generation.”

A typical youth group becomes a closed group, where the focus is on meeting the needs (and desires) of kids.  It is what Ed Stetzer has called “a holding tank with pizza.”  Given the tendency of kids to form and fossilize into cliques, outward focused youth leaders must instead teach kids to look beyond themselves.  To see themselves as disciples on mission with Jesus.  They need to learn what it is to be authentic disciples and they need to be given ministries that help out that discipleship into action.

They need to see that their friends need Jesus and be challenged and equipped to help them make disciples of their friends.  Not simply decisions, but functioning disciples.  But again, they need not to be kids who are just getting together to have fun or to be protected from the world’s idea of “fun.”  They need to learn to pray, read and understand God’s Word, discover their gifts and use them.  They need to love Jesus and all the people Jesus loves.

© 2011 by Stephen L Dunn