Religion today

Tag : Tool For Children
It's a wonder vacation Bible schoolmade it out of the 1960s.
Back in the days of black-and-white TV, churches offered kidslemonade, cookies and flannel-board stories about Jesus, all set toa clanging piano. Children sat in short wooden chairs and listenedto the tales for what seemed like an eternity.
Things are different in 2008. DVDs and video screens areeverywhere, along with professionally recorded music, dancing andslick lesson books. Kids are as likely to jump on inflatable moonbounces or go to water parks as play on a church swingset onceBible time is done.
Vacation Bible school, once a homestyle tradition, has become bigbusiness, with families helping to foot the bill throughregistration fees and donations. A handful of Christian publishersprovide the curriculum, thereby setting the summertime agenda formillions of elementary-age kids at thousands of churchesnationwide.
"Gone are the days of making bird houses and golden macaroniframes," said Kevin Clark, children's pastor at Life Church insuburban Birmingham for the last eight years. "It costs a lot morecompared to what it did when I first came here, but it's reallygood."
At Mountain Brook Community Church, volunteer John Byrd pulls on ablack wig, puts on a long white coat and gyrates at the front ofthe chapel for his role as a professor in this year's "Power Lab"VBS, a curriculum produced by the Colorado-based Group PublishingInc.
Jumping around with a keyboard slung around his neck, he lip syncsa song with about the power of Jesus — the most powerfulthing there is, the lyrics say.
"What did we learn yesterday?" a leader calls out above the buzz ofexcited children.
"Jesus gives us the power to be thankful!" they yell back.
Used by hundreds of churches this year, the "Power Lab" themeincorporates music, DVDs, crafts and handouts. Children's pastorWalter Arroyo said the $2,000 investment was well worth it for thenon-denominational church.
Small groups of children move between classrooms every few minutesrather than sitting in one place, and all the activities andlessons tie in to a central daily idea. Arroyo acts as thesupervisor, patrolling the church campus with a walkie-talkie andclipboard.
"What it has helped us do is organize and keep things moving," saidArroyo. "We're committed to the message of the Gospel, but we alsohave to engage them in their world."
For children's pastor Chuck McCammon, 38, VBS 2.0 is all aboutusing new tools to reach children who have grown up on TVs andcomputers.
"The biggest difference between now and when I was a kid is we tryto make it more interactive, with things that are more tactile,"said McCammon. His church does its best to pull in children from awide area. This year, Valleydale Baptist advertised VBS with abillboard on Interstate 65.
The roots of vacation Bible school go back at least 130 years, whenChristian summer camps began operating. A doctor's wife in New YorkCity is widely credited with having the first true vacation Bibleschool in 1898 in a rented beer hall.
Baptists began publishing vacation Bible school materials in 1922,and the format was mostly unchanged for decades, according to MaryKatharine Hunt of LifeWay Christian Resources, the Southern Baptistpublishing arm.
But in the 1990s, LifeWay, the non-denominational Group Publishingand other companies began turning out expansive packages witheverything from Bible-based curriculum to craft supplies andprofessionally produced music and videos.
Publishers won't release sales figures on their VBS products. Butthe Southern Baptist Convention said nearly 26,600 churchesreported using LifeWay's VBS materials last year with a totalenrollment of almost 2.9 million children.
Vacation Bible school is most popular in the Southeast, where it'sseen as an important tool for bringing new families into thechurch, but it's hardly a regional phenomenon.
"We have churches all over the country using our vacation Bibleschool material," Hunt said. "Obviously it's strongest in the BibleBelt, but we have tons of churches using our material inCalifornia. It's happening in New York."
Small churches generally spend no more than a few hundred dollarson VBS, she said, but some spend $2,000, or even more.
Many churches seek donations, charge registration fees or sellT-shirts to make up for the increased cost of materials pluscamp-style extras like visits to water parks, said Jody Brolsma,senior vacation Bible school editor at Group Publishing inLoveland, Colo.
"Thirty dollars isn't unheard of for a day camp-style experience,and some charge more," said Brolsma.
To help defray costs, many churches that purchase materials fromcompanies like Group Publishing share as much as they can.Copyright laws prohibit copying most music and videos, but mosteverything else is fair game.
"The main thing is to help churches, no matter how large they are,pull off a really spectacular event and reach families with theGospel," said Hunt. "The message hasn't changed, but the methodhas."