I want to volunteer! I am signing up NOW!
Here at JCBC, Christmas and Easter are our Superbowl and VBS is our National Championship!
Now that you realize this is another plug for Vacation Bible School, you’re tempted to move on, but don’t. Please give me a chance to explain why we need you, why God might be calling you to work at VBS.
At JCBC, we’ve been doing VBS forever. It’s just what we do. This is a great thing, but when we do something year after year, we can convince ourselves that the program runs itself and it doesn’t need us. We forget that our work in the Kingdom of God is never finished and that the kids coming into this VBS, whether from our church or our community, are only seeing this event for the first or third or sixth time, not the 26th or 66th. We are tempted to think we can take a pass on this year’s VBS, that someone else will sign up.
Well, I’m here to tell you that we are less than a month away and there is no one else. There is us. There is me and you. And we have to follow God’s call to participate in our next. Here at JCBC our next is Vacation Bible School. VBS is what’s next on our church calendar, on our radar, and in our hearts and minds.
So, how can you help? What are the open positions and what do they mean? I’m happy to answer those questions for you!
Storyteller: Our Bible Storytellers take about an hour every night to teach the night’s Bible Story to a grade of their choice – right now we have slots in 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 6th grade open. As a Bible Storyteller you follow a script given by the curriculum as a guideline, but you also work with the other storytellers to come up with ideas that work specifically in our context. You’re done every night around 7:30 and are invited, but not required, to stay for closing celebration.
Class Leader: As a class leader you meet the kids as they arrive in your classroom and do an opening activity – for Grade School it’s craft, Preschool is a small science experiment. After the opening activity you take them around to their stations as they experience the Bible stories through Storytelling, Recreation, Snack, Missions, and Closing Celebration. You finish the night back in your classroom as parents arrive for pick up.
Missions: Missions is where the Gospel teaching becomes real-life application for our kids. Through the week the kids learn about our mission projects and on Wednesday night all of our kids forgo Recreation to put together the kits that will go to our mission site. To serve on the Mission Team means you help with setup, preparing the way for kids to learn what they can do to make a difference in the world.
Recreation: When we think of recreation, we think of fun and games. That is part of recreation, but that’s not all of it. Teaching kids through play is teaching them through body movement and fun. In Recreation we are teaching them about teamwork and cooperation, gracefully winning and gracefully losing. We are teaching them about working together, for better or worse, until the game is over.
Snack: Our snack director needs people to help prepare and serve snacks this year. We need people who will prepare and serve with love and kindness, people who can show kids that they are loved and provided for inside our walls and once they leave. Meeting these children’s physical need opens a door for them to feel safe enough to letting us provide for their spiritual needs.
That’s a lot of words, and hopefully you stuck with me to the end. We would love to have you as part of this year’s winning VBS team. You really can make a difference with just 2 hours a night for 4 nights.
We hope and pray that God will turn this into a fruitful event where kids learn the importance of who Jesus is and how they can be part of God’s mission to save the world!
Click here to be on the JCBC National Championship Team!
In Grace,
Annie Sutton
Children’s Pastor
Johns Creek Baptist Church