VBS Wrap-Up

Some statistics from VBS 2008

- Averaged 290 children and teachers (up 50+ from the last two years)

- Saw 31 children make professions of faith and 15 more express interest

- Had over 300 people at the Friday Night Family Luau.

Overall, it was a great VBS. It will be hard to top next year but I know that God will be faithful if we are faithful to Him. It’s amazing to watch what He can do when we pray, plan, and produce to the best of our abilities. To God be the glory!

VBS Day 3

It is really awesome to see how the Lord works. We had over 35 children make faith professions Wednesday morning at VBS. These children responded to a gospel call by raising their hand (with their eyes closed) and helpers took them outside the room and met with them individually. We expected a few children to make decisions this morning but we did not expect 30-40 hands shoot up immediately when the option was given. Each VBS leader has incredible stories at how God has worked through these kids’ lives this week. Many of these children have never heard the Gospel before and are either unchurched or barely churched. Confronted with the ‘no-brainer’ decision to believe in Jesus’ forgiveness of their sin, these children were eager to taste that sweet forgiveness.

I have heard stories of children sincerely convicted of their sin and ready to accept Jesus and eager to tell their friends and family members about Him. I’ve even heard of children having complete personality changes once the Holy Spirit came to dwell in their life. What an amazing encouragement to all Christians everywhere! God is still on His throne and He is still working through the tender and accepting hearts of children. It is no wonder why Jesus often used children to teach his disciples and others about following Him.

During the remainder of the week we will systematically go through each of the many decision cards and counseling packets and get in touch with every parent. Pray that some of these unchurched parents will be as receptive to the Spirit as their children have been.

VBS Day 2

We had yet another record-breaking attendance day at VBS on Tuesday. We broke the 300 barrier – 312 total participants. Also, we had three fifth grade boys accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior in their small group time as Dr. Estep led their closing Bible study lesson and issued a call to salvation.

On Wednesday I will be giving the children a chance to respond and make the choice to believe in and follow Jesus. Pray that lives will be convicted of sin and that many will turn to Jesus for eternal life.

Here are some pictures from Tuesday’s VBS events:

Here is “Wave Rider Wes”

Anne Marie our Worship Leader

Me

294

294. That is the number of children and adult volunteers that we had today for the first day of Vacation Bible School. This number is about 30 more than the average over the past two years. This number is important for several reasons:

1. This number means that there well over 200 children will clearly hear the Gospel presented this week multiple times. Around half of these children are either unchurched or not affiliated with First Baptist in any way.

2. This number marks a substantial increase since last year. In ministry, we need to celebrate our victories that God has blessed us with. Like most years, this number should increase and cap out by Wednesday.

3. This number means that close to 300 people are either involved in or participating in a Gospel-centered activity at one time in one place for one week. Wow!

4. Because this is the highest number FirstKids has had in a while, the excitement that this number creates energizes all of our leaders. God has blessed us with fabulous leaders this year in VBS – a good mix of first-timers as well as long-term servers.

5. This number also represents the number of little egg salad sandwiches that I ate at the WMU leader snack station. WMU – we you love and your cooking (especially the egg salad, sausage balls and poundcake).

Keep praying that God will bless this week through VBS!

My Way or the Highway

Throughout my experience being involved in young family ministry (a whopping six years!), I have noticed that there are several major “hot button” subjects among Christians. These topics, if discussed in a certain atmosphere and/or spirit, can lead to extreme and emotionally-charged discussions. In fact, some of these discussions between brothers and sisters in Christ can become simply embarrassing to the occasional third party listener. For some reason, these topics create a firestorm of controversy and sibling rivalry among members of the body of Christ. Theses discussions do nothing to unite the body but, in fact, tear down the body of Christ because the spirit with which the discussions are made are nothing short of demonic.

Over the next several weeks, I intend to blog about each of these topics which will comprise a series of posts. Some of these subjects may garner more attention than others. Some of these posts will no doubt attract blog lurkers and surfers to comment whom I’ve never met. Additionally, your comments and interaction may help steer the direction of any future posts in the series. Furthermore, it will be interesting if those commenting will be able to do so in a loving spirit. The title of the series will be, “My Way or the Highway” and will focus on how there are areas of family life that may seem to be the right way (indeed, the only way) of doing things but in actuality, the ‘right way’ is not so clear. The first post will be on the subject of “Natural Birth.” Future posts will deal with such ‘clear’ topics as breastfeeding, spanking, and schooling. I will say that some of these topics deal primarily with the woman’s body and so I may not be speaking from first-hand experience, however, I have a wife who is a mother and, together, we have been through these things together – even if I did not physically deal with the same things that she has dealt with.

Pray for VBS this week – we have over 200 children signed up!

10 Principles for Effective Parenting

Dr. Danny Akin, president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, NC, recently posted a series on when Christ is lord of your home. He gives 10 principles that he and his wife used for parenting their four boys:

1. Always try to see life from their perspective

2. Work at being good partners

3. Discipline your children

4. Love your children with your eyes and your tongue

5. Love is a beautiful four letter word: T.I.M.E.

6. Make it a habit to hold, hug and kiss your kids appropriately

7. Make life and your home fun

8. Appropriately push them out of the nest at the proper time

9. Say consistently, “I am sorry. Will you forgive me?”

10. Pray for their salvation and continually talk to them of Jesus.

For the full article with explanations click here.

Tell Others (July 6)

This month’s theme: July is all about how Christians should act and what they should do. The lessons are Tell Others, Respect Others, Work with Others, Tell the World. This week is on Tell Others. The application is that God wants us to tell people about Jesus. Thankfully, His Spirit helps and leads us to do this.

3rd-5th graders will learn the story of Stephen. An interesting story to tell children since Stephen was killed while telling others about Jesus. Interestingly enough, the literature stops before he is stoned in the 3rd and 4th grade learner guides. I’m not a big advocate of leaving parts of a story out so if you choose to tell that Stephen was killed you may want to say, “this does not mean that you will be killed for telling others about Jesus.” Instead, impress upon the children the importance of telling people about Jesus. Stephen was willing to risk his life so that people may know about Him. That is the lesson they should take from the story, not that they should fear for their life when they invite their classmate to church….not in America at least…well, not yet.

1st-2nd grade: Will learn about how Jesus transformed Saul into a persecutor of Christians into a committed disciple of Christianity who told many people about Jesus. Let your kids know that when they invite someone to Sunday school they are telling them about Jesus much like Paul did.

Sick

Sorry for the lack of posts over the last few days. I’m trying to get over a sinus infection. I’ll have something up soon.

On Christian Radio

Has anyone noticed a trend in Christian radio over the last few years? It has become downright fluffy. As far as I know, the city of Columbia has one Christian radio station and the overwhelming majority of the time the content on the station is so fluffy it almost floats away. A few years ago it was not like this. However, I have noticed that Christian radio stations in three different metro areas that I have familiarity with in the Southeast have been becoming increasingly sappy. The reason for this is fairly simple: the target audience of these stations is a mother in her 30’s that drives a mini-van. I spoke with a representative of a Christian radio station and this person openly admitted to that person being their target audience. I have nothing against Christian women in their thirties that drive mini-vans, but I am not one of them.

Additionally, I do not always want to be fed content that is “positive and encouraging.” Sometimes I need to be convicted of sin and draw close to Jesus. Sometimes I need to hear some intelligent conversation about Christian topics. Sometimes I need to hear old Christian hymns of the faith. Sometimes I’d like to hear Christian rock that is not mainstreamed. In short, a Christian radio station that is consistently programmed towards “positive and encouraging” sappiness with talk shows that include a twenty minute story about the host’s “build-a-bear” experience is missing out on a very large segment of believers: men. And those men are turning their dial to sports talk or Fox News on their way home to and from work and turning off the Christian sappiness.

The point of this rant is that Christian radio that is “positive and encouraging” is a good thing. However, it does not encompass the totality of Christian life. In fact, it alienates a large segment of its potential listener base and gives a very “pansy” vibe to those unbelievers that may tune in interested in what a Christian radio station is like. In a world where men are consistently being feminized and domesticated, it does not help that our Christian radio stations are not far behind. The only answer to this problem is for radio staions to (a) diversify its target audience or (b) listeners to start new and supplementing stations.

Again, I’m all for being positive and encouraging. But the Christian life is not a walk in a park on a sunny day. It is full of real issues that cannot be pushed under the rug. And the more we push and hide real Christian issues the more men will be turning the station.

Obama and Dobson

The following is an article from Baptist Press concerning comments made between Barack Obama and James Dobson. Obama’s comments solidify the prevailing humanistic, postmodern and pluralistic belief that one’s faith should be kept privatized and should have nothing to do with government laws. The flaw behind this type of blatant discrimination of faith is that this idea of keeping one’s faith to himself is in fact a faith belief in its own right. This is very much the type of hypocrisy that we are forced to live with as government seeks to tighten its control of more and more of our liberties.

Focus on the Family founder James Dobson used his broadcast June 24 to criticize Barack Obama’s usage of Scripture, saying the presumptive Democratic nominee misrepresents biblical passages.

“I think he is deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own worldview — his own confused theology,” Dobson said on the radio program.

Dobson’s words come as Obama reaches out to evangelicals, who in recent presidential elections traditionally have voted Republican.

At issue during the broadcast was a keynote speech Obama gave in June 2006 to the conference of the Call to Renewal, a liberal Christian organization. Several clips from the address — in which Obama criticizes the way social conservatives have used Scripture in pushing public policy — were played on the program.

“[E]ven if we did have only Christians in our midst, if we expelled every non-Christians from the United States of America, whose Christianity would we teach in the schools?” Obama asked. “Would it be James Dobson’s or Al Sharpton’s? Which passages of Scripture should guide our public policy? Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is OK and that eating shellfish is an abomination? How about Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount — a passage that is so radical that it’s doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application. But before we get carried away, let’s read our Bibles. Folks haven’t been reading their Bibles.”

Tom Minnery, president of government and public policy for Focus on the Family, said Obama’s interpretation is off the mark.

“Laws that applied to [the Israelites] then — the Levitical code, the dietary laws — no longer apply,” Minnery said. ” … [I]t seems that he is vastly confused about the details of biblical exposition. I think he is dragging biblical understanding through the gutter. I just don’t know whether he’s doing it willfully or accidentally.”

Said Dobson, “He says we ought to read the Bible. I think he ought to read the Bible.”

Minnery noted that Obama recently “cited the Sermon on the Mount as justifying same-sex marriage.” Minnery was referencing a March campaign speech by Obama in which the senator from Illinois defended his support of civil unions and said, “If people find that controversial, then I would just refer them to the Sermon on the Mount, which I think is, in my mind, for my faith, more central than an obscure passage in Romans. That’s my view. But we can have a respectful disagreement on that.”

In another segment from the June 2006 speech played on the broadcast, Obama said, “Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. What do I mean by this? It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons … but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I can’t simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God’s will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.”

Dobson said Obama’s views on democracy, too, are wrong.

“What the senator is saying there, in essence, is that I can’t seek to pass legislation … that bans partial-birth abortion because there are people in the culture who don’t see that as a moral issue,” Dobson said. “And if I can’t get everyone to agree with me, it is undemocratic to try to pass legislation that I find offensive to the Scripture. Now, that is a fruitcake interpretation of the Constitution. This is why we have elections — to support what we believe to be wise and moral. We don’t have to go to the lowest common denominator of morality, which is what he is suggesting.”

Dobson noted that when Obama was a state legislator in Illinois, he opposed a bill that would have required medical attention be given babies who survive abortions.

“That, to him, was a moral position. To me, it’s anathema,” Dobson said. “Am I required in a democracy to conform my efforts in the political arena to his bloody notion of what is right with regard to the lives of tiny babies? What he’s trying to say here is, ‘Unless everybody agrees, we have no right to fight for what we believe.’ I thank God that that’s not what the Constitution says.”

Obama’s 2006 speech also drew a response from R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, on his blog. Writing in June 2006, Mohler called Obama’s position “secularism with a smile.”

“Sen. Obama seems to believe in the myth of a universal reason and rationality that will be compelling to all persons of all faiths, including those of no faith at all,” Mohler wrote. “Such principles do not exist in any specific form usable for the making of public policy on, for example, matters of life and death like abortion and human embryo research. This is secularism with a smile — offered in the form of an invitation for believers to show up, but then only to be allowed to make arguments that are not based in their deepest beliefs.”"