Over the last seven years, the Monday after VBS brings up two big questions: "Did VBS accomplish what we had hoped?" and "Did we hit our mark?" I'm glad to say the answer to both of those is yes! We had a remarkable week! Maybe that's because we focused on Jesus' words in Mark 12:29-31
"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength...‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”
The concept is simple-when someone loves God with everything, they'll love others by SERVING them. As followers of Jesus, service is what we do-it's like our trademark. Each evening kids were presented with what the Bible says about SERVING Family, Friends, Neighbors, Community and Jesus. We also brought in people from the Marketplace to share how they SERVE others at work and why it's so important. Our real benchmark of success was to get kids SERVING. Learning is one thing-actually SERVING is another! Kids made thank you cards on Monday (think Hallmark), served a snack on Tuesday, tied fleece blankets on Wednesday, wrote sweet thank you notes for Police & Firefighters on Thursday and designed Skateboards decks for Urban Impact Ministry on Friday!
I'm still searching for words to describe the generosity of the kids! They were remarkably selfless, and brought in change each night for Urban Impact Missionaries Habacuc & Liz Cohoon. By the end of the week, their grand total was $576.48!
We believe that God does great things in and through kids. His influence was visible in how freely and enthusiastically kids SERVED during the week. It's with confidence and joy that I can honestly say that these kids hit the mark!