A Remarkable VBS!

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!   

A Simple Secret

What happens when you take a group of our high school students, put them in a few large vans, add some amazing adult volunteers and go away for a week to CIY Move in Holland, MI? Two words: life change.  CIY Move is the summer camp experience we offer our high school students every year.  This organization does consistently great ministry.  Each year when we ask our graduating seniors to share some of their favorite memories from their years in our student ministry this event constantly comes up as a highlight.  So what is it about this week that makes such a lasting impact?  What's the secret?    

At this event there are nationally recognized speakers, worship bands, and entertainment... but I don't think this is the secret to Move's impact.  There are small groups, nightly youth group time, and all kinds of tournaments and even a day at Lake Michigan.  I don't believe this is the secret to the spiritual impact either.  I think after several years of leading students to week's of camp like this I have finally figured out where the impact comes from.  Yes, all the aforementioned aspects of this week help, but I think the real impact is a pretty simple secret really.  Ready for it?  An expectation for God to move in our lives.  I think the week away from all of the distracting and contradicting voices in students' lives and being in a place where God's voice is expected and given time to be heard opens up hearts and minds to the things He has been trying to get our attention with.  The things we have been too busy to listen to.  The things that we have been too distracted to hear.  The things that draw us closer to Him and His purpose for our life.   And the kicker is, we can experience this right here in our weekly routine.  Right here in Lansing we can live in a way that expects God to show up as we draw near to Him.  

James 4:7,8 states it pretty clearly as James addresses the scattered church with these words.  Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you.  Don't get me wrong, I love the bands and the teaching and all that goes into a week of camp, but at the heart of the impact is the simple secret we can all follow each and every average day, drawing near to God.  

The Parable of the Skater

When Stephen was a kid he always wished he knew how to ice skate. There was something about the faces of the kids out on the ice. They seemed so full of joy. Sometimes the skaters raced around the rink. At other times they glided slowly and silently as if pondering something weighty.

But not Stephen. He sat in the bleachers with a couple of other kids who were equally frightened at the prospect of defying physics by placing the full weight of a human body on a couple of sharpened steel rails a few millimeters wide.

Most of the time the skaters were oblivious to the bleacher-bound crowd. They were skaters, after all. If you had to ask, then you obviously wouldn't understand. Stephen used to think, "If I knew how to skate, I would never be like them. I would teach other non-skaters how to lace up their skates and conquer their fears." And that's how life was for Stephen. Year after year. Outside looking in.

And then one day Stephen conquered his own fears. He noticed a pair of skates lying in the bleachers, left behind by someone who must have hurried out and forgotten them. He tried them on. They fit.

His first steps onto the ice were tentative. Comical even. He held tightly to the rail, struggling to keep his ankles from turning in and then out and then in again.

Occasionally someone would slow down and offer him some advice, but mostly he just mimicked what he saw the other skaters doing. He eventually let go of the rail and soon he was vertical more than horizontal. He was doing it. He was skating.

He left the rink that day a changed person. Having carefully tucked the borrowed skates beneath the bleacher where he found them - he wasn't a thief after all - his first stop was at a sporting goods store to buy a pair of his own. That night at home he stayed up late watching how-to-skate videos on YouTube. He weekly trips to the rink took on new purpose as he tried out what he was learning. Slowly, he became a skater.

He immersed himself in the culture. He studied skating. It's origins and history. The various forms. Hockey with its frenetic pace and violent collisions. Figure skating with its precision and attention to detail. The artistry of ice dancing. He loved them all. Each was different, but all had the blade and the ice. Water formed from steel encountering ice, creating a microscopic layer of frictionless freedom.

Finding other enthusiasts like himself, he joined a skating club. They talked about skating. They argued over their favorite professional skaters. They traveled to other rinks and met other enthusiasts. He got involved with YES - Young Energetic Skaters - at his home rink - a program designed to teach the children of the club's skaters so their craft was passed on from one generation to the next.

Before long Stephen was thoroughly, passionately, hopelessly immersed in the world of skating.

So much so that he never noticed the guy just on the other side of the glass.

Sitting alone on the bleachers.

Wishing he knew how to skate.