When my wife, Beverley, was in kindergarten at Brogden Primary School in Dudley, NC, her teacher’s assistant attended a local Baptist Church. The end of the school year was quickly approaching, and that teacher’s aid’s Baptist Church was gearing up for Vacation Bible School. The teacher’s assistant invited Beverley to attend her church’s VBS where she taught a class, and Beverley’s parents were happy to take her each day. As a result of that Vacation Bible School, Beverley, her mom, and her dad, all professed faith in Christ and were baptized.
That event in their lives made an indelible mark on them. Beverley’s dad would become a faithful worshiper, a deacon, and a member of the Building Committee that oversaw the construction of a new sanctuary. Beverley’s mom became a faithful worshiper, taught a children’s Sunday school class, served as a Girls in Action Leader, and helped with just about every social gathering in their church.
Beverley’s parents, primarily her mom, also saw to it that Beverley was taken each week to piano lessons, given by the organist at Goldsboro’s First Presbyterian Church. And, when Beverley was in middle school, her mom “volunteered” her to be the church’s assistant pianist. A couple of years later she became the official church pianist. She continued to play the piano at Emmaus Baptist through her time as a Music Education major in college, and after college graduation and a two year stint as a high school band director, she returned to graduate school for organ and Church Music. Since then she has served as organist and director of music in several different churches from Wilmington, NC, to Richmond, VA.
I tell this story not to brag on my wife and her parents (maybe to brag just a little), but because this story reminds me of how important Vacation Bible School can be. That one teacher’s aid in my wife’s Kindergarten classroom, by offering that kind invitation, changed the course of Beverley’s family’s life, and in turn through Beverley’s ministry it has continued to touch lives through hymns, anthems, preludes, weddings, and funerals, even until now. It was simply a kind, natural, low-pressure invitation, and five years later that teacher’s aid probably didn’t even remember inviting Beverley or teaching her VBS class. It was a simple invitation to a simple, traditional, old-fashioned Vacation Bible School, but in God’s hands it was a tool to bring about His plan for Christ’s Church.
God is in the business of taking ordinary things and using them in extraordinary ways. In God’s economy, sometimes multiplication happens when we only expect addition, and it comes in ways that we never expect.
May Memorial is currently in our week of Vacation Bible School. As always, this week is filled with crafts, Bible Stories, recreation, music, snacks, and a lot of fun. Volunteers have stepped up and are leading children around our building as they experience this summer tradition. Let us never underestimate the importance of what is happening, for we serve a God who takes small, traditional things and builds the Kingdom.