Making Disciples

So...

I didn't sign my kids up for VBS. 

Some may say that's un-Christian-like. Others wonder, "What's VBS?"

VBS is Vacation Bible School, a week-long day-camp offered by many churches during the summer time to encourage non-Christian parents to bring their children to church. And as far as I know, attending or NOT attending VBS is not a guarantee of my children's acceptance of Christ in their lives.

Yes, there are those whose testimony is meeting Jesus at VBS. But there are also those who know all the songs and stories and still reject Him in the end.

Here's my thinking:

1) If VBS is meant for reaching out, then my children should not go just because I need something to keep them busy for a few hours. If we invited non-Christian friends to attend, that would be a different story.

2) The lessons in VBS are often ones my children already know. They'll do crafts and sing songs and be with their friends, but is that the point? Wisdom tells me to be careful not to oversaturate my children with "Christian" things, and to preserve the sacredness of the Gospel by not making it all "fun-n-games".

I'm not putting down VBS completely. I've attended many various VBSs, and have directed a few of them myself. But what made me most excited when I was teaching in VBS was when I saw new children there, with their questions and wonder and need. So when the time comes (which translates to "when my youngest is not so mama-needy"), I would LOVE to help out in VBS. And I would LOVE my children to help out too. But for now, I want to be wise about raising my children in a Christian bubble. I have friends whose children travel with them from Israel, to France, to Jordan as missionaries, and know nothing about VBS, Awana, or Christian camps. And I have friends whose children attend one VBS after another, all summer long. Neither of them are wrong, but neither of them are right, either. There is no formula for raising children who love God. And in all I do, or don't do, I don't want to error on the presumption that surrounding my children with Christian things is enough.

I was reminded last night by Pastor Steve Madsen of Cornerstone Fellowship that Jesus commanded us to make disciples. For some, VBS is the first step of becoming a disciple, but continued growth into real discipleship must go beyond one week's worth of classroom interaction. It requires deeper teaching, one-on-one conversations, quality AND quantity time together. And the way I disciple my children is through home-schooling, living life together, and being a daily example of Christ to them (to the best of my ability), which also means making choices with a purpose. Tomorrow morning, my children and I will pray for the first day of our church's VBS, and if my children ask me, "Why don't we go to VBS?", I will not hesitate to tell them the reasons.

I will leave you with this quote to chew on. It is taken from an e-mail written by a wise and humble man, my husband, to the parents at our church.

I had a great conversation this week with one of the many wise women at VBC [our church]. She told me that she raised her children never to say that they had been "raised in a Christian home". Instead, she hoped they would say that they had "two believing parents". On reflection, what seems like a semantical difference has profound implications. A home can't be Christian. Even if it could, what does that actually mean? Parents, however, can be followers of Christ. It is important to impart to our children that God's grace to us comes in the context of relationship. It is not imparted by what goes on in a particular building. Offering our children ourselves as templates of faith (as shaky as we often are) encourages them to realize that they too must trust in the work of Christ's life, death, and resurrection.