PEACH BOTTOM, Pa., (BRN) – We are engaged in a spiritual battle for the hearts and minds of our youth at Wrightsdale Baptist Church in Peach Bottom, Pennsylvania. This is why our VBS focused on sharing the gospel and teaching kids to put on the whole armor of God. With ministry record-breaking attendance, clear gospel presentations and an event to kick off our VBS festivities, this year’s VBS was awesome from beginning to end!
This year’s VBS began with a Royal Fun Faire. This event was set to be an outdoor community event. Due to storms in our area, the event was moved indoors. We still had great attendance. Kids were able to play games, win prizes and meet characters from our VBS Drama. A grand prize of tickets to Dutch Wonderland was awarded at this event. Everyone who pre-registered online for the event was included in the drawing. We registered 168 kids.
Kids in PreK-8th grades enjoyed traveling around to different rotations throughout the evening. They visited a Bible study, science and crafts, recreation, missions and snack rotation. Our toddlers enjoyed their mini-program, but they did get to visit recreation, science and crafts and snack as well. Many of our high school students were encouraged to serve in this year’s VBS. We had students helping to teach, leading kids around the rotations, running our sound booth, participating in our drama and more!
The gospel was shared in many ways throughout our VBS program. Each lesson and activity was geared towards making the gospel clear and discipling kids who have already decided to follow Jesus. Kids enjoyed visiting our Bible study rotation where the gospel was shared through interactive lessons. Kids heard the gospel reviewed through science and crafts as well as in our missions rotation.
Finally, the gospel was shared through a drama presentation that happened each evening as part of our closing assemblies. We are aware of at least three serious gospel conversations and many more kids with questions who weren’t quite ready to make that decision yet. In addition, we had some middle school students who requested Bibles and we were able to send them home with a Bible of their own.
We chose to support Children’s Hunger Fund with this year’s VBS offering. Kids learned about children from around the world who have benefited from this ministry. For just $.25 Children’s Hunger Fund can provide a meal for a child in need. More than just physical food, Children’s Hunger Fund seeks out pastors who will deliver and share the gospel with kids and their families as they deliver meals. The kids were told that if we raised 4,000 meals, anyone who brought a friend to VBS would get to pie a director in the face. This year’s Vacation Bible School raised 4,608 meals.
To celebrate the end of VBS and all the fun we had, we hosted a VBS Celebration Sunday. Kids were invited to join us for our morning worship service. Kids sang two of the songs we learned during VBS and were dismissed to experience our children’s ministry. Parents were able to stay and experience the rest of our worship service. This Sunday was well attended and allowed us to meet many first-time visitors.
We are thankful for the evangelism grant we received through the BRN which allowed us to provide an unforgettable, gospel-driven VBS free for our community!
