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Vacation Bible School

What are your earliest memories of Bible School? I was in Kindergarten, or at least that is the first one I remember. Our stories, crafts, snacks and games were all done in the classroom.

I do not remember much other than I felt loved, I wanted to go back and we made popsicle trivets. How many of you made popsicle trivets in Bible School? 

The other thing I remember about the result of this Bible School is it began a journey for me which eventually led me to be a Children’s Minister and the opportunity to share the Gospel with children across the globe. All because a church invested in VBS and a teacher invested in me, a hyperactive, talkative kid who needed to know about Jesus.

So why should we do Bible School?

  1. VBS brings energy to our church. It brings energy to the children, our teachers, our teens and even those who are not helping.
  2. Last year 2.5 million attended VBS nationwide.
  3. Last year 155,000 unchurched families connected with a local church who would have not connected otherwise across the nation.
  4. 70,000 people made professions of faith across the nation.
  5. Over 1,300 kids responded to Gods call into ministry or missions across the nation.
  6. In a single week the kids at Eastern Hills Baptist Church receive 17.5 hours of intense focused Bible Study. That is equivalent to 7 months of ministry.

I look at our teens and see the passion they have for working with boys and girls. For the most part, these teens have come through our Children’s Ministry. Many of our teens are now helping to lead our classes and counseling children on how to accept Jesus as their Savior. They gave up their sleeping in for 2 weeks prior to VBS as we decorated and now showing up even earlier to work in VBS. 

Bible School is worth it! It is worth our time, it is worth our effort and it is worth the cost. Thank God we have a church that loves boys and girls enough to reach the lost, and teach our kids about the great God whom we serve.

Our Church Mission Statement is to Follow God, Reach people and Teach others to do the same. Thank God that Bible School encompasses all these points.

Thanks to everyone who has worked so hard to make all of this happen. There is no way to thank everyone who helped in Bible School, but I do want to thank Jacob Myrick and Sara Golden for leading our youth in such a fantastic way! By the way, in case you didn’t know, Sara and Jacob are our two summer interns. They both grew up at Eastern Hills and are a product of a church that put children and youth as priority ministries.

I also want to thank Chris Sullivan for the spectacular videos, slides and crazy antics during our Opening Celebrations each day.

Also big thanks to Chad for all he does from moving furniture to cleaning up after sick children. 

Finally a shout out to our church secretaries for picking up so many extra duties and covering for all the ministers as we work in Bible School.

Pastor Greg

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FOCUSED

One of the casualties of aging to which I find myself a victim is the dimming of the eyes.  Ecclesiastes 12 counsels the young person to remember God, their Creator, in their youth before the aging process takes over and various faculties, as listed in verses 1-7, are diminished.

Clear eyesight when we are young may be something we take for granted. However, as we age the realization that our vision is not as sharp as it once was takes hold. “Readers” become standard fare for all intricate tasks. Our once keen laser sharp focus is now blurry and in need of help to restore its youthfulness. That restoration is found through glasses or some sort of rejuvenating surgery. Especially in the early stages of this degenerative eye problem we may be able to fake it and get by, but eventually we must relent and do something to correct the problem.

There is a parallel between physical and spiritual vision. “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus” was written in the early 20th century. The hymn writer, Helen Lemmel, was strongly influenced by the artist and later little-known missionary, Lilias Trotter. Miss Trotter started off as an aspiring artist but early on felt a call from God to reach the lost. She began her ministry by rescuing prostitutes from the streets of London. Later she went to Africa, without missionary funding, and served for over forty years. While there she penned a poem that would greatly influence the writing of the hymn “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus.”  The poem was entitled “Focused: A Story and Song.” 

The poem centers around focusing one’s attentions fully and completely upon God. She writes that Satan knows that if a person uses all their powers of concentration on being led by God’s Spirit, they will have a great intensity and impact upon those to whom they are called to minister. Lilias Trotter, writing in a more formal use of the English language than we are accustomed, shares some timeless insights which could very easily have been written today but with a different accent. She writes: “Never has it been so easy to live in half a dozen good harmless worlds at once—art, music, social science, games, motoring, the following of some profession, and so on. And between them we run the risk of drifting about, the ‘good’ hiding the ‘best’ even more effectually than it could be hidden downright frivolity with its smothered heartache at its own emptiness.”

The “good” hiding the “best” leads us to emptiness.  Could this be true of us today especially as American Christians? Have we sought the “good” while missing the “best”? The chorus of the hymn, which we will be singing in worship this Sunday, says it best.

                Turn your eyes upon Jesus, Look full in His wonderful face,                                                                                                                                        And the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.

Keith Pate

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