What Are We Teaching at VBS?

I did not grow up going to church. Not even a few times. My church attendance can be count on one hand, and that includes a backyard Bible club once. This irreligious upbringing means that everything I know about Christian work I learned as an adult Christian preparing for the ministry. It gives me a perspective that is sometimes in conflict with some of the “norms” of the average pastor. Vacation Bible School is one of them. 

First, I was taught to call it something other than VBS. 

“Kids just got out of school. They don’t want to go back to school.” But, I was taught, they are getting bored during the summer. Hold your children’s outreach, I was taught, toward the end of summer and call it “Bible Time!” Children are looking for a good time. Vacation Bible School is “something Protestants do.”

Then I was taught to operate it differently than Vacation Bible School

Incorporated in this mentality was concepts such as craft time is “of the devil”[1]and no “age divided classes.”  I was taught to emphasize Bible memory, reward heavily for bringing visitors and auditorium preaching.

I used to have an evangelist come to our church and hold our Bible Time. Boy was he good at it! He could get the kids excited, get them to bring visitors every day and get them to memorize hundreds of verses. He had them yelling loud and had them hyped up for everything but the preaching time.[2]I spent the whole week in knots. I didn’t know why I was uneasy; I just know I had to spend all afternoon praying to get back in a spiritual frame of mind after the morning with the kids. Apparently the evangelist was as uneasy about it as I was. After about 5 years of his coming, I told him I wanted him to come for Bible Time, but I did not want to conduct an evening revival with him at the same time. He confided that the only reason he did the morning Bible Time ministry was for the opportunity to preach to adults in the evenings. He stopped coming and I continued conducting Bible Times, imitating his style. 

I am now into my 36th year in the ministry. I have witnessed trends that concern me terribly. One of them is that so many young people quit coming to church when they leave their parent’s homes. The other is that so many of them who do continue in church opt for more progressive ones. Even those who enter the ministry, and call themselves independent Baptists, seem to gravitate to what I consider progressive and sometimes Protestant, styles. It occurs to me that they may be looking for some way to imitate a children’s program in adult church.

I just witnessed a well known Independent Baptist preacher of this generation dress himself up like a shirtless movie monster hero for his Vacation Bible School program.[3]A man who would preach against worldliness. A man who would preach that Christians ought to be separated, holy, modest and temperate but, for VBS, and to get the kids all excited, he made himself look like a shirtless movie monster hero.

I am sure it was fun

I am sure the kids got excited

I am sure it helped attract a greater number of children to VBS

What I question, however, is the long term consequences of hosting a yearly children’s program in the church that consists of 75% or more hype, with 25% or less real preaching of the Word of God.

Marvin McKenzie

In the fields.

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[1]I am probably exaggerating this one, but not by much.

[2]Which was, of course, a very small portion of the entire program.

[3]Full disclosure, he wasn’t shirtless. He was wearing a custom to make him look like that shirtless movie monster hero.

A Proposal of Literary Significance to Baptists

As a reader and would-be writer, one of my concerns is that I find very little in the way of published sermons by Baptists. It might be that I have not discovered the right places to look, but I just don’t find much written by Baptists, either of the past or currently. This shortage of materials puzzles me because Baptist preachers are, of a necessity, writers. We write sermons, many of them, every week of our lives. compiled over the years, this constitutes volumes of written material. It’s just not accessible to the public.

It seems to me that we have lost a treasure of Biblical discovery because we have not preserved and published the sermon works of the majority of Baptist preachers.

I propose an attempt to correct this.

Imagine the theological implications of having the sermon work of Baptist preachers at our disposal. Imagine the Biblical insights. Imagine the potential historical insights.

My proposal offers these steps to rectify and create a digital library of Baptist sermons:

1. Urge current preachers to collect and publish their own sermon work

The sermons could be collected by year of delivery, book of the Bible or sermon topic, whichever tends to suit their own preaching style. The key to success is that the preacher not obsess over grammatical accuracy. Such will delay the work so long, it would be impossible to publish enough to make a lasting impact. Think of but like our practice of recording our messages. How many honestly take the time to have the recordings professionally edited?

2. Locate collections of sermons by Baptist preachers - recent and distant past

These do not need to be the notable preachers. It may be that those preachers less notable may have as important things to say as those more well known.

3. Preserve their messages digitally

I imagine the first step in this would be to make photographic scans of the pages. Whether these sermon collections are handwritten or typed, their preservation in a digital format is a priority to make them accessible for future steps.

4. Recreate them in digital format

This would be painstaking work, attempting to read sometimes difficult handwriting and making digitally typed books of them.

5. Editing the work

I envision this being a process that could go on in perpetuity. The letters of George Washington, for example, are continuously studied, edited and refined. The point is not to change what he wrote but to correct the reproductions of his writings for greater accuracy.

This proposal is overwhelming in my mind. 

• I need to find others, preferably in the Baptist library world, periodical, Bible College, etc who might be interested.
• I need to enlist others who would be willing to do the tedious work of preserving in digital form, then typing out the first digital versions of these volumes, and then publishing them.
• I need to locate collections of sermons to begin the work with.

Marvin McKenzie

In the fields

Local Church Pastor or Missionary Church Pastor?

I received a question from a fellow Missionary Pastor from the Philippines. Seeking your view on the issue.

A. Is there any distinction between local church pastor
& local missionary pastor? If there is/are what are those?

B. Can a local church pastor in a certain place be a missionary pastor in another place be at the same time? Is it scriptural? Is there any violation from God's word, or there are exemption? why?

A. First, the terms “local church pastor” and “local missionary pastor” are not found in the Bible. So, the answer to the question will depend on one’s definition of the terms.

In my understanding, a pastor is always the elder, overseer and bishop of a local church. His function is 1. Feeding the flock 2. Counseling and direction of the members and 3. Oversight of the ministry. A man is only a pastor when he is performing this role in a local church. We just had a preacher at our church who pastored one church for 38 years. He has now retired from the pastorate. He has a pastor, but he is not a pastor.

A missionary pastor, as I understand the term, would refer to a man who is the pastor of a local church that is either 1. Not yet confirmed (Acts 15:41). We usually use the term organizing the church today. or 2. In need of financial support.

In my opinion, the second is not an appropriate term. A missionary is not a missionary because of his need for money, but because of the work he performs. (That of reaching souls, planting new churches, and training pastors for those churches.)

I would say, therefore, that a missionary pastor is one who is leading a church that is not yet fully organized and is therefore still under the authority of his sending church. A man may pastor a fully organized church but be in need of financial assistance. I know many such pastors.

B. So can a man be a pastor of a local church and a pastor of a mission church at the same time?

I know of no Bible passage either restricting it or permitting it. I have known some pastors of very large and established churches who, for love of souls and church planting, have done the work of a missionary pastor while pastoring his established church. They held regularly scheduled services in their established church and afternoon services in their church plant. They then turned their church plant over to another man as soon as it was practical.

Prayerfully this will answer your friend’s question.

Pastor Marvin McKenzie

In the field

Inadequacy

It seems to me that there are three areas where Christians are especially prone to feelings of inadequacy:

         Bible study/reading

         Prayer and

         Witnessing/soul winning 

Who would ever claim to have attained in these areas? 

Inadequacy leads, so often, to feelings of guilt. We know we should do better. We wish we did do better. 

Guilt can lead to a spirit of judgment and criticism. We begin to put rules in place designed to make others, and possibly ourselves do better. 

Here’s the thing, any of these things done out of coercion and not a willing heart is not accepted by God. It’s a man-made trinket and not a spiritual treasure. 

So what’s the answer?

2 Corinthians 3:5

Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God; 

And 2 Corinthians 12:9

And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 

Our inadequacy must be filled up in the sufficiency of Christ. This does not mean that we are lazy or careless. It means we do the best we can and we learn how to improve what we do, but we leave the fruit or lack thereof, in the hands of a gracious and merciful God.

Marvin McKenzie

In the fields