VBC: a journey of connection and community

I had never run a Vacation Bible Camp
or even helped at one.
I had never attended one as a child
or even had a friend who had.

However, through my community of practice I had heard about the grueling hours of prep work undertaken to transform the church (or parts thereof) into the Amazon Rainforest or the Yellowstone National Park or some other entire ecosystem.

Somehow,
honestly,
I didn’t see that happening in a position that was 10-15 hours a week at the time.
It would have to be different.
And it was.

The structure of VBC evolved to letting the children lead. Under the guidance of wildly patient volunteers (patience needed primarily with me as I moved through this new thing), children created murals, 3D landscapes, train tracks with painter’s tape throughout the entire building. Competition was taken out of the games and the activities became cooperative, team building activities. Because after all, the last shall be first and the first shall be last, right?

And we added in an element of service with one of the stations being the kitchen; it was the Dining Car year 1 with our train theme. Kids clad in fresh new aprons (the brilliant brainchild of one of our volunteers) measured, stirred and mixed, rolled, cut and decorated as we cooked for L Street Mission in Brockton. This provided an important underpinning of the value and role of service in our faith. And the kids LOVED it.

The kids also loved God’s Holy Darkness (from a book of the same name), the name of our sacred space we created in the downstairs hallway with foam mats on the floor, battery operated votives and Christmas lights above. This space became our daily quiet story space leading into our arts station, an antidote to doughnuts on a string, parachute games, the bouncy house on the last day and the daily controlled chaos of the kitchen.

There are considerable moving parts that enter into making this happen from the wonderful volunteers and fantastic kids to grocery lists and recipe math. VBC is a powerful way for kids to connect to their faith and to their friends, new and old. And VBC has become a powerful way for me to connect to kids and adults, many whom I didn’t know before working with them.

From every angle and on every level, VBC is connecting, community building and so much fun.

Wanna join us?

-contributed by jenny healy, UCC Norwell’s Children’s + Family Minister