An Ol' Broad's Ramblings
VBS
Nashville-area churches reshape Vacation Bible School
Westminster Presbyterian Church, 3900 West End Ave., is offering new life applications to children: the value of sustainable living. Sophie Maness, director of Christian education, said the church has a duty to show children how to be sustainable.
“This generation is growing up with recycling and all of those pieces of what it means to be in an era of global warming. If we are not modeling in our church how to take care for the world, then our message does not match,” Maness said.
The theme for Westminster’s Vacation Bible School is “Renew.” Children will focus on applying the biblical parable of the sower to real life. Instead of the types of arts and crafts traditionally offered at VBS, the children will do things like plant flowers outside the church to learn about good versus bad soil.
When I was a young sprout growing up, I attended our Presbyterian church’s VBS every summer. We learned things, like Psalm 23, and all about Moses, and Solomon, and King David, the prophets, and most especially about Jesus. Now, they are teaching them the difference between good dirt and bad dirt? I’d have to say there a lot of ‘bad dirt’ being spread in churches these days.
This is a huge mistake. Their school classes will teach them about sustainability, but you can be certain that the school will not teach them about salvation. The Church, and only the Church, is charged with teaching salvation, and if the Church shirks that responsibility, no one else will fulfill it.
What this says is that this particular Presbyterian Church no longer believes in the Christian message of Jesus Christ as the savior of the world. They no longer think this is interesting, important, or worth telling people about. What a shame! But not too surprising as PCUSA has largely lost its way in the present age.
The parable of the sower is not about sustainability at all, but rather about the way the Word is received by various people and the way it affects lives or not. Looks like they are set up to entirely miss the point. Wow!!
Too many churches ‘miss the point’. It’s quite disturbing. I left the Presbyterian church when I found out that they were ok with abortion. I started my search, went through the Lutheran, and ended up with the best group of folks I’ve ever met. PC isn’t in the Bible, and it ain’t taught in my church.