VBS: Days 3-5
by Ted Slater on 06/10/2009 at 10:36 AM
I confessed a couple of weeks ago that I was growing anxious about having volunteered to be a crew leader with my church's Vacation Bible School.
As I wrote in my blog post on Day 1, things didn't go all that badly. I felt like I was connecting with my eight elementary-aged kids, and I was enjoying their friendship. Then Day 2 came along; you may have sensed a bit of weariness in the blog post I wrote that day.
Well, partly because my plate was full here at work, and partly because I lacked the creative energy to do much writing, blog updates for Days 3 and 4 and 5 were left unwritten.
Until now.
So, yes, I spent the mornings last week caring for eight kids, aged 6 to 11. Lots of personality, lots of energy. Consequently, lots of personal engagement and energy was required of me. Which left me drained. And kind of on edge, to be honest.
I'm reminded of Carolyn McCulley's article, "You Made Me Sin," in which she speaks of our hearts as a kind of sponge. Circumstances squeeze it, and out comes ... something:
[W]hen we get squeezed by the circumstances of life (an inevitability), we ooze the overflow of our hearts. We usually don't like what we see, so we blame the squeeze. We blame the circumstances. "I wouldn't have reacted that way if I hadn't been tired." Or, "I only said that because I was hot, thirsty, and uncomfortable." That's our default setting: blame the circumstances.
But Jesus tells us the overflow is what's already in our hearts. Being tired, hot, thirsty, or uncomfortable are only "revealers"; they aren't the reason we react in anger. We're angry because anger has taken root in our hearts.
And that's what I saw this past week. Doing motions for the same songs day after day squeezed the sponge of my heart. Having kids jump on me and hang from my neck, even after I'd asked them not to, squeezed the sponge of my heart. Seeing other volunteers who seemed bored or agitated to be there squeezed the sponge of my heart. Feeling like I didn't have enough time to distribute things to the kids or talk with them about anything meaningful squeezed the sponge of my heart.
And out came sin. I began watching the clock, eager for the morning to end, eager to get away from the noise. I found myself disengaging a bit from the kids who enjoyed strangling me. My hand motions were half-hearted; the ones that included sign language I began to disregard as uncreative and uninspiring, and maybe even a politically correct "statement" from the choreographer.
Yuck. Sin is ugly, hm?
Will I volunteer again next year? Right now I'm thinking no. I think my energies are best spent in a more academic, less relationally demanding way. Was I wrong to volunteer this year? No, I think it was the Lord's will that I serve my church and these kids in the way that I did. A lot of kids were truly blessed.
To be honest, I was blessed as well by VBS. That week gave me, and my friends, an opportunity to see the gunk that coats my heart. Maybe with their help I can scrape some of that off and instead saturate it with something more pure.
1. Christina B said the following at 12:10 PM on Jun 10:
Beautiful. It's so true.
I face this daily. Thank you for the reminder to look within myself at what needs to change rather than finding fault in external conflicts.
Oftentimes, when there is need for an apology, all people give is an excuse. But that's not what God desires ... or what we truly desire. It doesn't help us to overcome our inner conflicts which led us to sin in the first place. It also puts up a veil where we are defending ourselves from the others and hiding the sin rather than regarding the big picture.
2. Amy said the following at 1:11 PM on Jun 10:
That sponge analogy is...thought-provoking to say the least. How many times have I used that excuse? More than I care to remember. Thank you for sharing.
3. BDB said the following at 1:18 PM on Jun 10:
Yes, herding a group of other people's children can be taxing. Sounds like there was a lot of worship. One advantage of separating by age group is that age-appropriate crafts can be included that both teach lessons and absorb some of the children's energy. Classroom management is definitely a learned skill!
4. Leah said the following at 5:28 PM on Jun 10:
Isn't there any sort of discipline going on to stop kids doing that sort of thing? (eg. hanging from leaders' necks).
I understand you feeling your "energies are best spent in a more academic, less relationally demanding way". I feel that way sometimes too. But it's good to remember that the people who have the biggest impact evangelism-wise are those who engage relationally, and we should all be attempting to do that whether it's through a formal, structured VBS or through engaging with non-Christian workmates or neighbours.
5. Rachael said the following at 12:39 PM on Jun 20:
Another analogy about the importance of what's in the heart, which can be found in "The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment", by Jeremiah Burroughs (this can be found online, and anyone interested may read with Tim Challies [challies.com] and share thoughts if s/he likes):
"To be content as a result of some external thing is like warming a man's clothes by the fire. But to be content through an inward disposition of the soul is like the warmth that a man's clothes have from the natural heat of the body. A man who is healthy in body puts on his clothes, and perhaps at first on a cold morning they feel cold. But after he has had them on a little while they are warm. Now, how did they get warm? They were not near the fire? No, this came from the natural heat of his body."
6. Sadie said the following at 11:19 AM on Jun 21:
As a self-confessed VBS junkie I understand the utter exhaustion of ministering to children. This year I said no to teaching, yes to helping out in another capacity.
I am sure as I help out I will be thinking of sponges and the squeezing of my heart.