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Vacation BIBLE School

by Julie Long

Several years ago, I was having dinner with a family of the church in the weeks preceding Vacation Bible School.  Since the wife was volunteering at VBS, the conversation naturally shifted toward our preparations. As we clamored on about the jazzy theme, decorations, and schedule of activities, the husband sarcastically snorted, “I remember the days when the theme of Vacation Bible School was THE BIBLE!”

Many times since that occasion, I have remembered that comment – mostly when I have been on a ladder hanging a sparkly decoration from the ceiling or rearranging the sanctuary to create a beach scene or space shuttle mission control center!; Sometimes, when I have been racking my brain for a creative backdrop or am exhausted by the countless hours of preparation, I have been tempted by the same wondering – can’t VBS just be a little simpler?; Maybe you have wondered the same thing as you’ve entered the festive building on the Sunday morning before VBS! Read More

Time, Time, Time

by Bob Setzer, Jr.

The Sunday after Father’s Day, I marched into the sanctuary five minutes late. Not a “few minutes” late but five minutes late. On the dot.

At the time, I didn’t realize I was late so I was shocked to open the sanctuary door and find the service already in progress. It was like awakening from a dream to discover the world you thought was real, was not, while the real world had gone on quite nicely without you.

Still dazed, trying to figure out what happened, I now realized why I hadn’t heard the choir sing their final warm-up next door to my study. But it was June, after all, and sometimes in the dog days of summer, we have a solo rather than a choral anthem. The uncommon quiet and stillness in the moments just before worship should have been a warning, but lost in final preparations for the service, I didn’t notice. Read More

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“Christian” is a Noun

by Bob Setzer, Jr.

With July 4 looming, I expect the usual flurry of e-mails telling me the following: (1) On the aluminum cap atop the Washington Monument are two Latin words, Laus Deo, meaning, “Praise be to God;” (2) the Founding Fathers were deeply religious men who founded the American republic on Christian principles; and, (3) the phrase “separation of church and state” does not appear in the United States Constitution. All those points are true or mostly true, in my view; however, the usual implications drawn from them in the free-floating Internet ditties I receive are not.

As to point one, yes, “God language” is and always has been a prominent part of our national dialect. The president’s recent speech addressing the disaster in the Gulf was rich in religious imagery. He spoke of the blessing-of-the-fleet ceremonies in which Gulf fishermen appeal for God’s protection and help in good times and bad. Read More

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Deep Calls Out to Deep

by Bob Setzer, Jr.

My mother sent me a news clipping containing yet another searing image of a raging petroleum fire. The bright yellow inferno at the burn site is belching an ugly, black plume of smoke into the sky.

Only this picture was not one of many shocking photos to come out of the Gulf oil disaster. This photo was taken at a petroleum tank farm in my hometown of Greensboro, North Carolina. It is an area I remember well because one of my dad’s jobs when I was a boy, was working at just such an gas and oil storage facility. When Phillips 66 decided to move dad to Texas, that proved the end of his “oil career.” A hometown boy, my dad soon found another job and we stayed put, but those massive, round petroleum tanks–each holding nearly 200,000 gallons of gasoline–left an indelible impression on my memory. Read More

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