BELLA VISTA Recruiting vacation Bible school volunteers was easy.
“We almost had to turn people away,” said Deb Roesener, co-director of vacation Bible school at Bella Vista Lutheran Church. “That’s the blessing of this group, this church. People always want to help.”
Roesener said she and codirector Kathy Hughes just asked people in the church to help with the June 11-14 program and they said yes.
About 35 volunteers, including retirees, young parents and teens, helped out with the nearly 60 children each evening of vacation Bible school.
The volunteers were easy to find in the crowd of people. They all donned turquoise T-shirts.
“We want the kids to know a lot of adults are around and a lot of people care about them,” said volunteer Chuck Merriman of the brightly colored shirts.
PLANNING THE PROGRAM
Planning for the summer program starts at the beginning of the year, said Hughes, who also is director of the children and youth ministry for the congregation. The program the church purchased, “Sky: Everything Is Possible With God,” is a fi ve-day program volunteers adapted to their fourday session.
The curriculum is nondenominational and is produced by Group, a Christian publishing house based in Loveland, Colo. The material also is being used at Bella Vista Community Church, aninterdenominational church, in July.
Most churches get vacation Bible school programs from national publishing houses, some of which are denomination specific, such as Cokesbury, the retail division of the United Methodist Publishing House, or LifeWay Christian Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention.
St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Springdale, however, uses acurriculum created by Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Little Rock.
The themed Bible programs offer everything from Bible stories and games to whimsical decorations and take-home trinkets.
Bella Vista Lutheran Church opted not to buy the sky-themed backdrops, displays and other decorations. “We’d rather spendmoney on the kids and not the superfi cial stuff ,” Hughes said. But the church did purchase take-home trinkets for the children. “We wanted to give them something to take away each night so they could think about their experience,” Roesener said.
Wendell Pitt, a deacon at the church and another volunteer, told Bible stories each night as the children went on a scavenger hunt to find related items. On the third night of Bible school the story was about Jesus’ arrest and trial. Children searched for a whip, a crown of thorns and a sword.
“I enjoy telling stories, especially Bible stories and especially to little kids,” Pitt said.
The Bible school was open to children age 2 to 12. Finding games that could be played in 20 minutes and that the older kids wouldn’t find boring and the younger ones wouldn’t find too dift - cult was bit of a challenge, Roesener said. Volunteers found success with variations of Duck, Duck, Goose, relay races and parachute games.
Volunteers made a few changes once vacation Bible school began, but “it all fell into place,” Roesener said.
KNOW YOUR COMMUNITY
The church’s Bible school is in the evening, which is helpful to both the volunteers and the families whose children participate, said volunteer Sally Pfl uger.
“You really have to know your community and what works in your community,” she said. Pfluger is the widow of the Rev. Ronald M. Pfluger, former pastor of the church.
“You want to be able to serve the people and help. You can’t bring them here if it doesn’t really work with their schedule,” she said.
The children who attended Bible school are both children of church members and children from the community. The church has an agreement with the Bella Vista Unit of the Boys & Girls Club of Benton County to pick up children from the club to take to the church for Bible school, she said. The Bella Vista unit and Bella Vista Lutheran Church are both on Forest Hills Boulevard.
Carol Collins, unit director, said church members took informational flyers to the club and talked with the children’s parents. The parents who wanted their children to be shuttled to the church signed release forms, she said.
“I know they all really enjoyed it. They always came back with some really neat (craft) projects,” Collins said.
The evening program also gives parents who work outside of the home an opportunity to volunteer, Pfluger said.
“It puts a smile on my face to see the younger families participating. The parents are taking on some of the teaching roles and just doing a lot of things with the children,” she said.
WEEKEND PROGRAM
FITS CHURCH NEEDS
Grace Baptist Church in Fayetteville also chose to offer vacation Bible school in the evening, but the church opted for a three-day weekend school on June 22-24.
Volunteers could get the point across to children in three days without overloading them, said David Poplin, the church’s pastor. “It’s easier to remember three days’ worth of Bible stories than it is five days’ worth,” he said.
The church’s program, “Rocky Point Lighthouse: Where Kids Shine God’s Light,” published by Group, is targeted to smaller churches like Grace Baptist.
The program’s focus was a draw as well, Poplin said. It takes one Bible story - Jesus’ purpose for being on earth, his death and his resurrection - and breaks it into three parts, one for each day, Poplin said.
The Baptist church didn’t need to make any changes to the material to fi t its doctrine, he said. “Everything is taken from the Bible, in context.”
The weekend program also was helpful for parents who work during the week and for the church with staffing, he said. “People (at the church) are hungry for growth. They are going to do what it takes to make that happen.”
Several other churches in the area still follow a morning schedule, once the norm for all vacation Bible schools.
REACHING OUT
This year marks the fifth year the Bella Vista Lutheran Church has off ered vacation Bible school after many years of not offering it. In earlier years, most of the participants were grandchildren of members of the congregation, which is mostly made up of retirees, Hughes said.
In 2007, the church realized its congregation didn’t refl ect the changing demographics of Bella Vista, said the Rev. Paul Hass, the church’s pastor since 2009.
“The community around them had changed significantly, while the congregation hadn’t changed. The demographics of Bella Vista changed remarkably from 2000 to 2007. It had gotten much younger,” Hass said.
The average age of church members is 60.5, which is down from 73 in 2009, Hass said. In that time the congregation has grown by more than 100. Many of the newcomers are families with children, who have moved to the area from all over the country.
“The only downside to living in Bella Vista is that everybody is from somewhere else. We don’t have our families with us,” Hass said.
The church becomes that family for many, he said. “You’ve got to find a way to make connections.”
Vacation Bible school helps make that connection for many volunteers, especially the retirees, he said.
“These people who are here have grandchildren all over the country, all over the world, but not right here.”
Religion, Pages 8 on 06/30/2012