All Together Now

       Last week was a wild and crazy week!  We had bible school with 90 children, 20 youth helpers, and over 35 adults who all worked to make it possible.  It was an amazing experience and full of so many blessings and also very exhausting.
       I once had a cartoon that showed a crowd of children running first one way and then the other in front of two adults.  In the third frame of the cartoon looking tired, one of them says, "Whoever named it vacation bible school had a strange sense of humor."  Indeed.  It takes a lot of energy, hard work, and help to make vacation bible school a good experience for so many children.
       During the same week, our denomination met together in a church wide body made of both laity and clergy to do the business of the church and plan for the future.  Like most churches, ours is in an on-going process of re-structuring and looking at finances and numbers.
       Knowing this, I had a feeling last week that while the meeting was discussing and voting on plans for the future; we were living the future here at bible school.
       In the past, churches and denominations lived behind separate walls and rarely ventured beyond them.  Even when decades of mergers landed neighboring congregations in the same denomination, all too often, they stayed separate.  (Lutherans are famous for having two churches in the same church body across the street from one another because of this!) The idea of working together was preceded by years of "talks" by church leaders and theologians.
       I take last week, as a sign of things to come and of the way things should be done. This is a small congregation; most of those children were not members.  We had kids from all over the county, from several churches and denominations and kids who have no church home.  Several neighboring congregations helped to make bible school happen.
       Some people see this as a negative side effect of the shrinking population of small towns and rural areas.  That may be part of what is moving us to work together but it is more than that.  Jesus envisioned a church where all would be one, unified by the love of Christ. (John 17:20-21)  If anything, I think we are finally seeing that as Christians, we cannot afford to be divided from each other but need to work together.  It has never been a good witness to the gospel for us to fight and disagree so loudly amongst ourselves.
       Will our pews be fuller on Sunday because of bible school? I don't know.  It wasn't the point.  We had a chance to make a difference in the lives of a lot of children if only for a short time, and sometimes that is all the time you need to make a positive change in a child's life.  That is what it was about.  I am convinced that Jesus was right in the middle of all of that chaos, noise, and energy!
       Let me share my favorite moment from bible school.  One of my roles was leading the children in prayer both before our meal and at the close.
       20 or so of the children came again on Sunday to share some of their songs with us during worship and sat up in front of the congregation with me.  During the prayers, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that one of the youngest girls had come over and was sitting by me looking at my guitar.  Then as we began the Lord's Lord, she stopped and noticed what we were doing.  She immediately knelt down and folded her hands and bowed her head.  In her ruffled dress and long hair, she sat absolutely still for the whole prayer.
       May we all come to God in prayer with such innocence and attention.  Read Matthew 19:13-15.