Get Ready to Party!

This summer, we are having a Food Truck Party here at the United Methodist Church at Absecon!  Elementary age kids are invited to attend as students, teenagers are invited to serve as group leaders and anyone 18 or older is invited to participate as teachers, assistants, decorators and brainstormers!  

Our Food Truck Party VBS will run for one full week (days and times will be announced soon), and throughout the week, students and leaders will sing, dance, laugh, learn and play as we learn about God, our provider.  Each day we will talk about one of these five themes: God is Great, God is Good, Let Us Thank God for Our Food, By God's Hands We All Are Fed and Give us, Lord, Our Daily Bread.  These themes will be the main topic of our fun in opening and closing assemblies, crafts, science, Bible Story Telling, recreation and even at snack time!  We are already assembling a VBS team and our first meeting will be in the week of February 13th.  Please, let us know if you would like to help in any way!  

The overall theme for this year's VBS is a very important reminder that God is our provider.  That theme is so important that we don't have to wait until VBS in the summer to talk about it.  Let's talk about it now.  The main scripture for the whole week is "give us this day our daily bread" from Matthew 6:11.  It is a message that God provides for all of our needs.  Perhaps we too often turn to other sources when we are in need.  Some of those can be good, but many of them can be unexpectedly harmful.  When we seek answers from somewhere else, we have to consider if that source is trustworthy, if it is healthy, if it is looking for something in return or if there is a secondary motive for their giving.  But we don't have to consider any of that with God.  God gives freely.  God gives only for our benefit.  When God gives, we don't need to worry.  

Our VBS students are going to learn to trust in God when they are in need.  They are going to learn things like the Lord's prayer and Bible stories about God's generosity.  Most of all, they are going to learn that God gives as an act of love.  They are going to learn to look at their own lives and discover how God has provided them things to show how much God loves them.  As I said, we don't have to wait for VBS to teach that lesson.  Let's start now!  Amen.

- Reverend Dave