1276 VBS

I was driving home recently and I saw something off the road that sent me down memory lane. It was one of those places that really helped my working parents during the long summer break. Ultra cheap childcare. It was a Vacation Bible School.
I noticed the sign said it only lasted for one week. Not as much of the summer as I remembered. Then I drove a little further, and I saw another church offering vacation bible school, but this one was for a different week. Oh yeah. That’s what I remember.
Serial Vacation Bible Schools.
Maybe that’s why later on in college I did so well in comparative religious studies. If what you’re after is cheap childcare, and you don’t mind the possibility your child will emerge with religious confusion, I suggest it to you as well.
I met all kinds of different people. And got exposed to all kinds of religious doctrines.
Sure, it was a little mystifying to me why Methodists and Baptists argued over whether baptism should be full body dunking or light head-sprinkling. The Episcopalians got up and down a lot more than the Presbyterians. And the Catholics let us dance, which got me into trouble when I went to the Southern Baptists, but what the hey, my regular teachers in school called me a little devil too.
They also had many things in common. Did you know that most every church accepts the interpretation that you can use two Popsicle sticks and yarn to make a cross? Or the apparently universally-sanctioned method for illustrating biblical stories, is Elmer-gluing on beans?
Any beans too. Red beans, brown beans, white beans, black beans, and all the lentils of the world.
Multiple Vacation Bible Schools taught me tolerance.
Bean there, done that.
America, ya gotta love it.