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Note #8113 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

Vacation Bible School curriculum is a hit
04073
February 11, 2004

Vacation Bible School curriculum is a hit

Educators appreciate Presbyterian flavor, focus on world mission

by Evan Silverstein

LOUISVILLE - Jan W. Day thinks she may have found the perfect Vacation Bible
School curriculum for her Presbyterian congregation in Summerville, SC.

The director of Christian education at Summerville Presbyterian Church was
one of more than 1,000 Christian educators, clergy and others at last month's
annual conference of the Association of Presbyterian Church Educators (APCE)
in Norfolk, VA.

She attended the four-day event in hopes of spotting a versatile, easy-to-use
new curriculum for her 700-member congregation to consider for its summer
Vacation Bible School (VBS).

And that's where her search may have ended.

The Presbyterian Church (USA)'s first independently produced Vacation Bible
School (VBS) curriculum, God Calls Us: Around the World in 5 Days, was
introduced during the conference.

"At a glance, I really like the ideas that are presented here," Day said
during a workshop featuring the new VBS curriculum.

The low-cost curriculum, which focuses on global mission, was well received
in its APCE roll-out. The five-day VBS course is intended for children ages 4
through 10. It invites learners to explore customs and cultures of foreign
countries through music, food, crafts, language, games and other activities.

God Calls Us: Around the World in 5 Days takes Bible school participants on
daily "airplane trips" to five countries where the PC(USA) is working in
active mission partnership: Guatemala, Malawi, Pakistan, Peru and the
Philippines. During their "flights," children hear Bible stories and read
letters from Presbyterian missionaries around the world.

Each day, participants board a plane and travel to a different destination,
to experience that country's language, crafts, music and snacks.

The Rev. Bill Lane also attended an unveiling of the new VBS curriculum on
Jan. 27, the day before the APCE conference began. As a "point person"
charged with teaching others in his presbytery about the curriculum, he liked
what he saw.

"I have not read it cover-to-cover, but I think it's a wonderful concept, by
looking at worldwide mission and where we are connected," said Lane,
associate pastor for Christian education, youth ministry and congregational
nurture at Calvary Presbyterian Church in Riverside, CA. "I like it because
it's getting children connected to mission, and I think that's important."

Lane and others said they also liked the VBS curriculum because it could be
used by small or large congregations, and because its $35 price is within the
reach of a church of any size.

"I think what's nice about it is that it can be tailored to churches, whether
they're a small church or a big church," he said. " ... It allows you to use
your imagination: 'How can I use my space for that?' So I think there's some
potential sitting there."

Sandra Moak Sorem, publisher of Congregational Ministries Publishing (CMP),
which produced the new VBS curriculum at a cost of $35,000, said expenses
were controlled by not including items that drive up prices, such as
backpacks and T-shirts. She said all the work, including the illustrations,
was done in-house to save money.

Another cost-saving factor was the fact that much of the curriculum was
actually derived from unused material originally written for the 2004 We
Believe intergenerational summer curriculum, Christ's Command: Go into the
World.

"We used some existing materials to make it available at a lower cost,
instead of creating everything from scratch," said Sorem, who said about
1,500 congregations must use the curriculum for CMP to break even.

The VBS supports the summer curriculum of We Believe (for ages 4 through
adult), but can be used independently - a factor many conference-goers said
they appreciated.

"I'm really excited about it," said Linda F. LeBron, a retired Christian
educator and past APCE president who wrote the Christ's Command summer
curriculum. "They told me I had given birth to twins, and I thought I had
only been carrying one around."

LeBron, a Presbyterian elder from Alabama who conducts workshops around the
nation, said she conducted most of the research for the summer piece over the
Internet.

"What I did was got on the PC(USA)'s Worldwide Ministries Division Web site,
and started contacting missionaries by email," said LeBron, former director
of Children's Ministries at Preston Hollow Presbyterian Church in Dallas, TX.
"I probably emailed 50 or 75 missionaries, until I finally found 13 very
different kinds of mission fields, and a good child-oriented story."

The Rev. Meg Rift, who led the curriculum workshop at APCE, said: "The only
limit to the VBS is your own imagination. There are no bells and whistles.
Your imagination is really the only limit. You can do so much with this. It's
so rich."

Rift said VBS exercises could be carried out using ordinary household
materials, such as maps, construction paper, string, and colored markers or
crayons. Props for the program, such as an airplane, can be as basic or
elaborate as users wish to make them.

"You can have your airplane with just two rows of chairs and people just
sitting in them," said Rift, a former PC(USA) national staff member who also
worked on the VBS curriculum. "You can tell them to put their trays in the
upright position and tell them, 'We're about to take off.' You can make an
airplane with cardboard from refrigerator boxes and put holes in them for
windows and really be creative."

Many at APCE also applauded the summer curriculum's incorporation of the
PC(USA)'s 2004 Children's Mission Yearbook for Prayer and Study, which
includes prayers, Bible verses and mission stories from around the world,
complete with maps and photos.

"I like seeing more than one resource being pulled together," Day said, "and
the ideas are very easy to do. I don't see anything that would be
complicated. I'll be able to go back to my teachers right now and say, 'I
think I may have found our summer curriculum.'"

	Others agreed with Day that the curriculums are easy and
straightforward, fun and Biblically sound.

"It's very affordable, and the materials, since it's maps and things like
that, anybody could get their hands on the material," said Wendy Markham of
Kirkland, WA, director of children's ministries at Rose Hill Presbyterian
Church. "It would just take a matter of somebody sitting down and coming up
with some ideas and a little bit of planning, and they should be able to pull
it off."

Day said she likes the distinctly Presbyterian content and the emphasis on
PC(USA) mission work. She said she's especially fond of the We Believe series
produced by CMP.

"I've been using We Believe this year, and I've been very pleased with it,
especially the middle school and high school curriculum," she said. "My
teachers have really liked it, and the kids have gotten into it. I'm just
excited that we've got some good curriculum going for us now."

Designed with teachers in mind, the curriculum includes "Teacher Tips," ideas
for finding and inspiring volunteers, setting the stage, and suggested time
lines. The leader's VBS book, with reproducible pages and cassette come
complete in one binder for $35.

"For churches that don't have a lot of money and can't afford these $200 kits
that come with the puppet, the CD and all the bells and whistles, this is
just really practical," said the Rev. Tammy Wiens, CMP's associate for
curriculum development and editor of the VBS curriculum.

To order God Calls Us: Around the World in 5 Days (Item #614900), as well as
the We Believe summer curriculum (#614800) and the Children's Mission
Yearbook (#7061204451), call Presbyterian Distribution Service at (800)
524-2612, or visit www.pcusa.org/marketplace.

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