Stay at home days
I enjoyed my Labor Day. My daughter calls those kinds of days “Stay Home Days.” She loves them. We didn’t actually stay home though. We went to King’s Dominion. It was a fun day – the weather was beautiful. Tuesday was hard though. After too many stay home days in a row, it makes it hard to get up and get going.
One of our wonderful volunteers washing feet!
This morning I met with some of my adult volunteers for the Tuesday afterschool program. These people are amazing. They could have stay home days all the time, but instead, the come here and work with our children at church. They meet with me to plan. They prepare cooking and art projects and games. Then they come in every Tuesday and love the kids. I’ll meet with the Thursday volunteers on Thursday. They do the same. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate these people. Each week, we have about 50 children who come here on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. We could have this program with just me, but it wouldn’t be nearly what it is now. Our kids learn about the love of God from these people. And I’m not just talking about when we teach them Bible stories. They learn about the love of God from getting to know these adults who care for them and give their time to come be with them. They associate that love and care with the church and hopefully understand that ultimately that love comes from God.
I’m recruiting Sunday school volunteers right now too. Again, these people give of themselves for the children of our church and for that I’m am extremely grateful. We have people who come every Sunday, some who teach just three weeks out of the school year, and some who fall in between those two. In a time when many churches are wondering what to do with their failing Sunday school programs, ours is thriving! That’s because of all the people who sign up and work with our kids. If I had to teach Sunday school all by myself, our kids would suffer!
Whenever a child is baptized, we all agree to provide Christian nurture for that child as a church – to support the family in raising that child in the Christian faith. This is not something the staff of the church does on its own. We all, as a congregation, agree to do this. I am so thankful that we have so many people who take this vow seriously and volunteer in our programs with children and youth. I probably don’t tell them enough how much I appreciate them. But as we get started in this new school year, I am reminded once again how much I depend upon them so that I can do my job. We all work together as a church family to support our children as they grow in faith.
Even though Sunday is a day that we come to church and Sunday school, Bel still considers it a stay home day. After all this is our home and this is our family.
