“How happy I was to meet some of your children and find them living according to the truth, just as the Father commanded.” - 2 John 1:4
If there is one thing Vacation Bible School does well, it is to remind everyone how good it is to have children buzzing around… stomping around… the church.
This year’s theme centered around the jungle, and running into the children was either like meeting a herd of elephants or opening a barrel of monkeys!
The curriculum used words designed to summarize the whole Bible story: “Creation, Corruption, Catastrophe, Confusion, Christ, Cross and Consummation.” As Presbyterians we could narrow it down to one: “Covenant.”
“Covenant” is the thread that runs throughout HMPC’s 150-year history, much as it is the thread that knits God’s Word together from Genesis to Revelation.
Covenant is also the word that links the heart of our congregation to the serious fun and games of VBS, of children’s ministries and of programs for youth.
Because when these children were baptized, we as a congregation made promises too. This is why baptism in the Presbyterian tradition is part of corporate worship and a covenant with three parties in on the promises.
Those parties are God, the parents and the congregation. The church instructs that a local congregation “shall profess its faith, voice its support of the baptized and express its willingness to take responsibility for the nurture of those baptized.”
Personally, I do not know how anyone could be part of such a covenant and not be deeply invested in the presence and the nurture of children.
Such a covenant is, after all, the way and the heart of Jesus - DEREK
