The Dream Fulfilled - They Came!

"if you build it, they will come" - so goes the line from the movie "Field of Dreams." It's a great line for a movie, but it doesn't work in real life. The world is full of projects built and ignored by the general public. So what were we thinking when our church (with a grand total of four kids in Sunday School) began planning the great-granddaddy blowout of all Vacation Bible Schools?

Suppose we build it and no one comes?

Given that our church had never even tried Vacation Bible School in our history - With four kids what did you expect? - we had no idea what kind of response we would gain.

Enter the highly energized youth group from Alaska Baptist Church. This would be the Alaska Baptist Church that's not in Alaska - not that Alaska. They came down from Caledonia, Michigan (yes, that Michigan, land of "the school from up north" for all Buckeye fans.) to undertake a missions project and we were it. In four days time, they blitzed our town, a city of about 1200 homes and 6000 residents. The result? We had more kids attending Vacation Bible School than we've ever had, up to 18 on two days. They came!

But they didn't come back on Sunday.

Whoa! What do you make of that? Simply that unsaved people well practiced in not attending church are not going to suddenly see the light and change their behavior simply because the children attended four days of Bible school. We are going to have to go after them again. And again. And again. And again.

But if we go, they will come. So we have to keep going until they are finally established securely in our church. "If you build it, they will come" - if you go after them.