CROSSVILLE, Tenn. (BP)–Paula Bailey knew Vacation Bible School functions as an important outreach event for many churches.
She knew VBS is one of the most significant evangelistic activities a church can do.
She even recognized that hosting VBS would be a great way to spread the name of Abundant Life Church, founded in December 2009, among the Crossville, Tenn., community.
But how to make it happen?
The new church with about 60 members meets in a rented space, the Teens Against Drugs center (TAD) in Crossville, but there wasn’t money in the budget to pay rental fees for a nightly event there.
Bailey asked her fellow church members to suggest other options. That’s when Virgil Carnatz, a retired dentist and church trustee, and his wife, Pam, came to the rescue.
They said their home, a beautiful farmhouse complete with several acres of land, an enormous red barn and two tolerant horses, would make a perfect setting for LifeWay’s “Saddle Ridge Ranch” VBS curriculum.
“Outside, for this particular theme, is perfect,” Pam Carnatz said. “It’s just stuff a lot of these kids may never do otherwise.”
So off to the Carnatzes farm went Bailey; her husband Boyd Bailey, pastor of Abundant Life; and “just about every adult in the church who could be here,” according to Virgil Carnatz.
“It’s a new church, and I really enjoy the folks,” Virgil Carnatz said. “I want to do everything I can to help out. I just didn’t realize how much fun I was going to have.”
The Carnatzes were the first of what turned out to be an abundance of helpful heroes who came together to make VBS happen for Abundant Life and the Crossville community.
ON LOCATION
An empty trailer parked at the barn entrance served as the stage from which Paula Bailey led upbeat songs and directed choreography during each night’s worship rally. In front of her, seated on bales of hay, about 50 kids in pre-K through sixth grade waved and wiggled, stomped and sang their way through songs like “Tumbleweed” and “What I’m Gonna Do.”
All the songs’ lyrics teach lessons of biblical truth, which made them perfect precursors to Bible verse recitation time and Boyd Bailey’s prayer that wrapped up worship rally and dismissed the kids to their age-group classes.
As the kids traipsed off to “classrooms” beneath crabapple trees, within screened tent structures and under freestanding awnings, it became apparent that more than a location and willing volunteers are needed to pull off five nights of VBS for 50 kids and an end-of-the-week Parents’ Night that ultimately welcomed 105 people.
Projection screens displayed lyrics that helped the kids sing along with the tunes. Speakers and microphones ensured everyone could hear the instructions and music over the typical sounds of nature preparing for dusk. Children and adult volunteers ate meals donated by the local school system and served out of the Carnatz’s garage. And a van transported VBSers along the winding road out to the farm.
“We have had so many places give to us and say, ‘We want to make this happen,'” Paula Bailey told the crowd on Parents’ Night. “Thank you for letting your children come. What memories we have made this summer.”
Outright donations or loans included the food, the van, the phone tree system that helped communicate info about VBS, the projector and, of course, the farm itself. Beyond that, businesses in the community offered discounts on other items such as the rental fees for sound equipment.
“It has been an unbelievable week,” said Bobbi Holland, an adult volunteer and long-time youth leader. “God has just in so many ways opened doors for us.”
But the week opened doors for people in the community, too.
“The fun doesn’t have to end here,” a cowboy hat-clad Boyd Bailey told the crowd during Parents’ Night. “If you don’t have a home church, please don’t stop coming.”
Even as the community reached out to Abundant Life Church, the church took the opportunity to return the favor, inviting people to become part of the church family and celebrating with two VBSers who accepted Christ that week.
“My body says, ‘I’m glad it’s over,’ but my heart says, ‘I want it to go on,” Holland said toward the end of an exhausting week.
“The kids participating down there,” she added, pointing to the VBSers gathered for Worship Rally, “they are my favorite part.”
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Brooklyn Lowery is a writer for LifeWay Christian Resources.
