God’s Plan for Sharing is a decade-long strategic emphasis on the part of Southern Baptists. Across Alabama is the first phase of this crucial effort of reaching people for Christ. Across Alabama points to a celebration of harvest on Easter Sunday. I look forward to participating in one of these Easter celebrations at Heritage Baptist Church in Montgomery.
Beyond Easter, there is another tremendous opportunity to reach people in a time-tested and practically proven way. It is Vacation Bible School. Alabama Baptists lead the SBC in VBS outreach efforts. More than 10,000 leaders were trained for VBS ministry assignments last year in our state. Approximately 250,000 people were enrolled in VBS. Literally thousands of decisions for Christ were made during the hundreds of VBS experiences in Alabama Baptist churches.
Personally my own conversion experience was related to a Vacation Bible School when ,as a young child, I heard the Gospel message and responded publicly the following Sunday. For this reason and many others, I am an advocate for VBS. I wish every church would somehow participate in hosting a VBS. Smaller churches can unite their efforts and share leadership and combine their energies to reach people during VBS.
VBS can be a missions experience too. Churches can commission leaders to go across the state and assist other churches in effectively providing a healthy VBS experience. VBS is an “Acts 1:8, Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the ends of the earth”-kind of strategy which is the very essence of GPS, God’s Plan for Sharing!
The reason I am emphasizing VBS now is obvious. It needs to be an intentional act of training for VBS leaders. VBS is one way to share Christ in this Decade to make a Difference before us. May this be our best VBS year ever for Alabama Baptists and all Southern Baptists.
(For important information about VBS, please contact State Missionary James Blakeney at 1-800-264-1225, ext. 286, or jblakeney@alsbom.org.)
