I have a new personal credo. I will now say NO to any request that includes any of the following phrases:
1. You don't have to be creative
2. It'll only take an hour or two of your time (since you're so busy)
3. It's all laid out for you, just follow the directions.
4. You don't have to think
5. You can't mess it up
6. You can't fail.
I believe if you can't fail, you can't succeed either. Without some risk, there's no personal cost, and if there's no personal cost, there can be no personal reward.
I bring this up, because ol' ABC is recruiting for Vacation Bible school this week. They're expecting about 400 children, so they need 200 volunteers. Yeah, you read that right. A whopping 2 to 1 ratio. I could teach algebra to second graders with that kind of ratio. And the ages are 3 (potty trained) to entering 6th grade. Hmmm.
Now, what we do for VBS is go to this lovely company called Group Publishing, and buy or steal the idea for their VBS for the year. It's a packaged kit, with all the games, t-shirt patterns, snack ideas etc. Then we tweak it for our doctrin and rename it, so it's not plagerism. See how that works? Today, our Sunday school class was asked to help decorate for this event. Key words: You don't have to be creative. It's only a couple of hours. It's all laid out for you, can't mess it up.
A trifecta folks! Nope, I won't be there being uncreative for a couple of hours. Too many creative failures to accomplish, yanno?
I like things to cost, to be a challenge. Failure gives me a chance to learn something, and success only has meaning if there is a risk you won't succeed.
Really, if you are in charge of a VBS, and you purchase a kit, even tweaking it for doctrinal postitions, basically 2 things will happen.
1. Everyone will call you afterwards and tell you what a great thing it was, how much they enjoyed it, how the kids had a blast, ad nauseum. You immediately go back to the website, where they will already begin pushing VBS 2008 kits.
2. The calls will come, and they hated it. (Not likely, but work with me here) They will assure you it's not personal, and it's not, because while you shopped and organized and delegated, you will get over it a hell of a lot faster than if it were your "creative baby." And the 2008 kits will already be available on line, so you can go forth and tweak again.
Funny, no one rolls beeswax candle and colors with crayons at VBS anymore....
