Month: June 2026

If you’ve come by the church over the past week, you have heard children playing, songs being sung, crafts being crafted, and the word “Hope” shouted with enthusiasm. You would see youth leading and an intergenerational team of volunteers creating an incredible experience for our campers. Each year, I marvel at the way people come together to make VBC a powerful and caring experience for our children and our larger church. This week was no different, as over 90 volunteers helped our campers experience the story of Daniel and the promise that God is with us.

On Sunday, you will have the opportunity to experience just a taste of camp. On the Atrium wall, you will see large flowers blooming. Each petal represents a prayer. Some are easily discernible, others require a careful eye, and a few have a random game of tic-tac-toe preserved in a magic marker, but each individual petal is a prayer offered by one of our campers. Later in the day, youth volunteers combined the petals to make different flowers. One commented, “It’s like they trusted us with their prayers and now we’re holding them.”

It’s humbling to think of the chain of connections. On Sunday, you will see the completed flower; a flower formed and completed by a young volunteer, made of petals decorated by a camper, that were first cut out by a volunteer in early May. A prayer that started as a piece of construction paper and ended in a burst of color. A prayer that all of us can take a little responsibility for. But it is a prayer that doesn’t end. As you are walking towards Congregational Hall, I have one favor to ask. You will notice the names of our campers written on the stars. I ask you to pause for just a few seconds, choose a name, and offer a prayer for that child. A prayer asking that they will continue to experience God’s close presence no matter where they go next, a request that God holds them close, like a petal in our hands.

A special thank you to everyone who helped make camp such a special experience: our families who trusted us with their children for the week; our campers who brought energy and joy throughout our campus and into the community; staff and volunteers who worked behind the scenes; volunteers who planned, prepared, and led our activities; youth who gave their summer to serve others; and a loving God who held it all together.

Just in case you missed out this year: VBC 2027 is only 360 days away! 🙂

My husband and I recently took our first-ever tropical beach vacation. We are more mountain and lake people, so we looked forward to the new experience.

In anticipation, I was determined to find a great beach read to dig into between dips in the ocean. I was especially delighted to discover a series of “beach” reads that are set on the exact island where we were. There was something especially fun about reading a book set in our exact location. I was uniquely able to imagine the smell of the air, the beauty of the hiking trails, and the friendliness of the people, because I was fully immersed in them.

This coming Sunday in worship, we will explore the ways that this phenomenon of imagining ourselves inside a story applies to the Bible as well. Our passage in particular tells of a pivotal moment in the lives of Hagar and Ishmael, Sarah’s slave and Abraham’s son.

The drama of the patriarchs and matriarchs, as ancient as it is, still portrays some of the exact same family dynamics, personal drama, and human foibles that we all experience today. Maybe we can’t imagine ourselves as nomadic shepherds living in the desert thousands of years ago, but the jealousy, the disappointment, the heartbreak, and the love between complicated people are likely present in one way or another in all of our lives.

This is one of the things that I love so much about scripture, and especially the stories of the Bible – that scripture pulls us in like any great piece of literature and invites us to imagine ourselves within the drama.

Can you imagine sitting down to read the Bible with the same enthusiasm as we do our “summer” reading: curious about the plot, swept up in the human interactions, surprised by the twists and turns, and compelled to consider what we would have done in the shoes of the major and minor characters.

I invite you this summer – maybe not to pack your Bible in your beach bag, though that would be a great idea – but to spend some time in the drama of scripture and see where it takes your imagination. The Book of Esther is always my suggestion for a dramatic and wild starting place for an exercise like that. The Acts of the Apostles has numerous tales of disciples getting in and out of trouble with each other and the world. And of course, Genesis, where we will linger for a time this Sunday, is full of stories of all of humankind discovering what it means to be God’s people on this earth.

I look forward to hearing all about your summer reading!

This Sunday in worship, we will hear two fascinating miracle stories from the Gospel of Matthew — the healing of the woman who hemorrhaged for 12 years and the raising of a 12-year-old girl from her deathbed. In addition to the stories themselves, we’ll dive into the function of miracle stories in scripture, the meaning behind these stories, and what they may or may not mean for us today.

I wonder, what do you make of miracles? Have you experienced any in your own life? The life of someone you love? Maybe you are someone who balks at talk of miracles. Or perhaps you aren’t quite sure what to make of miracles — either in the Bible or today. We will explore all of this and more in worship on Sunday.

Then, at 11:15 a.m., we’ll gather to enjoy a modern-day miracle: the miracle of ice cream! Yes, this Sunday is Sundae Sunday! (And yes, in my book, ice cream is a miracle, especially if it’s cookies & cream.) Join us in Congregational Hall at 11:15 a.m. to celebrate the end of the school year and the start of summer Sunday school. We’ll enjoy God’s gifts of ice cream, refreshments, and fellowship with one another.