Our Blog

Spare Change - May 2021

VBS – IT’S WORTH IT!

I don’t know if you can tell but I love VBS!  In fact, there are a lot of us at Oakhill that love VBS!  Vacation Bible School (VBS) is this crazy week-long evangelistic outreach to children in the summer.  We are hosting our VBS on June 21^st-25^th for kids 4yr-5^th grade.  Even though it takes place in the summer we are right in the middle of VBS Season.  We just had our training rally for our volunteers and participant sign-ups start the first week of May.  It takes a lot of planning and preparing to make VBS work.

While VBS has become a huge event that most churches participate in; it has a very humble beginning.  In 1894, a Sunday School teacher, D.T. Miles, started a summer Bible school for kids. Initially it lasted four weeks; over time it was narrowed down to one week.  Other churches picked it up until thousands of churches participated every summer. Recently the question has been asked if VBS is worth it. Is it worth the volunteer hours and church resources?

Lifeway, the publishing arm of the Southern Baptists, did some research and found that of the 60% of adults who attended VBS, 9 out of 10 have positive memories.  On top of that VBS is one of the only intentional ways our churches evangelize. We are in an evangelism crisis right now– 48% of church goers are not inviting unchurched people to visit and 61% are not sharing Christ with anyone.  VBS helps with both of those problems. It is a huge opportunity to invite families in our community to participate in something the church is doing.  It is also a way that we can share Christ with those children and their families. We take seriously the call to share the good news with everyone we can.  Our VBS teachers intentionally weave the gospel through all their lessons.  In addition, I get the opportunity on the Wednesday of VBS to share the gospel with the entire group of kids.  We have seen many kids respond to the gospel through the years. It is an amazing privilege to be a part of something so gospel focused and God honoring.

2019 was our largest VBS ever at Oakhill.  We had over 200 kids.  In 2020 we were gearing up for another great VBS, then Covid hit.  We had to move the date twice, however, VBS is so important that we wanted to make it happen anyway we could.  So, we did it in September on four separate Sunday nights.  God blessed our faithfulness, and several kids were saved.  Over the past few months many of these kids have been baptized!  VBS is most definitely worth it!  That is why we invest the man hours and resources to make it happen every year.

You might be asking yourself, “What can I do to help?”  The answer is simple: Pray and Invite!

1. Pray about who you can invite to VBS, then invite them!
2. Pray that kids would be saved and families impacted with the gospel.

We need prayer warriors that will surround this important event, all our volunteers, and the children attending in prayer.  Please join us in praying for opportunities to plant and harvest gospel seeds.  To register kids or for more info visit oakhillbc.org/vbs2021.

Women on Mission - May 2021

Mission Prayer Requests

Prayer Focus - Hawaii: Jay Haynes planted Waiehu Community Church in Maui, Hawaii. “Pray for our small church, Waiehu Community Church, during the coronavirus pandemic. The lockdown has made it very apparent how beneficial having our own property would be, as our meeting space was shut down by the department of education, leaving us with no place to meet or conduct church functions. We have saved very aggressively, but property is so expensive in Hawaii that we are still unable to invest in a property. Pray that the Lord would provide us a place to buy soon. Please pray for my co-pastor and me. We are both bivocational. I work full time as an operations manager, and my co-pastor works part time in sales. Pray that the Lord would sustain us and give us perseverance in ministry. Pray that our church would be able to fully support my co-pastor soon and that within a few years, I would even be able to come on to payroll with the church.”

Prayer Focus - European Peoples: There are about 150,000 Hungarians in France. Many have assimilated into French culture, including turning toward atheism or other religious beliefs. There are no known evangelical churches among them, and the need is great. Pray for God to raise up local French Believers, Hungarian believers, and believers from elsewhere to share His message.

Prayer Focus - South Asian Peoples: During the pandemic and Cyclone Amphan, believers worked with many Send Relief projects, distributing food and household items to people in Kolkata, India. Pray for open doors and hearts as those areas are revisited. Ask that the distributions “till the soil” for the Spirit to produce growth. Pray for wisdom in continued work as the lockdown lifts but fears of the virus remain.

Prayer Focus - Alaska: Nathaniel Buck planted Agape Fellowship in Palmer, Alaska. “By God’s grace, we started Agape Fellowship five years ago. When the coronavirus pandemic hit, all ministry effectively came to a standstill. Summer, which normally is filled with outreach and evangelism activities, was eerily quiet, as we were unable to do the things we normally would. As...we looked ahead to fall, it felt like a full restart in a way. Please pray that we at Agape Fellowship would have wisdom to discern God’s vision for us and that we would be unified in accomplishing His Great Commission. Pray God will provide a new meeting place, as COVID -19 made our last renting place - a senior center - unavailable. Pray that God will raise up leaders within our church who will step up as needed. Pray that in the midst of the coronavirus, God would give us creative ways to share the gospel with our community.”

Prayer Focus - Louisiana: Debi Sharkey is a chaplain for the Louisiana Correctional Institute for Women in Gonzales, Louisiana. “Pray that the ladies who are incarcerated at the Louisiana Correctional Institute for Women will be able to start classes, worship services, and prayer times soon.”

Prayer Focus - Sub-Saharan African Peoples: The Fulbe people stretch across western Africa, including Togo. They are a nomadic people. Young boys are trained to herd cattle and long-eared goats with only a slender stick. Their primary religion is folk Islam. In another west African country, the Fulbe people have been radically turning to Christ and suffering great persecution. Pray this mighty movement of the Holy Spirit would sweep Togo.

Prayer Focus - Southeast Asian Peoples: Forty-five people groups in East Indonesia are still classified as “unreached” with the gospel, and no one is actively trying to engage them with the good news. Many live in hard-to-reach places. The Bible is available in Indonesian, but many older people speak only the local dialect. Pray for the salvation of the unreached peoples of East Indonesia.

Women on Mission will meet at 1:00 pm on Thursday, May 6th in the Grace Classroom (room opposite the Fellowship Hall.) All of our ladies are invited to join us.