Remembering My Youthful Church Experiences
The truth retold.
Remembering My Youthful Church Experiences.
As I remember it, some 80 years ago, we always walked to and from the church building. It didn’t seem far, but when I say it was about a half mile away, you might think it was a long distance to walk. But if I put it into a comparison of how far I walked in eighth grade, to go fishing, two miles, it wouldn't be too much. (That story is also part of my growing up.)
The building was a converted, two-story home. The downstairs was remodeled into one larger room, and a smaller back room was used as a classroom. The upstairs contained three converted bedrooms used as classrooms.
The entryway had a short hallway with places to hang coats. The stairway to the upstairs was also located in the hallway.
My first memory of anything of importance occurred when I was about five years old or so. That summer, they held the first vacation Bible school class I can remember. There are two things that made it memorable. The first was the teacher. My Mom was the teacher. The second thing I remember was the topic of the lessons that week, and as part of this is the craft related to this topic. The creation story in the Book of Genesis was the story or theme that year.
We didn’t have prepared materials. Mom used some paper about the size of construction paper and made pages by folding them in half. She used some green construction paper and folded them also. This would be the cover for all the pages of each child’s booklet. Each class day, we read from the Bible the part of the story that we would be drawing pictures for. At the end of the week, Mom helped us put colored yarn around the middle of all the pages, arranged in order, within the green cover. The yarn was tied, so the pages and the cover made a little booklet about the story of the creation.
I started learning about God and what he could do.
Started on 1/13/2025
I may add to this when other memories pop into my mind.
I enjoyed your reflection. VBS is a huge production these days and usually has a substantial budget in church finances. And yet, there is something to be said for the simplicity of the artwork and the stories as told with flannelgraph that make the characters less superhero and more natural, more human, more real and more believable...just like us. Thanks for sharing!