VBS: Carryin' the Banner

I was somewhere around 10th grade maybe when I first fell in love with Newsies. It's a story about orphans and run-aways who would sell newspapers on the streets of New York in 1899. It's got music, it's got dancing, it's got Christian Bale -- what more could you ask for? I've seen so many movies that take place in New York, but when I think "New York," I always think, "Newsies!"
I was listening to the soundtrack yesterday and thought, "I wonder if I could change any of the lame-o VBS songs into super cool Newsies songs? Now that would be a VBS I would gladly attend!" We would sing songs like "Carryin' the Banner...of God's love" or "The World Will Know...that Jesus loves them."
The obvious "salvation song" (the one that always has the ABC's of salvation in it. And while I'm thinking about it, I really want to know if it takes more time to come up with a song for the ABC's and what they stand for than any other song. If you know, don't keep it to yourself!) would be "Seize the Day." "King of New York" would end up become something like "Tip your hat, He's the King of the Kingdom."

Of course, getting rid of the the smoking references, betting on race-horses, and the "lovey-dovey baby song" will prove to be most difficult...

VBS: Voluntold

This week is VBS at our church. I think we might be having ours a little later than every one else does, because I just read Jon Acuff's hilarious blog post about saying goodbye to VBS. Of the ten things that ALWAYS happen at VBS, no matter where you are in the world, one of them kinda smacked me around.

5. Grumpy volunteer.
I don’t know how you get tricked into volunteering this year, probably got voluntold if I had to guess, but fight the good fight next year, friend. If you hate kids, crafts and sweet baby Jesus, sprain your ankle next year to get out of volunteering.

I must admit, this is me this year. I got voluntold to VBS this year. But it wasn't by my mother or other ministry leader. I was knowingly voluntold that I would be helping this year by a good friend of mine. What with the not having a job, I've been living a pretty lame life the last few weeks. Like drinking coffee until lunch time, looking for jobs, not getting out of my house kinda of lame. And it's been getting to me. I would make a few off-hand comments to friends about how crazy I was feeling and somehow that made me feel better, like letting some steam off. One day my friend sat me down and said, "Next week you are helping with VBS. You are going to apply for three jobs a day, and you are going to get involved in ministry at church. Any questions?"
A plan? Did you just give me a plan??
Oh yes you did.
Gr.
So I hauled my voluntold butt to VBS last night. It was not the best thing ever. I WAS the grumpy volunteer with a foam Lady Liberty hat ( Big Apple Adventure!), my Lady Liberty rose-tinted glasses (who knew such a thing even existed? And yes, that will probably be a blog post at the end of the week...) AND (horrors of horrors) a name tag. Yuck.
But you know? It wasn't the worst thing I could have done with my evening. I did think about hiding out in the coat closet to read my book. Or taking a few recreation volunteers (like they do anything anyway...!) with me to grab a slushy. I didn't do either of those things. And I had an okay time. But what I realized most from Jon's blog is this: I don't WANT to be the grumpy volunteer. Just like you can tell which kids were forced to be at VBS, the kids can tell who was voluntold.
Might as well make the best of it, right?
(I mean, as long as it doesn't include learning the VBS songs...right? Because if I does, I'm changing "Bi-Bi-Bi Bi-Bi-Bi Big Apple Adventures!" to something like "Ca-Ca-Ca Carryin' the Banner!" from Newsies. )