Published: July 03, 2008 10:55 am         

Bible School puts back what is easily lost

Have you ever noticed how many food products are "enriched" with vitamins and minerals? Actually, the term might be "re"-enriched because much of the nutritional value of foods such as bread is depleted when it is processed to give it longer shelf life. Vitamins and nutrients that are lost in this manufacturing processing are restored.

Children are like a loaf of bread (no, really, they are). Just as nutrients are lost in processing bread, children are constantly bombarded with a culture that steals their innocence, manners, respect for life, and other godly attributes.

As parents, we find ourselves looking for ways to restore and reinforce such attributes to their lives every day to counteract all the negative influences on them. A good church can help reinforce those godly attributes through Sunday school, youth groups, and Vacation Bible School.

Right now, all over our region, churches (including my own) are continuing the valued ministry of Vacation Bible School. Men and women are donating their time and energy to bring the same message of hope to this generation of children just as other's gave their time for them.

These volunteers have a love for God and also a love for children. They realize that the greatest good that can be done for a child is to help him or her to develop a relationship with God and to put back in a young life what is sometimes stolen by the world.

This summer, give your children the opportunity to attend Vacation Bible School at a church near you and start putting back into the child what is so easily lost.

David Sandvick is the pastor of First English Baptist Church in Frostburg.