Westborough Ecumenical Vacation Bible School draws community together

By Tanya Connor | The Catholic Free Press

WESTBOROUGH – “We’re all focused on Jesus – together.”
That’s how the Methodist minister described a five-day event at the Catholic church.
 Pastor John Taylor, of First United Methodist Church, was talking about the Westborough Ecumenical Vacation Bible School, held July 22-26 at St. Luke the Evangelist parish center. His church, St. Luke’s and Good Shepherd Lutheran take turns hosting the annual week of lessons and activities for children. Adults and youth from other churches participate too.
“It’s great to have the joint effort,” said Dianne Patrick, St. Luke’s religious education director. “We’re fortunate to have Pastor John open with prayer and to bring the spirituality to life.”
Others also described benefits of the ecumenical endeavor.
“In a time when fewer and fewer people go to church, having this large gathering of kids” makes church attendance seem like more of a typical activity in this community, said Julie Hamilton Grant.
“It’s been a beautiful journey,” said Jennifer Lentz.
Both women, leaders of youth choirs at Good Shepherd, were part of the Bible school music crew.
Mrs. Lentz, who heads the music crew, said this was her sixth year with the Bible school; the first year she just observed as her children attended. “I want to facilitate this joy,” she thought to herself, as she watched the music and dancing.
“So I joined music crew my second year. I found it like a Christian party,” a highlight of one’s faith journey.
Asked how the Bible school helps her faith and enables her to pass on the faith to children, she said the messages are applicable year-round. For example, this year’s messages included the fact that God is good – when life changes, or is unfair, sad, scary or good.
“We all experience such (things),” Mrs. Lentz said. “It’s great to keep in mind God’s always there, God’s always good. It helped give me a vocabulary to quickly word things” in user-friendly language for children “at church, with a play date, everywhere. … We bring a VBS song to our church. …
“It is an exciting feeling to gather at the table to plan VBS,” she said. “We all have strong faith,” though hailing from different denominations.
Mrs. Hamilton Grant said she thinks they have more in common than they have differences.
Mrs. Lentz said, “I don’t know if I would have known people at the other churches” without helping with Bible school. But, with this collaboration, they’ve made – and kept – friends.
“VBS enriched our lives, and our ministry at different churches, because we encounter often the same highs and lows,” said Mrs. Patrick. “We’re a support team (for each other) in helping kids love God.” It helps “knowing who the other people are in this town whose mission is the same.”
In the 1980s each church that offered vacation Bible school ran its own, said Suzanne Gillam, registrar for the ecumenical one that started in the 1990s.
“In those days it was the mothers that put it together,” she said.
From 2002 to 2017 she was Good Shepherd’s Christian education director, and has been helping with the Bible school since 2002, she said. When she started, six Westborough churches were taking turns hosting it: Catholic, Congregational, Lutheran, Methodist, Baptist and Episcopal, she said. Each year preschoolers were at one church, grades 1-6 at another.
“The last year we did that was 2011,” she said, explaining that it was hard to get enough volunteers. She said the Baptist church has closed and the Episcopal and Congregational churches did not have space to take all the children together, so the other three churches now take turns hosting the Bible school.
Since 2011 the Bible school has been using programs put out by Group Publishing Inc., she said. This year’s was called “ROAR! Life is Wild. God is good.” It was billed as an African adventure and included a collection for World Vision to care for mothers and babies in Zambia, Mrs. Patrick said.
“We raised over $700,” she said, adding that she heard that was their Bible school’s largest donation ever.
Several parishes in the diocese use Group vacation Bible school programs.
“The reason why Group is so popular is it’s all-inclusive,” Mrs. Patrick explained. It provides lessons, activities, DVDs, apps to download music, clip art, T-shirts, etc.
This year the Westborough Bible school drew 107 children in preschool through grade 6 from 10 towns, including 11 counselors in training, Ms. Gillam said. She said she suggested having students in grades 5 and 6 be counselors in training when she saw that fewer of them were attending Bible school, considering themselves “too cool, too old, whatever.” Now each day of Bible school they learn about being leaders and how to handle difficult situations, she said.
Youth in grades 7 and 8 are assistant crew leaders, who each help with a group of about 10 children, or site leaders who help with a particular activity. Adults and high school and college students are the leaders.
“We have a very diverse group of people and children and it really works,” Ms. Gillam said. “I think they develop an appreciation” for those different from them in nationality or religious background. “They’re very understanding and accepting.”

To see photo album