Of Finance, Econ, and Vacation Bible School

I pastor a small, country church a little ways out of Waco.  As someone who is interested in both business and religious matters, being able to work on an MBA while still getting to pastor is a distinct pleasure.

But this week was Vacation Bible School.

Some of you grew up in big churches, and that’s great.  So did I.  I went to VBS as a kid, then worked as a youth, took more responsibility as a college student, participated a little more as someone out of college, and eventually got to be a co-teacher of a class.  That’s how you know you’ve arrived in the VBS world, the Holy Grail, if that’s your thing.  It was great to just show up, with all the supplies, lessons, and everything ready to go.  The decorating still needed to be done, but decorations were provided, so it was all good.

None of that is done for you in a small church, especially when you’re in charge of the thing.  From getting people to teach, do crafts, serve snacks, play games, etc., it’s hard.  Figuring out what crafts are going to be fun and age-appropriate is way out of my element.  Then, deciding exactly the amount of supplies necessary, and procuring them from all around Hobby Lobby (side note: an Oklahoma company. Boomer Sooner!) is not something that seminary teaches you.  Planning a schedule that does not take too much time for any one activity, while still providing enough to complete each activity successfully, is something I never really thought of before doing it.  Figuring out how to do a dramatic scene that hopefully helps the boys and girls feel more confident and secure in themselves while still telling a story is something that my high school theater background helped with, but not as much as you might think.

It kind of made me think that this is what my classmates are looking forward to in the corporate world, just in different form.  I sit in economics and finance class and wonder how what I’m learning is going to help me be a better pastor.  But I also thought of what the marginal benefit of starting the children off with two cookies instead of three would be.  And the rate of diminishing returns of having 8 people serve food instead of 7 or 6.  And the management ideas of getting the right people in the right places on the bus, then letting them play to their strengths on that bus.

Most importantly, I thought about how delegating the playing games job to my youth minister and forcing him to come up with the games and materials himself was kind of like having interns.  I think that’s the real take-away from Vacation Bible School – I found a new and interesting way to abuse my youth minister.

New goal: always have an intern/youth minister.

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