Unity Community
A place where the congregation at Unity Church in Greenville, NC hear stories of life change, discover how God is working through our ministries, and hear from missionaries we support.
Unity Community
VBS is Coming!
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Host Tim DeCresie and KidMin Super-Volunteer Chris Lee discuss what's in store for Unity's VBS, July 13-15
Hello and welcome to the Unity Community Podcast. This is a place where our church family can hear real stories of life change and discover how God is working through our ministries and missionaries, both here and around the world. From conversations with our staff and leaders to testimonies from our people, we're pulling back the curtain on what God is doing in and through Unity Church. Thanks for listening. Let's grow closer to the Lord as we grow closer one to another.
SPEAKER_01Hi, welcome. I'm your host, Tim McCreasy. Thanks for taking a moment to listen. One of the things I enjoy most about these conversations is getting to hear stories of the people who make up our church family. Every person has a unique journey of faith, and every ministry has people behind it who faithfully serve because God has placed a passion in their heart. Today we're going to sit down with Chris Lee and we'll hear a little bit about his story, how God has worked in his life, and then we'll talk about one of the ministries many families look forward to each summer, Vacation Bible School. Whether you've volunteered for VBS for years or you're hearing about it for the first time, I think you'll enjoy hearing both the heart behind the ministry and the impact it can have on the children and families. So, Chris, welcome to the podcast.
SPEAKER_02Thanks, Tim. Super excited to be here.
SPEAKER_01Well, good. I'm glad, and I know your uh your own family's gonna be excited since you were telling me they enjoy listening to this.
SPEAKER_02Yes, we've started listening to these every week as a family and sharing each other and trying to beat each other to who'd listen to it first and encourage them to listen to it so we can talk about it afterwards.
SPEAKER_01Oh, I thought you were using it as a torture device.
SPEAKER_02Well, we try to do that with the kids.
SPEAKER_01Uh well, let's just uh dive right in and we'll just start with just telling us a little bit about yourself.
SPEAKER_02Okay, so I originally grew up in Clayton, North Carolina. Uh came to ECU after high school, I got my undergrad degree, uh, didn't know what I was gonna do after that, so I decided, you know what? I guess I'll go to grad school. A little more school can't hurt anything. Um so my first year of grad school, I met my wife, Tiffany. Uh she was doing her undergrad, and we met, and the rest is kind of history. We uh have been married for 16 years now, been together for 20 years. We have two kids, Madeline and Trent. Madeline uh will turn 15 next Thursday, and Trent just turned 9 in May. Um and we stay pretty busy, kind of outside of church. We Tiffany has a Pamper Chef business. Um she also works full-time as a nurse practitioner, so she stays busy on the work side, and then I stay home helping her do the Pamper Chef business, run that, um, take care of the kids, get them back and forth to all their sports and dance and band things and trial life and basketball, you name it. We stay pretty busy.
SPEAKER_01So, how would you kind of sum up your season of life right now?
SPEAKER_02I'm in that, I think the dad-parent season, that season where there's always something going on, there's never really a break for just running around like chickens with their head cut off, just running from event to event to church to sports to dance to working to vacations to you name it. It's just that busy point of life.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I um I enjoyed it, but man, it is it is tiring.
SPEAKER_02Yes, so when you get a day off, relaxing is the first thing we want to do.
SPEAKER_01And I think that's why God builds us on Sunday afternoons to um, you know, basically collapse after lunch and take a deep nap.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. That's our typical Sunday afternoons, church and then just relax the rest of the day.
SPEAKER_01Well, tell us a little bit about your salvation journey.
SPEAKER_02Okay, so my faith journey kind of started when I was around eight. Um, I didn't officially grow up in a Christian household. Um, we didn't attend church, but my mom did bring us with Christian morals, Christian values, tried to teach us to believe in God. Um, but we didn't really do all the things like read scripture and go to church and pray and other than the you know, God is great before meals. That was about the extent of our Christian bringing. Um But then when I was about eight years old, I loved to play baseball, played a lot of baseball when I was young, and I ended up getting on a baseball team with a preacher's kid. And so he was the head preacher at Tippett's Chapel, Free Will Baptist in Clayton. It was a small church, averaged about 100 to 125 people, um, and they invited us to their church. And so we went, we loved it. We dove in head first, we were there every time the doors was open, every Wednesday, every Sunday, Sunday night services. We were there. I was so involved that I would do in all the kids' ministry things, we would do kids' church. I wanted to be a pastor. I had decided I wanted to be a pastor, and we did that for about three years and don't really know what happened, but we kind of we just fell away from church. Um, but I never stopped believing. I I pray occasionally, I just wasn't following Christ the way that I should follow. Um I felt like I was, you know, kind of living a moral life, but wasn't doing the things that he asked us to do. So then um when I met my wife, we kind of were both in that same boat. We were both believers, we just weren't walking, walking with the Lord. Um and then we had kids. We had Madeline, and we both decided, you know what? We want our kids to grow up in church. Neither of us really grew up in church, we had a foundation, but we never really had that true being in church, being involved, and we wanted our kids to have that. But we knew that in order to do that, we had to find a church here in Greenville.
SPEAKER_01So looking back, where do you think you saw God most clearly before you maybe were totally committed after you got married and like like let's get in church? Like what kept you going?
SPEAKER_02I think it was when I look back that that foundation, those few years, it was just a few years we were in church, but I think it was that's where I came to know the Lord. I was baptized, and I think that foundation in Christ, even if I wasn't doing all the things, uh it just it gave me those roots to eventually uh work on my sanctification to grow and to just that that pull to get back in church and to get back in that walk with the Lord.
SPEAKER_01So you kind of feel like God maybe planted the seed in those three years that it just oh absolutely in me and Tiffany. So at what point did you meet Tiffany?
SPEAKER_02We met uh my first year in grad school. Uh she was at ECU as well. Uh we met through a mutual friend and we just kind of hit it off from there. We dated for a few years and then we were married and uh had kids and started coming to church because of it.
SPEAKER_01And what did you get your degrees in?
SPEAKER_02Uh my degree was in health education and promotion. I got that as my undergrad and then also went to grad school and got my degree in health education. Um and Tiffany got her three degrees. She has one in health education, she has her nursing degree, and uh nurse practitioner degree as well.
SPEAKER_01Okay. So um how did you find out about Unity?
SPEAKER_02Okay, so when Madeline was almost a year old, we kind of hit that final realization. It's like, okay, she's almost a year. We really want to get her in church, we need to get in church. And so we decided, okay, we're gonna look at all the churches in Greenville, kind of went on Google and just bite in churches in Greenville. Uh, we both grew up kind of in a Baptist upbringing, so we really wanted to go to a Baptist church, and we had fully intended on looking at another church in Greenville. We were gonna go to that church, check them out, and just kind of make our way down the list. And then uh one of Tiffany's co-workers actually invited us to Unity. Uh, she came to Unity and she said, Hey, you said you're looking for a church, why don't you guys come and check out Unity Church? We're having homecoming next week. We would love to have you guys come to Unity and check it out. So we decided, all right, why not? You know, maybe that's a sign. So we came to Unity uh for homecoming, super nervous. Neither one of us had stepped foot in church other than maybe a wedding or something in 20 plus years. Um but we walked in, we dropped Madon off the nursery, and we went and sat down, super nervous, super kind of scared of like, okay, is this gonna be the right church? Is it gonna be the right fit? Well, then we had two different ladies come over and introduce themselves, welcomed us to church, kind of made us feel at ease. And so I have to give them a shout out, Joy Hardy and Leslie Lloyd, when they came here. They just that really kind of gave us that, okay. These are, you know, they love on us. They came and introduced themselves and made us feel more comfortable. Well, then Jeff gets up and preaches. And if you ever heard Jeff preach, sometimes you feel like he's talking directly to you.
SPEAKER_01Oh, I had that experience my first time.
SPEAKER_02Yes, I think a lot of people say that about unity. But um Tiffany and I both sat there, both felt the spirit pulling us, and we were both in tears. You know, Ben say they don't cry, but in church, I was bawling, Tiffany was crying. By the time the sermon was over, we both knew, okay, this is where God wants us. God wants us in Unity Church. Um and to be honest, when we first started, we weren't faithful. We weren't faithful to tenders. We would come, you know, we were those people that would decide Saturday night or Sunday morning, hey, are we going to church today? Nah. I I think I'm good. Let's just watch it online and we'll be fine. Um and we were averaging maybe once or twice a month. We were serving in nursery at the time, and we were definitely here on those Sundays, but sometimes it might have been the only Sunday we were here. Until um kind of a funny story. I was wanting to play basketball on the Unity Church basketball team. And I was waiting, waiting, waiting for them to announce, hey, we're having a basketball team. Sign up. I wanted to do it. Well then I never heard anything. Waited, waited, never heard anything. Next thing I know, I see something in the bulletin. Hey, basketball team's having practice next week and our games start the week after. I didn't realize that they'd already had a team because we weren't at church enough to even realize that hey, they've already started the team. They've been advertising it, they've got the team, it was too late. So I missed that opportunity. Um and so right about that same time we knew, okay, something needs to change. We've got to get in church more. And Pastor Ty invited me to join his D group. He was starting a D group. Ben Crabtree was really pushing the small groups, the the fellowship. And so Ty started the D group, asked me to join, and we just met weekly, looked at Scripture, read different Christian books, and really kind of dove in. And I've told him this before, but it changed my life. It changed my family's life. You don't realize until you start reading scripture and you dive into scripture how much you're yearning for the word of God. And I was, and so I wanted more and more and more, and so that really got us more committed to church, more committed to groups, to people. And here we are now, 14 years later. We're here pretty much every time the doors are open, and even days when the doors are not open.
SPEAKER_01So, what what year did you first start it? 14 years ago?
SPEAKER_02It was 14 years ago, whatever the math is for that year. Um, but Madeline was almost one. We started, I think, homecomings in June. We started right before she turned one.
SPEAKER_01Okay. So well, we're glad you stuck around. It is tough when you come in here and you hear uh Jeff preach and he's stepping on your toes to you know then come back the next week.
SPEAKER_02Yes. We just knew when we both left in tears and we heard two different sermons, but he but he was talking directly to both of us that it was the right place. Uh-huh. And we never visited another church. We've been here ever since.
SPEAKER_01That's awesome. That's awesome. Well, um, how did you get involved in children's ministry, VBS? How did all that come about?
SPEAKER_02Okay, so it's it's kind of a funny story. I never in my wildest dreams thought that children's ministry was my calling. Um, as I mentioned, when we were going to church when I was younger, I wanted to be a pastor, I wanted to work with adults. My degree was in working with adults in health and wellness. Never thought I would be working with kids. Um so when we first came we did nursery. Nursery was not my thing. I loved kids, I love babies, but that was more of Tiffany's thing. She liked the kids, liked the babies. And then Unity decided that we were gonna start the Awana program at the old church. And Tiffany thought her calling was children. I didn't want to do it. But you know, as a good husband does, I was told, Hey Chris, I signed us up to serve at Awana. And so I kind of went into it with okay, whatever. Happy wife, happy life. If she has what she wants to do, let's do it. So the first couple years of that we were just assistant teachers. Uh we got in there, we just kind of helped with the lesson, helped keep the kids straight. And then the third year I became the lead teacher and kind of realized, okay, maybe this is my calling. I loved it. I loved going. And I realized, okay, I think this is where I'm supposed to be. On the other hand, Tiffany realized children's ministry was not her calling. It was a complete, complete opposite. I didn't want to be there, loved it. She wanted to be there, realized, okay, maybe I should stick with the babies. That's my calling. Um, and so after that, we kind of slowly started getting more and more into children's ministry. I started volunteering for more and more things, um, helping on Wednesday nights, teaching on Sunday mornings. And then about three years ago, Pastor Ty kind of got wind that one of my spiritual gifts is administration. So he reached out and said, Hey, you want to come and be co-directors of VBS with me and Pastor Jordan? I was like, Yeah, what's the worst that could happen? Let's do it. Um, so we did VBS that year. I fell in love. I didn't realize how much I enjoyed the administrative side of Bible school and of children's ministry. My degree that I got, my undergrad and master's degree was in mainly program planning, implementation, just more of in the health field. Well now I realized, okay, God maybe gave me that experience, those skills, that knowledge to use those in ministry. And boy, did it work out for me. I absolutely loved it. So last year, um I was when it was VBS time, Ty asked me again, did I want to help? I said, Of course, but can I kind of take the lead and run with it? Didn't know what I was asking at the time. Ty was more than happy to oblige. He said, Absolutely, take it, go with it, take whatever. And there's a saying kind of in the VBS world, there is no tired like VBS tired. I learned that last year. By the time I was done, I was absolutely exhausted, but it was absolutely amazing. I enjoyed every second of it, loved VBS. Um, but it takes a lot of work. It's a monster to plan VBS. We start typically in January planning VBS for summer. And so it takes a lot of work, but I figured today I was going to name drop a few names because VBS doesn't happen without a team. Um, and that is Ty, obviously. Ty is involved a lot. But then we have Ashley Letchworth and Cassie Henson who do all the decorations. They're amazing at doing the decorations. I think we have some of the best of any church I've seen, online, in person. Um, and then we have Julie Brickhouse and Lisa Jordan who lead our special needs, Accessible Disciples VBS. And then our kids. We're getting our kids involved. So Kaylee Letchworth, LG Henson, they help out with the decorations a lot. And then special shout out to my daughter, Madeline. She has become my right hand. She has a calling for children's ministry as well. She's already realized that. And during BBS, she becomes my literal right hand. She is with me every step of the way. And if it wasn't for her and Ashley and Cassie and that team, VBS just wouldn't happen.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. You need you need that right hand uh when you're planning a big event like that. So when something whatever goes awry or comes up, you can turn to that right hand and say, Hey, I need you to do XYZ.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. I even tell the volunteers in training, I said, if you can't find me, find Pastor Ty or find Madeline. They will know what to do. And if not, they'll know how to find me, just in case.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and as you're leading those events, that is such a huge advantage to have in your back pocket as man, I know I can turn to, you know, two people, one per whatever, you know, and to help get it done.
SPEAKER_02Right. It shares that burden and lightens that load tremendously.
SPEAKER_01Well, you talked about um, you know, like the decorations. Phenomenal when you walk in here and see, you know, how they've transitioned the church. I I'm excited to see this year how it's gonna look like a rainforest.
SPEAKER_02Yes, they um I'm not gonna spill the beans on the plan, but they have an amazing plan again this year to turn the church into a rainforest. I mean it's gonna be amazing. I'm excited to see it, and I even know what's coming, and I can't wait to see just how awesome it's gonna be. And when kids walk in the front door, just their expressions light up when they see the lobby, and it just takes them into that experience, and that's that first impression of unity and VBS and just getting them excited and ready for the night.
SPEAKER_01Well, you talked about how exhausting, you know, time consuming, all the planning and administration is. So why does this ministry matter so much to you personally?
SPEAKER_02Well, uh I just think it's one of those things that uh seeing the look on the kids' faces, uh the joy and you kind of said it earlier, VBS is a ministry. It's something that uh we get to reach out to kids and to families and to all the people that are here. It's one of those things that a lot of people I think believe that VBS is a daycare or it's child care or it's uh hey, I can drop my kids off, they can hear about God a little bit, and I can go off and do my thing.
SPEAKER_01But in some cases that is, you know, their motivation. Right. Uh as Pastor Jeff has said about his own kids, I didn't care what motivated them to come to church, as long as they wanted to come.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. And that's what Ty and I have discussed is kind of we've changed our perspective over the last few years of children's ministry. It's if they're here, they're hearing the gospel, they're hearing the word of God. And VBS is part of that. Um, for those that know me, I'm a numbers person. I love data. I'm like a numbers nerd with data and statistics. But more and more and more research has shown that kids that believe in Jesus, put their faith in Jesus, it's like 85% do it by the time they're 14 years old. And a large majority of those kids who stay faithful to Christ put their faith in Jesus before they were 13. And VBS is just another part of that children's ministry where they can they can come and hear the word of God, they can make an impact on the lives. And when they come to VBS, kids get to hear all that, they get to fellowship with other kids, they get to get loved on by the volunteers, they get to hear the gospel, they also get snacks and get to play games, which are the kids' favorite two sessions. Um and to me, we don't always know the kids attending BBS. We have friends that come, we have family members, we have kids from other churches, and so we think about when we do BBS, what if one of these kids has never heard the gospel? What if one of these kids has never opened the Bible, never touched the Bible? We think a lot of times in these foreign countries, oh yeah, kids have never seen the Bible, they've never heard the word. Well, there are kids right here in Greenville that have never heard the gospel, that have never heard it. And even the volunteers. We have volunteers that come that high school kids that need hours or friends of friends that, hey, come and volunteer with me, that may have never heard the word of God. They get to hear that at VBS. Every single person that attends VBS gets to hear the word of God. And my wife is probably tired of hearing this every time I sign up for another ministry and she rolls her eyes, it's like, okay, what are you doing now? But it's I have this philosophy of just one. That's kind of my philosophy, just one. If we can reach just one kid, whether it's through VBS or in children's ministry or church or fun or games, just one kid, imagine what could happen in that kid's life. We could plant the seed of salvation, that one kid could take that home to their family, they could take it to their friends, they can take it to the world, and they can share it with one person. If that one person shares it with one person, and that one person shares it with one person, we are literally building God's kingdom by sharing the gospel with one kid and helping plant that seed of salvation to that one kid.
SPEAKER_01I mean, that goes along the same lines of you know, as a school teacher, we would. Would always hear, you know, oh you never know that kid in your class might be the one that cures cancer. Um, which hey, that's great. We hope there is a student out there that does that. But that's the same thing with vacation Bible school. That one kid you reach might be the next, you know, Billy Graham or you know, great evangelist in the world that God uses to um totally turn upside, you know, uh the world for his glory.
SPEAKER_02Right. And we may never see it at children's ministry, we may never see it happen at church, we may never see a kid come to salvation at VBS. But just planting that seed, letting them hear the gospel, who knows what's gonna happen. Even if it's just that one kid, if they never tell another soul about Jesus, if they get to heaven because they heard the word of God at VBS, then it's all worth it. That's everything.
SPEAKER_01So is that what gives you hope as you're doing all this work for VB H V V S?
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. It's it's what drives me and everything that I do with children's ministry, is just if we can change one life, one person, that's it. It's worth it.
SPEAKER_01So what are you praying for? Or what are you praying God would do this year?
SPEAKER_02Uh first off, no rain. Rain always sets BBS way back with when you plant half of VBS outside. Um, so definitely no rain. But also that when I first started VBS, it was all about the numbers. I was like, oh, we have to hit this number, we need to hit this number. But now I just pray that one kid or one family or someone comes to know Jesus or they get to check out Unity Church, or a volunteer comes and gets to walk around and goes, I like this church. I like maybe I'll start coming to this church and eventually, you know, it may be 10 or 15 years, but because they saw the church at BBS, they end up getting saved. It's all about building that kingdom, leaving the 99 to get that one, that one person. I don't care if we have 500 kids here and 499 of them are saved and they know Jesus, there's that one kid that don't. And if we can reach that one kid, it's all worth it.
SPEAKER_01So I mean, obviously that's what makes VPS important to our children. Um what are I mean, what would you want families to know about VPS as we prepare?
SPEAKER_02That it's more than just childcare. Your kids, when they come here, they get to be shown the love of God. They get to learn about God. This year we're talking about God is creator, God knows everything about us, and then God is love from him dying and being resurrected for us. But they get to see the love of God when they're here. These volunteers, the people here, get to pour into the kids. They get to pour and show them the love to be the hands and feet of God. They get to be the light of Jesus and to pour into these kids. Whether it's through my favorite thing to do at VBS is just walk around and get the kids amped up, get them pumped up. And I think some of the teachers roll their eyes at me sometimes because they're going from class to class, they need to be quiet, they need to be calm, and I'm in the halls giving them high fives and getting them loud and yelling. And what's your favorite part of VBS? Are you having fun and just screaming and yelling, and then they get in the class and they're all riled up. That's okay, because I'm not in there.
SPEAKER_01That's right.
SPEAKER_02That's my job, that's my role at VBS, and I love that. But it gives the kids that that joy, that passion. Maybe they want to come back. And maybe if they have fun, maybe their family's not plugged into a church. And they go, Mom, dad, I had fun. Can we go to church Sunday? And who knows what kind of eternal impact that's going to have in the end.
SPEAKER_01Do you have a um a memory that sticks out in your mind of how a child was impacted?
SPEAKER_02So my biggest one personally, it's weird, it wasn't at Unity's BBS, because I love that, I enjoy it. But two years ago, we went to Japan and did a VBS style program for missionary kids. And I'm blessed and privileged to go back this year. We're doing it again in November, and I get to take Madeline this year. Um, but there was one kid, his name was Takashi, and he was three years old. He had never really been to a VBS. This was his first time. He was a missionary kid, he was a Japanese kid. He had never been to VBS, he had never done something like this. He was in a small church in Japan, but he came to VBS, he was super shy, he was super quiet, he didn't want to leave his mom and dad, he was grabbing his mom and dad, and I just made a connection with him. It was one of those that you just know you feel the spirit calling you to that child, and I can't really describe it, but it was, and we became best buddies. Whereas the last day he came running in and like jumped on me and just hung out with me the entire time, and his mom just looked at me, she goes, Thank you. He he's quiet, he's shy, he doesn't like doing these things, but that last night when he just ran in there and smiled, and she just said thank you. That to me was everything.
SPEAKER_01Nice, nice. Well, what's something people may not realize about VPS that you want them to understand?
SPEAKER_02I think it's uh kind of a little bit what I was saying before is VPS isn't just a place to drop your kids off. They're getting to hear the truth, they're getting to hear the word, they're getting the seed planted, they're getting volunteers to pour into them and show them love. Because I always think about some of these kids don't get shown love at home. There might not be in a Christian household where they're shown the love of Jesus every day, where they're taught to read the word, to pray, to be a friend to God. Um I try to reinforce that in my kids all the time. Is there a lot of kids that don't have it so good. They don't have Christ in their life. Um and it's just these kids are getting poured into, they're getting loved, they're getting shown love. I know all these volunteers, they do it for a reason. They do it to show the kids love because we are supposed to be Jesus' light. We're supposed to be his hands and feet. And he says, do it to the children, have faith like a child, love me like a child, be like a child, have that faith. But we have to start with the children. We have to get there, whether it's giving them high fives or just smiling at them, holding their hand when they get hurt or their their quiet, when they fall during games, because it happens every year, and a kid comes crying, wrapping your arms around them, telling it's gonna be okay. Let's go back and have fun. Using kind words, being silly, making them laugh. Whatever it is, to me, that's my that's my passion, that's my urge. Just to show these kids somebody loves them. Show them that God loves them, and show them through us, through the volunteers, through the kids and um that come and even our teenagers and children's ministry. Just show them the love of God, show them the love of Christ.
SPEAKER_01So speaking of volunteers, you know, someone may be listening to this and thinking, wow, I want to get involved. How can that happen?
SPEAKER_02So you can uh reach out to me or Pastor Ty, or we just have a direct sign up online if you want to sign up to volunteer. We have a lot of openings for our crew leaders, which there's no planning involved. A lot of people don't want to do BBS because they think, oh, I have to plan a lesson, I have to teach this, I have to do that. No. The biggest need we have are crew leaders that just come and hang out with the kids. You take the kids from class to class, from rotation, you just have fun with them. You hype them up, you give them high fives, you watch over them, you make them feel loved and comfortable and just watch out for them and be there for 'em. You can sign up to do that and just come here and be here for the kids. And like I said, I never thought children's ministry was my calling until I did VBS or different programs. Maybe you think children's ministry is not your calling. Sign up for VBS to try. You never know until you try. It's only three days, a few hours. If you can give nine hours over a week to determine if you have a calling that you don't quite yet know yet, why not? Worst case, you get food.
SPEAKER_01There you go. Um, when is VBS?
SPEAKER_02So VBS is July 13th through the 15th. Um, it's 6 to 8.30 each night. It's open from for ages three to rising sixth graders. And then we also have our special needs accessible disciples VBS that's running the same times. And so it's completely free to anybody that wants to come. And volunteers. I would love to have as many volunteers as I do kids. We could have 200 kids, we can have 500. But how amazing would it be to have enough volunteers to have one volunteer per kid? Um, the other good thing is volunteers, we feed you every night. So you don't have to worry about dinner. We feed our volunteers every night, we feed our volunteers' families, and we even have child care for volunteers that have kids that may not be old enough to do VBS. We have nursery as well, where those kids get to be loved on and poured into while you're loving on and pouring into other kids.
SPEAKER_01So the students are the kids do they have to sign up, or can they just show up on the 13th?
SPEAKER_02We prefer you to sign up. That way it's faster for the first night. You don't have to check in, fill out all the emergency information, contact information. If you sign up online, that's so much easier. You can go on there, you just put in your contact information, emergency information, come the first night, your kid gets a name tag, and they go on in. And that's all you have to do. Super easy.
SPEAKER_01So where do they sign up?
SPEAKER_02You can sign up um on the Unity website. There's a link up there to take you to sign up to be a volunteer, to sign up your kids for VBS, or to sign up for the Accessible Disciples, the Special Needs VBS.
SPEAKER_01And so that sign up is when we say the website, UnityfWB.org.
SPEAKER_02Yes. Yep, and go up there and then I believe you go to sign-ups and it's under there VBS signups.
SPEAKER_01Or they can download the Unity app.
SPEAKER_02They can download the Unity app. If you come to Unity Church, we have some QR codes at the tables here that you can sign up, scan as well. It's on the um on our website. If you scroll down a little, you'll find it. You'll find it on our flashing screens in the mornings before church. You should not be able to sign up for VBS. There's no reason you can't sign up. And if you can't find it, reach out to me or Pastor Ty or call the church office. We can all get you to sign up.
SPEAKER_01Well, that's exciting stuff. Um, is there anything else we needed to know?
SPEAKER_02I don't think so. Just come out, have fun. Um, we've got some really fun stuff planned for this year. We're trying out some a new rotation with sticky scripture where kids get to dive in in an interactive way and learn God's word. Our opening and closing is always amazing. Pastor Todd does a great job of the acting and the fun and the recap videos. And this year we're even we've got something new planned for the last night, and I don't want to spill it yet, but all the kids are gonna get to participate in it is the final kind of reward to NVBS. I don't think we've ever done this at Unity, um, but we've got it planned. Kids may get wet. Um so just a little hint, and but come on out, have fun, drop your kids off, come and volunteer, just come and see what BBS at Unity is all about.
SPEAKER_01Awesome. Well, thank you so much for sharing. And before I let you go, I want to pray uh for you, for VBS, and um, and God will do a great work. Perfect. Thanks, Tim. All right. Uh dear Lord, thank you for the opportunity to invest in this next generation. Thank you for the volunteers, the leaders, the parents, the children who make ministries like Vacation Bible School possible. We pray this year for VPS that the hearts would be open to your truth, the children would come to know and love you, and the families would be encouraged through the ministry of your church. Um bless every volunteer, every teacher, every helper, every child who walks through the doors. Uh may everything we do point to Jesus and just thank you for Chris and his um desire to serve in this ministry, to serve at our church, and um to be a huge part of the unity community and ask that you just bless him and his family and continue to help them all grow in your kingdom. In that name I pray. Amen. Thank you for being with us today, Chris, and for sharing both your story in the heart of Vacation Bible School. And to those of you listening, thank you for taking a moment to be a part of this conversation. We hope that you'll be praying for VBS and for the lives that will be impacted through it. And as God is writing the story in your life, please go and tell.
SPEAKER_00Thanks so much for listening to the Unity Community Podcast. If today's conversation encouraged you, we'd love for you to take one or more next steps. Join us this Sunday morning for worship at 9 or 10 30. Get connected to a life group andor find a place to serve. You can learn more about Unity and how to get plugged in by visiting the links in the show notes. So until next time, let's grow closer to the Lord as we grow closer one to another.