VBS

Well, building the scale for VBS went well. I'll try to remember to take a picture and post it here (or on FaceBook). EDIT: Here's a pic taken by my Pastor's wife:

Dug around and found some very heavy gauge aluminum channel, a few boxes of small nuts, bolts, & washers, some pipe, and bought a few pieces of hardware (chain links) at Home Depot. The scale easily holds hundreds of pounds per side in four 5 gallon buckets (2 per side) -- the weakest link being the buckets' handles. I had a few problems at the beginning getting it to swing freely, but after a little tweaking it worked great. Even painted it up nice for them.

Having a "boys versus girls" offering was an effective way of increasing the giving. Also, our new pastor had an interesting twist on the "Penny Offering" concept that I'd never seen: everyone (or every group of people) that put in $5 could buy a "gold brick" (½ a paver-brick painted gold) to put in with the offering. Most people did that with a $5 bill, but the smarter ones used $5 in pennies (which was heavier than the brick, but gave them a chance at double-dipping). The kids really enjoyed watching the scale go up and down as the offering went on. They also liked the refreshment time; we'd rented a 16' high, 22' long inflatable slide (like a bounce house) for them to use when they finished their snack. Let me tell you... it really was fun. I didn't even mind taking off my cowboy boots to go on it. (We had a wild-West theme.) Wednesday evening's prayer service was interesting, it opened with the kids' program and the prayer-time was moved to afterward.

A few people were nervous that I wore a holster... and that the revolver in the holster (CO2 pellet gun) looked real. But "looking like" and "being" are two different things, so I wore it anyway. Not sure what we'll have for a theme for next year's VBS, but I enjoyed this one a lot!