VBS Day 2

Another successful night of VBS is behind us. We had an increase in kids, but still have plenty of room for more. Keep praying. Keep bringing kids. Keep trusting God for amazing things.

Here's one of the VBS team members. Joe shares a story about a Christian athelete each night. He does a great job!

Thursday night, I'll be presenting a gospel invitation using an updated version of the Prodigal Son parable. Here's the story I plan to share...

Once there was a boy named Johnny. Johnny was a great baseball player, and everybody wanted him to be on their team. But Johnny wanted to play on only one team, the one who always won the league championship.

On the day of the Little League draft, Johnny's dreams came true. He was selected first by the Head Coach of the best team in the whole town. And Johnny was really happy.

When practices began, Johnny worked hard to be the best player he could be. Soon he began to notice that the other kids weren't as good as he was. In fact, nobody was even close. But the coach kept pushing Johnny to work harder than anybody else.

Johnny started talking to players on other teams. He found out that the other teams didn't run laps. The other teams didn't do drills. The other teams just had fun. So Johnny went to his coach and told him that he was quitting to join another team.

His coach was really sad. His best player didn't want to be on his team. But he let Johnny go.

When the season started, Johnny's new team started having problems. Not only were they losing, but they were being shut out in every game. Johnny was miserable. He realized the mistake he made and wished he could have a second chance.

Johnny figured that it would be better to sit on the bench of the best team than to be the best player on the worst team. He knew he had no right to ask, but he decided to go to his coach, apologize for leaving, and ask to come back to his team.

As Johnny started walking across the field the coach saw him coming, and jogged over to see him. The coach welcomed Johnny back to his team, and even gave made him the starting pitcher.

That's how it is with God's team. Before we were even born, God picked us to be on his team and created us to perfectly to be a starter. But for some reason, all of us decided to do what we want instead of what God wants. The Bible calls that sin. Sin might be fun, but it always puts us on the losing team.

Here's what God says in the Bible: “God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.”

Jesus is God's Son. The reason he came was to make it possible for us to go back to God's team. He died on the cross so that our sin could be forgiven. God raised him back to life and took him back to heaven to make a place for us on God's team.

So now, the only thing keeping us off of God's team is us. If we will go to God and ask him to forgive us, he will welcome us back to the team, and make us his star player.

Here's where you come in. I'd love to hear feedback on how to make this story stonger. Your comments will be appreciated.