The development of our Vacation Bible School curriculum each year is an exciting, but incredibly complex and detailed project. Our editors work hard at finding an engaging theme that isn’t just “fun,” like some of our competitors, but will offer youth and adults ways to really help young children grow in their faith with a grace-based perspective. “Fun” alone is easy. Engaging and theologically sound is much harder, but much more lasting.

The selection of the theme and Bible stories centers our VBS curriculum. Out of these two core elements come all of the other components: activities, games, artwork, design, music, storytelling, decorating ideas, a web toolkit for leaders, videos for learners and leaders, and much more!

Discovery Canyon is our VBS curriculum for 2009. The importance of evangelism is woven into every fiber of its content! Your children will love the critters, each of which was carefully selected and designed to help them remember the Bible story of the day. My personal favorite is Felix the Fox! But, I must admit that Max the Praying Mantis is a close second!

One of the most energizing and important decisions that our team makes is that of selecting a trustworthy ministry to receive funds from the offerings of your children who use our VBS curriculum each year. We are especially excited about our Discovery Canyon 2009 VBS curriculum and the ministry your children will support! In keeping with the canyon theme, our mission project this year is the Navajo Lutheran School. This unique school offers children who live in the remote canyon country of Rock Point, Arizona, a Christ-centered education while respecting Navajo culture and tradition. The school works in partnership with the Navajo people to form a community that is rooted in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and seeks to meet the educational, health, social, and spiritual needs of the Navajo people.

In the last couple of years, the school has had to turn children away during registration because they were filled to capacity and simply did not have the resources to take in many more children. The contributions your children in VBS make will help the school expand so even more kids can benefit! A very worthy cause!

You might ask why we are so excited about this? Well, we are blessed with generous children and families who use Augsburg Fortress VBS curricula each year! Over the past 5 years, your children have raised in excess of $500,000 in support of the mission projects that are an integral part of our VBS curricula!

The range is considerable….from $30,000 to in excess of $300,000. But, whether at the low end or the high end or somewhere in between, the money our children generously give through the Discovery Canyon VBS will be put to very good use by the stewards of the Navajo Lutheran School!

What a great way to help others while helping your children grow in faith!

If you want to learn more about Discovery Canyon, please join one of our free webinars! The next ones are scheduled for Thursday, February 5 at 10 a.m. or 2 p.m. or 8 p.m. CST.

As always, if you have questions or suggestions about Discovery Canyon VBS or anything else at AF, I’m happy to hear from you via this blog or email.

Blessings,
Beth

www.twitter.com/bethalewis

Beth A. Lewis, President & CEO
Augsburg Fortress

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 29th, 2009 at 12:29 PM and is filed under Faith Formation Resources. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.