VBS children collect 150k pennies

ST. AUGUSTINE?Liberty Hill Baptist Church hadn’t had a Vacation Bible School in some time when Frank Holrath came as pastor nine years ago. Since then, the church has taken on VBS with an added twist: Penny wars.

No one gets hurt in this girls vs. boys contest; the respective groups compete to collect the most pennies for a missions cause.

This year the recipient was East Texas Baptist Family Ministry, an affiliated ministry of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention. ETBFM accepted approximately $1,500?that’s 150,000 pennies packaged and loaded in a wheel barrow?from the children who attended VBS at Liberty Hill.

Holrath said for a smaller-attendance church, a $1,500 offering from children should be a challenge to churches of every size to encourage giving, especially in light of Southern Baptists’ charge to increase sacrificial missions giving at every level in the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force report, he added.

Holrath said VBS has yielded spiritual blessings at his church far beyond the week of VBS, despite what sometimes seems “so little reward” for the laborious event.

“But even if one soul gets saved as a result, it’s all worth it,” he said.