Monroe County church hosts virtual VBS

AMORY, MISS. (WCBI) – Churches throughout the region were usually gearing up for vacation Bible school this time of year, but measures to stop the spread of the coronavirus meant many churches have looked at a new way to carry on the outreach.

Meadowood Baptist Church in Amory is hosting VBS and on a typical year, they would have hundreds of kids at church.  But this year has been anything but typical, because of COVID 19, so the church was doing Virtual VBS.

There are worship songs, and Bible stories, but the audience was watching from home this year.

“A friend of mine from First Baptist in Yazoo City told me about his church doing virtual VBS, he talked with me and I thought, we could do that too,” said Steve Reynolds, who is the family and children’s pastor at Meadowood.

The church planned to start holding in-person services for the first time since the COVID-19 shutdown this Sunday, but they felt it was too soon to bring a large crowd of children in for VBS, so it went virtual this year.

“We have video every morning with worship rally, Bible study, missions, arts and crafts and we gave out backpacks that have their student book and all the crafts for the week they would need,” Pastor Reynolds said.

About three weeks ago, Reynolds and a team of volunteers began videotaping segments for the VBS, titled “Concrete and Cranes” The video segments premiere daily at 9 a.m., following the VBS schedule.

It has been a lot of work and allowed Reynolds and the team to expand their video production skills.

“The coronavirus has forced us to learn new things, I’ve never been one to edit, but this year I’ve learned to edit and video and do things I never thought I would do or could do,” Reynolds said.

Virtual VBS allowed youngsters to ask questions, and the church would follow up.

“We have a spot coming up on the screen, leads them to our website if they made a decision or would like more information, they can click on that, hopefully, we will see results from that,” he said.

Activity backpacks for Concrete and Cranes VBS were available at Meadowood Baptist Church. VBS runs virtually through Friday.

Reynolds said those who missed the VBS as it aired could watch each episode on the church’s Facebook or YouTube sites.