So, you know who Jesus is, right?

I inquired this of Meego this morning.  A little background:

When I was growing up, my family didn't attend church, but my dad arranged for brother Guano and me to crash the local Lutheran church and attend Sunday school and VBS as church orphans.  Looking back, it was a positive experience.

I was not a churchgoer when I met Magnum and neither was he.  But by the time we became parents, I felt maybe we should at least expose the kids to "the basics" of our Judeo-Christian society like I had been.  With that, we dipped them in a few church experiences spanning about three years.

It started with a non-denominational church that was so ridiculously non-denominational that we didn't see the point (rhymes with "spoonitarian").  From there we went to Christian Science - not to be mistaken with Scientology.  While we had a few issues with the church itself, that I won't expound upon here, we were happy enough with the Sunday school.

But when we moved to another town and another CS church, the hypocrisy smothered us out.  We began  attending a non-denominational Christian church in our somewhat rural community, Chaco and Wolfgang did Sunday school.  It was all right, the people were nice, and I don't really remember why we stopped going.  I think the hypocrites at the previous church had just left such a bad taste in our mouths.  We were churchgoers no more.

Meego was just a baby then.  His sole church experiences were of either sitting in my lap drooling on the hymnal, or spending time in the nursery with the Noah's Ark pillow pets.

I did think about it over the years - what to do about Meego.  I vaguely remember getting a book of Bible stories from the library and reading a few selections with him.  And we've talked to him about what Christmas and Easter are to Christians.  Haven't we?

Which brings us to this morning.  This morning is his first day as a VBS volunteer at the church up the street.

So how did this young heathen become a VBS helper?

Meego has a couple of good buddies in the neighborhood, twin brothers K and J.  K and J are nice kids.  Playful, polite, boy bundles of activity.  They're about two years younger than Meego, and the three of them hang out for hours at a time, shooting hoops, riding bikes, playing video games, etc.

summer daze

Last week, K and J were at VBS at the church down the street.  Meego sat around the house ho-humming until they were released in the afternoons.  Even the kids next door, a.k.a. "the girls", were at VBS.  Everyone was out having VBS fun except Meego!

K and J announced that this week, they would be attending the VBS UP the street.  Meego should go!  I said I thought he was too old.  He is, but learned that older kids could volunteer as helpers.  

I got the contact info for volunteers, e-mailed, and left it to Jesus.

Jesus... er... Julie e-mailed me back quite directly.  "Yes!"  

We walked up there, set foot in that church for the first time in our lives, talked with whom we needed to talk with, and it was a done deal.  

So this morning, as he prepared his breakfast before heading out for a rip roaring good time with Jesus, I inquired the title of this post.

He gave me a look that said "duh", and reminded me, "We learned about him in humanities, remember?"   

Oh, right.  They did a unit on world religions in school.  

Hopefully public school Jesus will suffice for a VBS helper.

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