Vineyard Church | Weekly Update August 21st, 2024

Back to the clink. I really shouldn’t call it that, but the parts of me that have not yet found their way to adulthood demand this rebellious nod to the audacity of school ending the glories of summer. Locking away the children of this great nation to replace sandlot baseball, swimming, fishing in ditches of opportunity, and the questionable use of pyrotechnics of dubious legality, with mind-numbing fractions, verb conjugations, and hand raising. I know education is important, but summer is importanter…

This seasonal transition affects more than just the kids. When kids go back to the clink, dads do too. As their kids line up at the doors of the hallowed halls of the educational penitentiary, dads across the country are abandoned on the field of play. Some stand in the backyard with their ball glove on, wondering where their catcher is. Others hold a lit roman candle in their hands and as they turn to say “Watch this” they find only the stare of a disapproving spouse.

The return to school also affects mature people… Some of the most dedicated in our community are those who will impart knowledge on our kids as they answer a calling to serve. As with any community, there are some bad actors that ought not to be in the classroom, but this can sometimes blur the contributions of the first-class educators that abound in Yellowstone County. The service they will provide will launch kids towards the future, and this is an act of service and compassion. When we ask adults about the influencers of our lives, it is rare to hear of at least one teacher who impacted along the journey.

The family is also affected by the return to the school year. Financially, this season is the costliest season a family will experience. As we have noted for several years, the cost of returning to school for families, when supplies, clothes, and equipment are added together, the multiple child families will be spending in the thousands. One point of celebration in our county is how the community has fully jumped into this need and has provided multiple avenues for finding free and low-cost school supplies, seriously putting a dent in the cost for families.

As this need has been met by the community, we at the Vineyard are looking to the next need that would open a path of blessing in the name of Jesus. Towards the end of the last school year, there were several reports of a dad on a mission to pay off the lunch debt that had been accrued in Billings School District 2, which triggered discussion and a bit of research at the church. Finding that fewer families than I assumed qualified for free and reduced lunch (depending on the source, that number is 5%-11% of the district), and that feeding a kid for a month at school costs around $60 per kid.

Why can’t these kids pack a lunch? This question was one of my first, and also one I hear often as we have been exploring this. The reality is that grocery prices aren’t any cheaper, so if a family can’t afford to pay for school lunch, they likely are struggling to stock their pantry shelves. The weight of inflation has landed squarely on the middle and working class, and these classes are caught between the rock of increased prices and the hard place of earning too much for programs like free and reduced lunch. It sounds like a great place for the church to engage.

This coming Sunday we will be collecting a special offering that will go towards feeding the kids in our community as they return to school. Feeding kids has always been a special calling on our church; just this past spring we gave over $12,000 to Convoy of Hope’s One Day to Feed the World campaign that will feed kids across the globe. Now we get to feed kids across the street. Blessing families in the name of Jesus by easing the financial burden is a great way to celebrate the changing seasons. We can praise a generous God that continues to generously give to the generous so they can continue to generously give.

Adam Greenwell
Pastor
Billings Vineyard Church | www.billingsvineyard.org