Eco-Journey is the blog of the Environmental Ministries Office of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). It includes a wide array of environmental topics: upcoming environmental events, links to interesting articles and studies, information on environmental advocacy, eco-theology topics, and success stories from churches that are going “green.”
Author Rebecca Barnes is the Associate for Environmental Ministries at the PC(USA). She is a graduate of Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary with an MDiv and Master of Arts in Religion (MAR) dual degree.
It was initially a desperate idea. How could we engage our middle school youth in good “ole” VBS? We realized that all of these youth were participants in the school band program. So our wild idea was to have them form a band led by our choir director.
The first Sunday they accompanied a hymn was, well, painful. The hymn took twice as long to sing and it was hard to determine if they were all playing the same one. But they were determined to get better. The youth recruited friends to fill out the band. They practiced more. The congregation never murmured a word.