peter krey\’s web site

Using our Vacation Church School and Day Camp as an instrument of mission, we had fourteen programs in Coney Island, New York. Several programs had three buses and three directors. Coming to St. John’s in Oakland, California, I ran three more programs, even as a part-time pastor. A part-time pastor is really an oxymoron, because during the six to eight week program we had to eat, drink, and sleep with it and when it was going right, you could feel yourself grow! The t-shirts have all worn out. This logo comes from the only sweatshirt we had. We developed the logo with potato stamps.

I believe these photos come from the the late Eighties, 1989, perhaps 1990. We had a vibrant youth program with fourteen consecutive Vacation Church School and Vacation Day Camps, following the missional model devised by Pr. Leslie C. Schulz of Cincinnati, Ohio, my mentor. These programs flowed right into the creativity we all found so meaningful: the singing was wonderful, the dances, plays, the arts and crafts. A great deal of our creativity developed from the Family Night, when each class and sometimes the whole school performed for their parents and the congregation. Highlights were “A Mugging in Central Park”: a take off on the Good Samaritan, (thanks to Ruth Saldana Rohr); “New York City Nativity Now”: a modern play where the Christ child is born in an abandoned building, where the three kings were Reagan, Cuomo, and Koch (the president, governor, and mayor of that day), the angels were reporters, confronting them and saying they could not adore the child until they did something about the wretched conditions around us; and the “Martin Luther King, Jr. Passion Play,” where the civil rights marches took place down the different aisles of St. Paul’s, the actor playing M. L. King is assassinated, and he leads the demonstration in the white drum-major uniform up the center aisle of the church depicting the resurrection. Then once or twice a year, we all climbed into the old 1966 GMC church bus and I myself as the bus driver, would take everyone to Great Adventure. We made the sure and certain witness that Jesus gives us abundant life!

I usually kept a log and then evaluated each summer program. This evaluation centered on the Leadership Training Laboratory, the following meetings, and resistance from the staff, especially by a professional teacher. All the names in this account have been changed to protect the identity of everyone concerned.

I scanned it to avoid retyping the document. The first file contains pages 1-5 and the second contains 6-31.

When everything was going right, you could usually feel yourself grow. We usually ate, drank, and slept Vacation Church School and Day Camp during the summer, because it was all consuming. The last event at Jones Beach was hard to describe. It resembled the family picnic in the movie, Bonnie and Clyde, where suddenly everything took place in slow motion.

img102 pages 1-5. Vacation Church School as Mission

img103 pages 6-31. Vacation Church School as Mission