When you’re a kid, you might not always want to go to church.

Many of them – me included back in the day – didn’t enjoy getting ready on a Sunday morning and putting on our church clothes for Sunday school and church service that morning.

Looking back on it, I am very grateful that they did, otherwise my life might be much different than it is now.

However, there was always one week of the year that we looked forward to at church – vacation Bible school.

That was always a fun week because we got to play games, sing fun songs and do stuff that you normally wouldn’t do in the church sanctuary. We even made taking up an offering fun, as we exchanged dollars for rolls of pennies to see whether the boys or girls would win the offering weight contest.

The sanctuary was decorated for the various themes each week. I don’t really know why, but they made a Paper Mache giant giraffe that we called Jeffrey – perhaps after the Toys-R-Us giraffe. (By the way, that giraffe stayed in the backstage area of the church for more than a decade after that VBS week.)

Each year, I’m amazed at how the VBS programs get better from one year to the next. Of course, there was one main theme that just about everyone did. This year, it seems to be the D-3 secret agent theme.

As much as I always loved attending them as a kid, I really had more fun being one of the adults helping out. I was usually working with the sound and lighting in the sanctuary.

We would always pull out special lighting that we would only use for these special occasions. I also increase my library of sound effects and game show and TV show themes just especially for this week. I think I have about 15 different versions of themes from the “Family Feud” and a large assortment of cues from “The Price is Right.”

It was always a lot of work, but we all loved it. And when we got to the end of the week, we saw how it would change the lives of the kids. That was the best part.

Thanks to everyone who is involved in the local VBS. And feel free to send me some of your photos. We’d be happy to highlight them in the paper.

Email them to news@hartselleenquirer.com.

Brent Maze is the managing editor of the Hartselle Enquirer.