Mark Perko, pastor of Deep Creek Baptist Church, takes off in a johnboat on a congregant’s pond as part of a VBS giving challenge.
WADESBORO, N.C. — The breeze was still blowing at midnight across a quiet country pond when Pastor Mark Perko realized he had drifted across to the far bank.
Alone in a johnboat with a straight-backed chair, a cooler, a couple of flashlights and a thick layer of bug spray, Perko pulled out a paddle and began rowing back toward shore.
This was not a peaceful night of fishing or reflection. This was part of Deep Creek Baptist Church’s annual Vacation Bible School (VBS) giving challenge.
For 14 years, Deep Creek has set a giving goal to be met during VBS. In turn, Perko sets a challenge that he will complete upon the goal being met. The challenge tradition started with something simple: getting pied in the face. But every year since, the stakes have grown — along with the impact.
Through a series of increasingly wild giving challenges Perko plans — from eating an entire bowl of crickets to walking around the courthouse in a flamingo costume to shaving his head — Deep Creek has raised more than $35,000 for local nonprofits and ministries.
“I guess you could say that I was doing challenges before challenges were cool, so to speak,” Perko said.
After Deep Creek met their goal by raising over $2,700 for HOPE Pregnancy Resource Center during their VBS in 2023, Perko walked around the courthouse dressed as a flamingo.
In a county where roughly 3,000 of the 22,000 residents attend church on any given Sunday, Deep Creek Baptist Church is standing out — by getting creative. According to Perko, VBS is one of the church’s biggest outreach events of the year, and the challenges bring in people who may just want to see Perko complete a zany stunt.
“I think it’s our greatest opportunity to reach young people with the gospel, because we will reach a lot of unchurched children that we may not see again until next year,” Perko said.
One of the more memorable stunts came in 2017 when he spent the night on the slanted roof of the church building.
“They took the ladder away from me so I couldn’t come down,” Perko said. “I had to find a valley in the roof to sleep in.”
Perko sits on the roof of Deep Creek to complete his 2017 VBS challenge.
The challenges come with high fundraising goals — typically $2,500 or more — and every penny goes to a local ministry. This year, they aimed lower due to construction on their property and held a one-day VBS with a goal to raise $1,500 to help fund new playground equipment for Deep Creek Christian Academy (DCCA), the school housed on the church’s property.
Deep Creek began DCCA in 2020 as a preschool and has added a grade level every year since. This year, the school will have preschool through third grade, so they are adding a new building and playground to accommodate the growing school population. Academy Director MiRandi Chewning said many students attend Deep Creek with their families and come to VBS each year.
“They’re so excited about having this new play area, so I think the kids are pretty excited that they are getting to be a part of it,” Chewning said. “They’ve got some ownership in this playground.”
In total, the church raised $1,550 to help fund the new playground, which will be used for both school and church purposes. Chewning said the school is a huge ministry in the county and surrounding area as it sits near the North Carolina-South Carolina border. It’s helped build relationships and friendships in the community, as well as in the church ministry.
“I’m just giving God the glory for it all,” Perko said. “So it’s crazy, but you know, there was things they did back in the first century that the world thought was crazy.”
Despite the humor and spectacle of each challenge, Perko keeps the bigger picture top of mind. When asked why creative efforts like these matter, he doesn’t hesitate to point back to Scripture.
“Jesus was all about object lessons. People would follow Him, and He’d stop and say, ‘Here’s this fig tree, let Me talk about that for a minute,’” Perko said. “I’ve always felt in the ministry that if you will take some sort of an object or a funny story, and you can attach a truth to that, they may not remember the truth at first, but they’ll remember the object well, they’ll remember the funny story, and then they can recall that truth.”
Perko hasn’t decided what next year’s stunt will be, though he continues to get plenty of suggestions from church members, including a tandem parachute jump. While he said he won’t be doing that, he will continue to “make a crazy challenge, have a crazy goal, make it happen.”
