Helping Small Churches Host Vacation Bible Schools

Most people’s minds are on Thanksgiving and Christmas, but church planners need to be thinking about next summer. The time to start planning a Vacation Bible School is now.

VBS-Aid helps small congregations host Vacation Bible Schools. We recruit young people from colleges and seminaries as staff. They will be looking for summer jobs shortly after the Christmas holidays. In the spring we will plan training retreats to teach them the curriculum and music, etc.

If your congregation would like to hire a VBS-Aid team, please consider it with your congregation and plan to have a budget approved now.

There is information on this web-site and on our companion site, www.2x2virtualchurch.com.

Fill out the very short form below and we will be glad to contact you.

Meanwhile, Happy Holidays (Thanksgiving, Advent and Christmas)!

(Referencing Alban Institute article, An Experiment in Feedback, by Barbara J. Blodgett)

In today’s Alban Institute Blog, a seminary professor writes about how difficult it is to get honest evaluations of students doing field work. Any criticism is usually layered over with praise and compliments, she writes, and suggests that this is what the students remember — the praise, not the criticism.

This article and forum examines why it is so hard to get honest, helpful evaluations of student work. Some suggest church people feel the need to be “nice.” Others suggest insecurity of the mentors — their own need for acceptance and love. Another suggests that praise helps us grow more than criticism. All are probably right. Nevertheless, the author bemoans that it is hard to train new preachers if they hear nothing but praise all the time.

The church just doesn’t do much self-assessing, benchmark-setting and review when the benchmarks are not met. Failures are quickly dismissed, moving on perhaps to the next success — or the next failure!

One of the goals of the VBS-aid program is to give young people an opportunity to experience church work and perhaps interest them in pursuing a church profession. We stress DAILY performance review of each team in each setting. We want problems to be identified and addressed early. In addition, we want to be able to address opportunities that may arise. These might fly by, if we don’t take a few minutes each day to “find” them.

After reading this forum, we think the VBS-aid experience might be helpful in preparing future church leaders to accept criticism, give criticism, and thereby improve ministry skills.

VBS-aid team members will serve in several church settings in an intensive leadership experience for 8-10 weeks. They will help with recruitment, teach classes of various ages, work with adults, teach classes, lead music and worship, look for ministry opportunities, lead service projects, interact with parents, and consider follow-up for each two-week VBS program.  They will receive regular feedback in all these skills.

It will be interesting to see how a pilot year for this approach affects church training overall.

2×2 was recently in conversation with a pastor researching the concept of team ministry. He was interested in our VBS-aid program.

Team Ministry is a concept which we think must be explored. It answers many of the challenges small churches face and has great promise. The problem is that it flies against the tradition of the entire parish life revolving around the congregation’s relationship with one pastor (and adding more pastors only as the congregation grows). This age-old model of the church is foundering because small churches cannot afford the salaries all pastors expect, regardless of the number of people supporting a ministry.

The modern era faces another challenge which team ministries can address. Modern ministry requires leadership with multiple skill sets. It is not likely that any congregation, much less the smaller congregations, will find one pastor who can provide all the services they need. In many cases, ministry suffers. Help may be available if we start to think in terms of teams.

Team ministry is worth exploring for any mission-minded congregations, but especially for those who fear they have no future.

They may face some obstacles. Pastors may feel threatened by outsiders influencing their parish. Congregations might share some distrust. Programs like this aren’t in the current budgets and congregations may be hesitant to fund something “different.”

VBS-aid is an ideal way to give team ministry a try. VBS-aid trains teams of 4-8 people to travel to several churches during the summer to provide leadership for Bible School outreach programs. The program calls for the congregation and its leadership to work with the team to do upfront recruitment and to put a fall program in place so that there is a reason for VBS newcomers to return. VBS-aid pledges to work and help train congregation members, so that the congregation grows its skills while they have some hands-on help to get them started.

Congregations will work with VBS-aid for about two months — preparation, training and recruitment; the two-week Bible School, and follow up. Then they are gone — until next year, if the congregation liked the program. VBS-aid connects congregations, church camps, seminaries, and the community. A lot of talents and skills are made available for a minimal investment ($5000-$7500 — far less than it would cost to hire and train part- or full-time help). The congregation will have had a taste for team ministry and may begin to think of other ways to team with the greater church and the community in mission.

We encourage congregations to start planning for Summer 2012. Budget for a Bible School and call upon VBS-aid to help you get started. Contact us for more information. We will be glad to make a presentation to your congregational leaders.

As VBS-Aid talks with congregations we hear many reasons for not sponsoring a Vacation Church School. Ironically, each reason reveals an imperative for why they should take advantage of any opportunity to host a community program.

1. Reaching out to your community with the Good News is a primary mission of every church.

2. The longer you wait, the harder it will be. If you are afraid to attempt a summer program this summer, ask yourself what is likely to change over the course of the next year to make waiting a year worthwhile.

3. Excuses tend to focus on the church as it is and shut doors on opportunities for what it can become.

Here are some sample excuses we’ve heard.

We don’t have enough children. (That’s what community outreach is about, reaching beyond the people you already have.)

We don’t have the money. (A successful program should attract contributions. Doing nothing doesn’t inspire giving.)

The person who runs our Sunday School can’t help in the summer. (All the more reason to use some outside help.)

Summer is a golden opportunity for neighborhood ministry. Losing a summer is losing an important opportunity to touch and enrich the spiritual lives of many in your neighborhood.

Fear of failure is behind most objections. VBS-Aid is about overcoming objections and making summer ministry possible. VBS-Aid seeks to find ways for even the smallest, most cash-poor congregations to succeed.

We encourage you to contact us to set up an exploratory meeting to make things happen this summer. All things are possible!

. . . that’s not the way we’ve done it before.

One of the first pastors to review the VBS-Aid concept was ready to dismiss the idea. His church hadn’t offered a Vacation Bible School in more than a decade. “In my day,” he began, “VBS was run by volunteers on a shoe-string budget.”

The easy answer–not meant to be flippant–was, “Pastor, how is that working for you today?” Fact: the old way of running Bible Schools is no longer working for many churches. Even among congregations still offering summer programs, many schools are not reaching full outreach potential. Instead, programming is being diminished to fit the few people who can manage a Bible School operated “the old way.”

There is still great outreach potential for any congregation having a Vacation Bible School, especially if a way can be found to overcome modern objections such as:

• most parents work and are not available or willing to help
• many families fill family schedules with demanding activities to occupy their children’s time
• congregational revenues are down
• congregations are diminished in numbers
• congregations do not have many–or even any–active young families

These are, in fact, the major objections to considering reviving Vacation Bible Schools.

VBS-Aid is working to overcome them. Our goal is to make VBS possible for EVERY congregation, no matter how small their membership, how shallow their leadership pool, or how budget-strapped they may be.

There is a cost involved — about $5000. But that figure includes a lot of valuable help over a period of months, which if a congregation were to find by hiring an additional pastor or church professional, would cost many times more than that.

For about $5000, VBS-Aid congregations will have a team of talent to work with. A seminarian or pastor will work with your leadership to help plan and implement recruitment for the school in the community. In addition, they will help the congregation plan ways to host and interact with the community.

The Aides (youth leaders) will be thoroughly trained in congregational dynamics, the curriculum, and working with children of various ages. Although VBS-Aid will also provide training for congregational members, having a core group of youth trained and ready to serve will take the pressure off congregational volunteers. They can look for ways to help that don’t require the intensive teaching commitment.

In addition, VBS-Aid will make sure each congregation has a follow-up plan to make sure that the School results in continued interaction with the community, with the goal of membership growth.

Again, if a congregation were to provide these services by hiring dedicated staff, the cost would be well over $20,000.

In our next posts, we’ll look at some typical congregational scenarios and how VBS-Aid can help.

The idea for Vacation Church School started more than 100 years ago when a school teacher decided to do for her church in the summer what she did nine months of the year for the community. She and her immediate successors ran their neighborhood schools in borrowed space for several weeks.

By the 1950s, the tradition was well established among many Protestant denominations but had been standardized to fill two weeks of the summer. The ability of congregations to continue the tradition became strained as more mothers entered the workforce. In the 1970s, congregations, accustomed to running their programs with volunteers on shoestring budgets, began trimming their programs to five days and publishers eventually followed the trend.

Many congregations also trimmed their offerings to only the youngest children in the parish. Again, the programs were easier to run but with far less benefit.

If a way could be found to restore Vacation Bible Schools to at least two weeks, churches would increase the benefits of their programs exponentially.

Here’s why:

1. A two-week time frame gives congregations more opportunity to interact with not just the children but with the families. Instead of five days, you have two full weeks with the potential to use the weekends as well — think kick-off rally, school-wide picnic and worship, school closing ceremony. Families will be coming and going from your church for a more extended period of time. You’ll be getting to know one another.

2. A two-week time frame reinforces new faith habits. Teachers try to instill new habits in children. This takes more than five days. Schools have our children for nine months. Parochial schools work with the children for nine months as well. Protestant churches have a lot of catching up to do. Two week Vacation programs are just the start.

3. A two-week time frame provides greater visibility in the community. When planning a two-week program, you’ll have the opportunity to work with other neighborhood organizations and build community. You can invite participation. One merchant might be asked to donate a snack, another craft supplies . . . all accompanied with an invitation to a weekend activity to acknowledge their support. You may find help you never knew was there!

VBS-Aid is finding a way to help congregations restore the Vacation Bible School tradition with ALL its potential.

In the Summer of 2010, a group of church members in Philadelphia made a project of visiting a different neighborhood church each week. We did not go to judge; we went to worship, learn and share. But while we were sitting there in pew after pew, we began to see some similar characteristics among many congregations. They were losing touch with the neighborhoods surrounding them and with each passing year, the ability to reconnect was getting harder and harder.

One visit was pronounced. We worshiped that particular summer Sunday morning in a beautiful, well-maintained sanctuary which could seat 600. Attending worship were about 30 people, almost all of whom were senior citizens. There was one young couple with a toddler in tow, the obvious apple of the congregation’s eye. A young man, new to the neighborhood, was visiting along with the four visitors from our group. The worship was excellent — good sermon, spirited singing. The congregation was welcoming and friendly — by any measure, dedicated people serving God as best they could.

We stepped out of that church onto the sidewalks of a neighborhood of crowded rowhomes with the children spilling into the streets playing on skateboards, bouncing basketballs, and jumping rope. We are certain that the congregation we had just left would have loved to find a way to open their doors to their neighborhood and serve the families, seniors, students and young professionals at their doorstep, but age had left them with less ability to meet the challenge.

Change of scenery. One of our young members was spending the summer as a counselor at church camp. The bad winter with many snow days had many schools still in session well into June. The first scheduled week of camp saw many cancellations. The camp director sent his idle staff members to help a local congregation with their Vacation Bible School. When our young member reported his experience, we thought, “What if every congregation had a well-trained, staff of young people to bring enthusiastic help and skills to struggling congregations?”

The seeds of VBS-Aid were planted. In planning we expanded the concept to make sure that a VBS-Aid Vacation Bible School would not be a shot in the dark — that each congregation taking part would have help in advance recruitment and planning a follow-up strategy for the fall.

How does VBS-Aid propose to do this? We’ll tell you more in our next post!