Time to change Vacation Bible School?

Not a lot of good things here. The primary reason there are issues with children coming back to church after VBS, is that regardless of a decision child makes, it is still upto the parents whether their child comes to church or not. The only way to fix this is a regular van ministry. What this guy is suggesting without meaning it, is junk the effort put into VBS and focus on the adults. Now having an evangelism ministry to adults is a good thing that many churches should improve upon. But the lack of evangelism is nothing to do with VBS. We should not skip out on this one time parents are willing to send their unchurched children to our doors. Follow-up is always a difficult think when kids are involved. You have the same issue with any major outreach ministry involving kids.

[paynen]

Not a lot of good things here. The primary reason there are issues with children coming back to church after VBS, is that regardless of a decision child makes, it is still upto the parents whether their child comes to church or not. The only way to fix this is a regular van ministry. What this guy is suggesting without meaning it, is junk the effort put into VBS and focus on the adults. Now having an evangelism ministry to adults is a good thing that many churches should improve upon. But the lack of evangelism is nothing to do with VBS. We should not skip out on this one time parents are willing to send their unchurched children to our doors. Follow-up is always a difficult think when kids are involved. You have the same issue with any major outreach ministry involving kids.

If a parent does not want a child to come to church, then sadly a van ministry won’t solve it. I don’t think there is an easy single solution. We just need to get to know and love our community and arrange opportunities - be that VBS or others - that are most effective on a local level.

The only way to fix this is a regular van ministry.

Not true at all. You can focus your efforts to point them to something else right away… Sunday School or children’s church, provide them with a way to camp, hold it near the end of the summer when the your church’s fall children’s ministry might be starting soon… establish a meeting on a school campus if you can (it still can be done!), or at someone’s home or the church facility if it is an option…

However, if your church’s only effort is a week of hype, then I do think the original article gives plenty to consider. We are called to make disciples, not to track decisions. As many children, even in Christian families, make uncertain professions, you have to have some kind of strategy for ongoing teaching, even if not every child will stay.

The point I was making is that follow-up is a difficulty of children’s ministries in general. Often parents are more then happy to send their kid to church for a week, but they are not interested in getting up on Sunday morning and bringing them to church and often don’t care to much for Wednesday nights either. The other issue is sports conflicts. This is where a weekly van ministry helps. The issue brought forth in the article is more of a logistics issue that crosses the spectrum of children’s ministries then an evangelistic outreach issue.

One thing that our church started doing was to hold Soccer Clinics instead of VBS. Parents are much more open to them, they are adding value since comparable soccer camps cost money, they don’t cost much to put together, and parents often come out as well to watch their kids improve their skills. Therefore, we got much more of a unit being engaged then a bunch of kids being dropped off. Plus we would have lots of opportunities for our church adults to engage the childrens parents when they were on the sidelines watching their kids. This allowed us to engage the community.

If VBS is the one of the best ways to reach children, why not hold it for two weeks, or three weeks, or all summer?

Here are some questions to help evaluate VBS:

How many of the children who attend are unchurched? Come from other churches? Come from your own church?

Yes children’s ministries can be difficult. But does that redeem the idea of investing numerous resources into one week of hype and excitement that gets numbers, vs. a strategy that prioritizes establishing prolonged relationships over a longer period of time?

I see the article’s point. My entire goal with VBS is to build relationships with the Gospel. Our VBS is in late July. It’s not going to be an epic event. It’ll be fun, we’ll have games, snacks and some cool skits. We’ll have crafts and the kids will enjoy themselves. I’m not interested in pushing for decisions. All I care about is whether we can present a coherent, understandable Gospel message to kids. Period. I pray that VBS will be a Gospel bridge to children and adults in our little community - that’s all.

Just wrapped ours up. Had many visitors, all heard the gospel. My 12-year old learned a bit about serving. 5 dads gave talks about what they do at work. Sang songs, praised God. Many hands made light work. What’s not to love? The fellowship and serving together were worth the work, even if we don’t see a single new conversion or church member. We may never see the visitors again (but then again, we might). Oh well, some plant, some water, God reaps a harvest in His time.

[Ron Bean]

If VBS is the one of the best ways to reach children, why not hold it for two weeks, or three weeks, or all summer?

Here are some questions to help evaluate VBS:

How many of the children who attend are unchurched? Come from other churches? Come from your own church?

We’re gearing up for our VBS in late July. To answer your questions, the key reason that we hold it for one week only is a very practical one: it would be difficult to get the 400-450 volunteers we need to operate it to commit for multiple weeks. (I take the week off, and usually put in 60-70 hours helping run things.) We have had up to 2,000 kids attend (and I expect this year will be no different). In our case it usually works out to be about 1/3 our own kids, 1/3 from other churches, and 1/3 unchurched.

Took a look at a few comments, especially that by paynen, and I’m wondering if some have missed the point. I’m the original writer of the post, and what I was trying to get across is that if kids never, ever show up for church, then we’ve got to wonder if their “salvation decision” was real. A van ministry doesn’t solve that—might get more people there, but if indeed the decisions are false decisions, that doesn’t solve your problem. It just gets more unsaved people in church to….perhaps not hear the Gospel?

Nothing against van ministries—I drove for one for a while, and it’s how I got to church in college when I didn’t ride my bike. It just doesn’t address my concerns.

And perhaps a little bit of my personal history might help explain this. My journey to Christ started at wrestling practice, where we (at a public school no less) would prayer the Lord’s Prayer after every practice. A fellow wrestler saw me mumbling through it and asked me incredulously “you don’t know the Lord’s Prayer?”. And so I found a way to get to church at a time when my family was about to get blown apart by divorce. Yes, it took some doing. In my church now, I see kids making their way to church when they want to—about 5000 people live within a mile of our church—but I simply don’t see kids coming from VBS. Same thing when I lived in Waseca—kids that wanted to be somewhere got there. Parents loved it when kids when kids went to church and they got Sunday morning to themselves.

So when I never, ever see these kids at church, I’ve got to wonder what’s really going on. Can genuine faith bear no apparent fruit?

I think your missing the point of evangelism. Its not numbers. I’m sorry. The purpose of evangelism is to faithfully share the gospel. Everything else is with God. Perhaps in your background VBS pushes for decisions just to so they can look at themselves as a success. We are called to be faithful ministers of the gospel. That should be the measure of our evangelism is successful gospel presentations. I think in many situations VBS is often just a seed planter.
Regardless of your experience many kids only get to church when they can get a ride. Often parents (like mine) won’t get up that early. And many parents are to protective of their young children to let them walk across town. They are reliant on a ride from someone in the church. In high school ya things are a bit different. My testimony is similar to yours in that I was saved in high school. I walked to church twice on Sundays and once on Wednesdays.
The problem with your article is that it is judging VBS by the numbers of kids it brings in which is wrong in the first place. It is also made more difficult by the fact that it is more difficult for children to get to church when they are reliant on a ride. If we judged every evangelism ministry by the numbers of true Christian’s it produced they would all fail. I’m sure there are many churches who do VBS wrongly. Either they just push for a decision without making sure the child truly understands the gospel, Or they let VBS become purely fun time to make the kids happy. But that is an issue with the church, not the idea of VBS or the curriculum.

Actually, the point of evangelism, per Matthew 28, is to make disciples, no? It implies a continuing relationship. My point is not that evangelism ought to be a numbers game, but that if we are truly reaching people, children or adults, they ought to be becoming disciples. There is some allowance for seed on the path and in shallow soil, but all in all, if you’ve got a lot of decisions but no rear ends in pews, you’ve got to question whether you’re actually spreading the Gospel at all.

And sad to say, that’s what I’m generally seeing in evangelical and fundamental churches. You get gaudy numbers of “decisions” which I’d attribute in great part to kids “going along to get along”, but no disciples. Christ tells us to make disciples, not to make converts and then let them go untaught, no? Eutychus didn’t fall out of the window because Paul was refusing to teach, after all!

The “problem” with children’s evangelism (VBS included) is easy “layup” (BB analogy) conversions.

Per the Athanasian Creed belief in the Trinity is essential to the Gospel: “Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the catholic faith. Which faith except every one do keep whole and undefiled; without doubt he shall perish everlastingly. And the catholic faith is this: That we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; Neither confounding the Persons; nor dividing the Essence”.

You take a kid from an unchurched family (or a church family for that matter) and give him the 1-2-3 repeat after me Gospel presentation and then pronounce him saved … and score it as such, you are doing the kid and the church a disservice.

So probably the answer is to not measure that metric but measure the success of the ministry in some other way.

Some churches do VBS very well (Larry Nelson - see above) … others not well. In general if there is no organization in place to follow up with VBS attendees, you might as well skip VBS.

Then there is the involvement of the laity (I hate the term … but using it for “non-professional” staff). In three churches:

• Church A: 2 women were in charge of VBS. It was super organized. As soon as VBS week ended they began to plan next year’s
• Church B: widespread lay (caveat about the term) involvement
• Church C: Like pulling teeth to get folk involved. Finally concluded that if they aren’t that interested in the ministry, time to pull it

If the pastor is doing all the planning and execution, a poor use of that man’s giftedness and time

My 2 cents. Conclusion VBS works for some churches and not others. BUT … dumbing down the gospel to eschew essential elements (like the Trinity) is not effective child evangelism. Frankly I wonder how many kids under 10 really can understand it thoroughly enough to have an intelligent conversion.

It would be more accurate to say the point of evangelism for God is to glorify himself by calling those he desires to salvation according to his plan. The purpose for evangelism for the Christian is faithfulness, and can only truly be measured by God. If it is true that the power of salvation is in the word of God, and that alone. Then it doesn’t matter what curriculum or method that we use. Is there room for new ideas? certainly. Do we need to evaluate our hearts and whether our expectations of our ministries are in line with God’s word? Definitely! But claiming that the problem you are seeing in you sphere’s of influence in regards to VBS is an issue with VBS as a whole is really uncalled for. 1000’s of people with hearts on fire for God work hard to put these events together. People do get saved… believe me it happens. Families get introduced to churches. Seeds get planted and relationships get started, it happens, often not in huge number, and often the people involved don’t even see the fruit.. but it happens. Could we all do better? Of course we can. Is there room for new ideas, yes. But regardless of, I believe, your good intentions, I think that your article kind of belittles all of that.
We must also remember this. Church outreach ministry in general is a jumpstart of the personal outreach ministry of each individual Christian. The great commission was given to each individual Christian. The church should assist this by having events. But the church’s ministries are, in general, internal. Therefore, regardless of the ministries your church uses to reach out to its community, if its people are not actively building relationships with their neighbors, coworkers, softball teams, and boy scout clubs; then it is unlikely that any ministry will show much fruit.