Why Fewer Churches Offer Vacation Bible School

This article may explain why so much of the current VBS curriculum seems geared toward very large churches.

Our church is below the church stats and I’m in my 50’s…but the reason we struggle but continue to put on a VBS each summer is:

1. Both parents work (years ago moms stayed home and VBS was mainly run during the mornings). For us if everyone young and old did not get involved we probabley couldn’t do it.

2. More summer activities either youth baseball/soccer are competing now for a kids time. We have several colleges in the area who put on summer camps, so the kids have spent all day running and are exhausted. As well mom/dad are tired and don’t want to continue the all day “bus service”.

3. Our church budgets a healthy amount for VBS and consider it outreach, but one thing we have noticed is that many of the kids are already “churched” though not necessarily evangelical.

Berean Baptist Church - Lakeview MN (Metro Minneapolis)

http://www.bereanbaptist.com/

Friend of mine from work just worked at the week-long VBS at Berean. He does this every year (takes a week off from work)

This year they reached out to more than 2000 children.

VBS: Still works …. takes a lot of effort

Our very small church has made several tries at Vacation Bible School in the nine years I’ve been here. The culture of this Midwestern small town sees VBS as a cheap baby sitter. I learned this when I visited the various families immediately after our VBS. Many of the same same kids go to Church of the Brethren VBS to the Charismatic church VBS to the Methodist church VBS and then return to their own churches. Some will even travel to the Behemoth church’s VBS in a city 25 miles away. The kids are exposed to the Word in various ways, so that’s a good thing. I probably won’t do another VBS as long as I’m employed by our present church.

My two cents: Our church doesn’t offer VBS any more (stopped 4 years ago) due to two main factors:

1. We’re a small church and VBS is an immense drain on the people who work at it who are also involved in other demanding ministries like AWANA, while also working full time jobs. It seems to really burn our people out.

2. In our community, like others have mentioned, every kid goes to every VBS and families use it as a babysitter. Therefore, we really aren’t reaching out to unchurched kids or families.

Our sending church, Berean Baptist Church of Grand Rapids, solved the baby sitter problem by offering VBS in the evening. Instead they are actually getting unchurched kids from the neighborhood.

I remember several years ago when Berean offered it in the morning and we’d have the vbs babysitter kids. A few of these kids were quite dismayed when Berean happened to use the same curriculum as the other churches they had gone to for VBS. Same Bible story, same snack, same crafts……….

You know, VBS is a program, a means to an end, not an end to itself. The church has certain commands it must fulfill. If VBS is a useful tool to help the church fulfill it’s duties, wonderful, but I hope it’s not a sacred cow that becomes the latest litmus test for some. Our church runs its own camp every summer. We take our kids 8-18 out in the wilderness and camp in tents. Our church staffs the whole event, with several people using a week’s vacation each year to participate. Seems like this accomplishes much the same purpose as VBS since we get both new neighbors and regulars at camp every year and the church is actively involved in every stage of the program.