6 Essentials for Connecting with Unchurched Families

Churches often discover more unchurched individuals and families during VBS than all the rest of the weeks of the year combined. Collectively we discover over 1,000,000 unchurched individuals each year. Ten percent of all VBS attendees are from unchurched families. When you add parents and siblings not attending VBS, the typical VBS results in 35 to 40 unchurched individuals.
When parents decide to allow their kids to attend VBS, they are taking a step (whether they realize it or not) towards connecting with both the Gospel and the church. How we respond, and whether or not a connection is made, is up to the church.
We can leave connections to chance, or we can implement action steps such as the following:

1. Commit to using VBS to create intentional connections with unchurched families.
2. Train the registration team to collect complete information on each family.
3. Train greeters to gather sufficient information to connect unchurched parents with members of the church who are of similar age, similar family structures, or have similar interest.
4. Train workers to embrace the responsibility of getting to know parents as well as kids.
5. Create a VBS Celebration (Family Night) experience that encourages conversation and interaction.
6. Work with ministry leaders in advance to create opportunities that will continue and strengthen connections with unchurched parents discovered during VBS.

For more ideas on connecting with parents check out How Are You Connecting With Parents? and Using Takin’ It Home CD to Connect with Parents
JOIN THE CONVERSATION: How have you used VBS to intentionally connect with unchurched families.