What Are You Willing to Do in the Name of Competition?
Recently I witnessed a friend and his two VBS directors get slimmed with the cold fermented remains of the weeks’ snacks. It was not a pretty sight, but the kids howled and the leaders were great sports – even if extremely messy.
It was all for a good cause. The girls and boys had been competing all week to see which group could donate the most to the mission project. Amazingly, the goal of $8,000 was surpassed and almost doubled. For that amount he probably should have been required to visit the slim booth more than once!
Competition has long been a part of the VBS week – competition between boys and girls, between grades, between kids and workers.
In addition to the slimming mentioned above, I have heard of pastors who have had to kiss pigs and donkeys. There have also been stories of VBS directors being dunked in tanks of water, receiving pies in the face, and the required eating the grossest (is that even a word?) of foods.
Prizes have been awarded, pizza and swimming parties promised, and ice cream served by the gallons – all in the name of competition.
So, the questions is, what have you or your pastor done in the name of competition? I look forward to hearing from you. The VBS team would love to see pictures as well.
What HAVEN’T we done? We’ve been blessed to have staff who are SUCH good sports! The last several years we’ve tried to incorporate something theme-related for our end-of-week competition reward whenever possible: swimming in the “Arctic” (kids pool filled with ice water) while eating ice cream for Arctic Edge, “human hot dog” complete with every hot dog topping imaginable (chili, onions, slaw, cheese, mustard, ketchup, relish, etc…) for Game Day Central, “Pastor vs. the Volcano” for Outrigger Island (getting slimed with a horrible “lava” concoction), crocodile wrestling (in chocolate pudding) for Boomerang Express, a staff member being tarred-and-feathered (with feathers and pancake syrup) for Saddle Ridge Ranch, and dressing the pastor as the Statue of Liberty (which, unfortunately, we didn’t get to do because of a power outage on the last day of Big Apple Adventure). We also made our pastor “fly” by duct-taping him to a flagpole for Amazing Wonders Aviation, created a human funnel cake for Colossal Coaster World, and made our youth pastor and VBS director drink “truth serum” for Agency D3. This year our church welcomed a brand new pastor to his first Salem VBS, so we eased him into our antics by just sending him to the dunking booth – but next year he won’t get off so easy! =)
Every year our church designates the VBS offering to the Louisiana Baptist Children’s Home. We have done mile-long banana splits, pie-in-the-face incentives for the boy vs. girl competition for this offering and this year was to be a sliming. Our pastor (who is the biggest kid) threw out a challenge of his own. If the children raised $1,000 (we are a small church) by Thursday night he would die his hair and beard pink and preach that way. Needless to say we exceeded the challenged amount by several hundred and he kept his word. Since the original plan was to slime, the kids insisted and we slimed a newly elected deacon who had also served as our VBS photographer. I do have pictures but am not sure how to add those to this post.
This year, the pastor and I are competing and who veers side loses has to either lead the choir or preach the following Sunday with their face painted!! Last year, we both had pies smashed in our faces.
Two years in a row we did a boys versus girls competition with the offering. The kids got to pick out of the people volunteering to get a pie in the face who they wanted to get one. Can you imagine that only three people volunteered! I was one of the three and they chose me. So Mike and I got a pie in the face. The rules were that if they made $300 the loosing team would get the pie in the face by the winning team. So I got to give Mike the pie in the face for the boys loosing and it was a chocolate pie. The kids then decided that they wanted to get in on the action so they got a dessert paper plate of whipped cream to take turns throwing at both of us. I do not recomend doing whipped cream that spoiled milk smell was in our noses after it for hours and our church has showers it didn’t make it go away. Our vbs director sent pictures of the pie in the face contest to the missionary family that our offering went to. We raised over $450 for that family. It was all worth it!!
This year one our 4 & 5 year old teacher will allow our kids to dye her hair green on family night if we beat last years missions offering. Our adults have gotten really excited about that one. So far looks like it might happen.
for Agency D3 if we reached our goal is $1000 I would get an ice cream sundae built on my head. This year if we raised $1500 I had a strawberry shortcake made on my head and a pie in the face. They loved both years.
In the past, I have been dunked, pie in the face, and pelted with water balloons. This year we are erupting a volcano on the parking lot with coke and mentos.
We designate our missions offering for Operation Christmas Child and always have a boys vs. girls competition. Three years ago, the “prize” was a pie in the face for either our music minister or accompanist. Coincidentally, the boys and girls tied and both got a whipped cream with ice cream toppings pie in the face. The past two years, the “prize” was bombing either the VBS director (me) or the Worship Rally leader with chilled water balloons. Last year, again (ahem) coincidentally, there was a tie and we both had a chilling experience. Expecting a tie again this year (these kids have great memories!), the girls won by a few dollars so our Worship Rally Leader was the target. When we got to the parking lot to commence the bombing, the kids dragged the pastor into the action and he received most of the water balloons!
I posted on your Facebook page what we did. Our VBS attenders donated over $1200.00 to the Louisiana Baptist Childrens Home in Monroe, LA. I dyed my hair and beard pink for Family night. It was so fun.
Our pastor agreed to take a pie in the face if we met mission goal, and we surpassed it. Then, some generous adults offered to match the funds if the VBS director would also take a pie! That’s me! What could I do? Pie tasted great, still have whip cream in my ears!
Our church does a mission’s offering contest each year also. I personally (the director) have gotten the yucky whipped cream pie in my face. I agree, thats the worst…you smell like spoiled milk for hours!
We have also done a human hot dog for Colossal Coaster World, an igloo filled with Gatoraid for Game Day Central, and this year we did an igloo full of green slime! It’s all done in good fun and the kids love it!
I got smart & started having the kids nominate a youth worker. This year the kids nominated a youth & and adult for each side (guys & girls) The youth love being involved and the adult who’s nominated will pay a lot to keep from getting slimed or pay a lot to see the other side slimed!
This year our pastor preached on Sunday morning with teal hair (Go Jacksonville Jaguars!) since we surpassed our goal for our missions offering during Journey off the Map. We had so many neighborhood kids wake their parents up that morning and ask to be brought to church so they could see Pastor Jeff preach with teal hair. God has worked through that one silly act in such an awesome way. One boy’s mother was there that morning and she made a connection with our Pastor. He is now counseling the mother and her husband as they struggle through marital problems. There are still ripples going out in our neighborhood as a result of our VBS this year. To God be the glory!!