Is VBS Really Over?
It’s Saturday morning, and for many it is the first day after a long week of Vacation Bible School. The kids have gone home, the decorations are down, and VBS is over for another year. I can hear the collective sigh of relief.
But is VBS really over? In reality, the real work of VBS is just beginning. The work of connecting with unchurched families who participated in VBS.
Several years ago Lifeway’s VBS team conducted a survey to determine the greatest challenges of VBS. While we expected to discover many challenges or needs, we were surprised by the need listed by 97 percent of the 3,000 VBS leaders who responded to the survey. The single greatest need was help with follow-up. VBS leaders said they didn’t know how to connect with unchurched families discovered during VBS.
A majority of VBS leaders said their follow-up process was to send a letter or postcard thanking the kids for attending. Beyond the mailing there was no plan for continuing the connection made during the week.
VBS leaders everywhere would appreciate learning how you plan to continue connections with unchurched families attending your Bible school. Do you have an ongoing process or a single action? Who is responsible for leading the process? How do you involve other members of the church in the process?
Join the conversation by sharing how you have successfully connected with families following VBS.
Our church does visitation every Tuesday night. Although we don’t have a large turnout. The families that came to vbs is put on the visitation list. Any craft items forgot or was not picked up at all is also delivered. Our pastor calls it getting a foot in the door. The thing our church is dealing with is how often do we follow up without putting people off as being too pushy. They tell us they are not attending anywhere but they will come “next” Sunday and don’t. When is it too many visits and we seem like we are bothering them.
We are having the kids sing the VBS songs at the 11:00am service after VBS to try to get families to come to a church service. And yes, our 8:30 crowd will be upset because we didn’t sing for them, using the 11:00 hour as the most likely time families will come. We hope moms and dads will hear and respond to the gospel or at least feel a warm welcome and a connection to take the family to the next step.
I just told our church leadership last week, that many of these kids even though they do not ever walk the aisle or be baptized these kids call us their church. A few years ago we went and did an after school program at the Boys and Girls Club, when I asked these kids “what church do you go to?” many of them said our church name even though I didn’t recognize the child. It may have been Trunk or Treat, VBS or other community events, may be the only church these kids have ever attended. So we try year after year to encourage these kids to go to camp with us after VBS, we get a few of the 500 to attend.
Today, I’m praying that our church will respond to these families with open arms tomorrow. I’m also praying that our adults and leadership (including staff) will stop seeing VBS as a kid week, but a week of opportunity to reach families and adults!
I love the way you wrote, “even though they do not ever walk the aisle or be baptized these kids call us their church.” Never was a truer statement made.
Many years ago a grieving father in need of a pastor to conduct his teenage son’s funeral contacted my pastor. He said that although he personally had never attended our church his son had attended VBS for years. Through the connection and ministry of the church several members of the family, including the father, made professions of faith. When we judge the success of VBS by the number of families who return the Sunday following VBS we just don’t get it. The actual week of VBS is just the beginning. We will never know the total impact of a week of VBS. Thank you for boldly leading your church to build bridges of the unchurched families of your community.
We have struggled with VBS follow-up in the past. Volunteers are tired and their summer officially starts when VBS ends. This year, more than 50% of our VBS attendees are not affiliated with our church. More than ever, continuing the connection is a necessity. We are putting together Submerged Summer Fun bags (bubbles, water balloons, beach ball and the Submerged Parent Guide) and having our church members deliver them as a thank you gift to visiting families. There will also be an invitation to our VBS Reunion (a picnic at a local splash park) for late July. We just had a community event yesterday and had several VBS families attend!
Here’s a new follow-up idea to us. We needed Wednesday night programming for children for the remainder of the summer. With all the wonderful left-over decorations from VBS we decided to continue the theme for Wednesday nights and call it VBS Continues. My wife wrote additional Bible Studies and found additional recreation and crafts that would fit within an hour. We did a good job presenting the VBS Continues to our visitors during VBS and sent a follow-up postcard during our down week following VBS. WOW! There were lots of visitors who loved our morning VBS who returned to our regular evening programming spot! Surely this has been done elsewhere with success. Are there any resources we can use for additional programming ideas? Next year it might be good to offer the idea along with suggestions to use the theme for a few additional weeks for additional Summer programming.
Steve this is a fantastic idea! I promise it will show up in a future post. There are typically more Bible study learning activities as well as recreation, crafts, and snack suggestions than most churches use during VBS, so these could easily be used during VBS Continues. LifeWay also produces a resource called Zip for Kids. It is a collection of Bible studies, music, learning activities, and recreation suggestions that can be used for a variety of ministry events including VBS. Several churches use the resources for Wednesday nights so it would work well. Thanks for a great suggestion that I am sure will benefit many churches.
I do VBS to Sunday School. We do prize drawings each night of VBS. we continue the prizes at the beginning of the Sunday School hour for the next 4 weeks. This is how I do it. The first Sunday following VBS, every child receives a prize (Oriental Trading), the next Sunday there is a drawing with 4 winners, the third Sunday after VBS there is two prizes and finally on the fourth Sunday there is just one prize.
We also change our Fellowship dinner to after VBS and anyone not having a church home is invited to Sunday School, Church service and Fellowship dinner.
We have done this for 3-4 years now, without much success, but this year we had a family come the following Sunday and they brought a friend!
I love vbs I hope it doesn’t go away forever because I want to be able to do it again before I move away from here vbs has changed me and I was inspired by the music and the songs and I still listen to them and do the dance I love vbs