4/7InkzHVUEQeEdU9vpc1tikzEhChrKmPfvXI-FSDBrBQ

Vacation Bible School

It’s VBS Time

Is VBS A Waste of Time and Money?

I was recently with friends my age. We were all children in the 50s and 60s. We began remembering summer Bible schools. We came from different denominational traditions, but we had one thing in common. Vacation Bible School was a pivotal start in our faith journeys. It wasn’t our youngest years that we remembered—the years when we pasted cotton puffs on construction paper to make sheep. It was our older years, when we put together skits and did service projects and just had a great time.

One friend commented that her family moved one summer and the Bible School she attended eased the disruption in her life. She had friends when she started school the next fall.

Bible School used to be two weeks long—long enough to build community, change faith habits and make an impact on a congregation.

The concept of VBS began to fade when mothers began working.

Soon the energy waned. A two-week school, staffed by volunteers, was too much like work.

With parents out of the house, older children had their summers scheduled. No longer able to volunteer, parents looked to enrich their children’s life with paid camps which would advance their child’s academic progress — sports camps and academic enrichment camps. Cost, when it’s not the church, is no object. These paid camps tend to challenge the youth and make it worth the parental sacrifice.

Instead of emulating the trend, beefing up their summer programs, and adjusting the economic model, churches slowly began to cut back or eliminate VBS.

Two weeks became five days, with instructional time limited to less than two hours. The impact of the school became negligible. Nothing replaced it.

Volunteers to work with older children are the hardest to recruit, so only the youngest children are now served.

The Church couldn’t do things they way they used to. We pretty much stopped doing anything but going through the motions. They made it easy for kids to stop coming at just the age when they need incentive to stay engaged.

Working together to solve problems has never been a strong point of the Church. The most common attempt was to go together to hold a community VBS and that benefited the host congregation more than the others. That sort of thinking soon died.

The value of VBS to a congregation is in the immersion, in building new faith awareness and engaging families. They are of real value when they are part of other programming.

When VBS is a short, stand-alone event aimed at only the youngest children, who are perhaps too young to even carry the memory into their adult lives, they are of little value.

There is barely enough time and energy to hold classes. Engaging in follow-up, the real value of a VBS,  is next to impossible.

The failure of VBS is a failure of the Church to adapt. We can’t do VBS the old way, so we won’t do it all or just create a minimal experience to say we are still doing it.

The core problems of VBS were never addressed.

Problem 1: Lack of volunteers

If VBS is your best and most promising outreach to the community, it might be worth  paying people and making sure they are trained to do a great job. In the church we tend to keep spending money on the same things (that aren’t working).

Problem 2: Busy kids

Instead of developing a more challenging summer program which would keep children challenged and engaged, we made it easy for them to drift away. Reversing this will be tough. Families find time for things that are worth their while.

Problem 3: Cost

Parents pay for all those other camps that they are sure will benefit their children. They just might be willing to pay for a summer faith program that offers the same opportunities for growth.

We believe that a faith-based summer program can still be a major asset to a congregation. It must be more professional in approach. Activities must be challenging. Families must be engaged and VBS must be part of larger church experience.

VBS has been neglected for several decades—decades of decline all around. It still has possibilities but reviving it will require some funding, at least initially. This will require church entities to work together—always a challenge, but so very needed.

VBS-aid

What if instead of congregations joining together to host a school, they joined together to train a team of leaders which would travel from congregation to congregation?

We put together a concept three summers ago which attracted interest from congregations. None of them wanted to pay even a modest sum to attempt it. Instead, they all did nothing that summer (and every summer since).

The hierarchy partners we approached would very much benefit from a cooperative program with congregations. It would build good will, which will eventually benefit them in their mission. They had other priorities, we were told. At the same time, they cried about few people entering vocations. They just couldn’t see that the program we were trying to develop would introduce church careers to youth. As it is, youth are absent from church life during the years they ponder their future.

We think the program is still worth trying. An experimental year could be funded for $100,000 and benefit eight to sixteen congregations that couldn’t run a program like this on their own. 

The concept calls for teams of trained teachers (college students) to provide the leadership to a congregation. Four to eight congregations in the same 20-mile radius  would share the expenses but have the benefits of the school being in their church. The traveling VBS-team will spend two weeks in each congregation.

Pooling the resources of several churches will make it affordable for all.

2×2 would still like to pioneer this concept. If your small church is worried about your future and want to take a new approach to revival, try to find a few other congregations in your general geographic area to see if VBS-aid might restore a summer ministry to your congregations and contact us.

It’s too late for this year. But if enough congregations commit by Christmas 2013, we’d love to put a first team together to test the concept. (The program is interdenominational.)

Here’s the basic information.

By the way, Redeemer had a six-week summer program for neighborhood children, so we have some experience.

How Many People Heard Your Sermon This Morning?

In dozens of churches near Philadelphia and hundreds or even thousands of churches across the country, hard-working pastors stood before their congregations this morning and delivered sermons to fewer than 50 people.

A conscientious pastor probably worked for days on that sermon. He or she probably spent the same amount of time on his or her sermon as far fewer pastors who delivered sermons to larger congregations.

Preaching is a major investment for every congregation whether they have 50 members or 1000 members—probably half the annual church budget.

Yet churches resist using the tools the modern era provides to preach the gospel to every corner of the world.

2×2, the web site that grew from Redeemer Lutheran Church’s exclusion from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, began with little experience with the internet. We had only a static web site which we rarely updated — just like the vast majority of churches who are concentrating on paying a pastor.

2x2virtualchurch.com became our new site.

2×2 studied the medium and followed recommended practices. We had no money to invest in outside help, so we learned how to do this ourselves.

Perhaps we were the perfect candidates for this evangelism frontier. We discovered that a small church can swim with the big fish!

Here is a mid-year report from the congregation SEPA Synod claims doesn’t exist (because they say so).

  • Every DAY 106 followers read our messages with our posts delivered to their email addresses. Huge potential for growth here!
  • Every WEEK an additional 250 or more come to our web site for information.
  • Every MONTH more than 1000 new readers find our site.
  • We’ve had 7000 visits this YEAR (in addition to our daily readers) and are on track to double that by the end of the year.

(Editorial update-Jan 16, 2013): All of these numbers have doubled since this was published five months ago!)

2×2 started strong in the Middle Atlantic states and California. In recent months our readership in Southern states is spiking. We’ve had readers in every state and regular readers in a dozen countries. Six congregations write to us weekly and share their ministry challenges and successes.

Topics which draw readers to 2×2 are (in order of popularity)

  • Object Lessons for Adults
  • Social Media
  • Small Congregation Ministry
  • Broader Church Issues
  • Vacation Bible School

We’ve learned that it is impossible to predict the popularity of a post. We had a Whoville theme party last January and the post about that still attracts search engine traffic several times each week. A post about a visit to a small church in a Philadelphia suburb and its pastor’s “brown bag” sermons for adults began attracting new readers daily, which led us to develop object lesson sermons.

Several seminaries have sent students to 2×2 for discussion topics.

2×2 has established both a mission voice and reach that rivals or surpasses mid-sized churches. We’ve done it on a shoestring budget. Another year to 18 months will no doubt add to our reach.

We will continue our experiment in modern evangelism.

How many people heard the sermon your church paid for this morning?

photo credit: Photomatt28 via photo pin cc

Blogging for Your Church This Summer

Many churches run on fumes all summer. Pity! Summer is the time of year that people tend to make big changes in their lives. They wait for summer to move and change jobs. They may begin their search for a new church home, right when many churches are all but closed, except for Sunday worship.

Consider this when planning summer ministry. There is a lot to think about. The church web site or blog is a good place to prepare for summer ministry.

Review your site and make sure that any summer events or services that might attract visitors are well-publicized and that the events are truly welcoming to new people. Explain the events on your web site as if the reader knows nothing about your church. If you are doing a good job with your web site or blog, many readers will be learning about your church for the first time.

From Advent in late November and December, to Easter in March or April, followed by the Ascension and Pentecost, all church activities revolve around events in the life of Christ. This is followed by the long church season of ordinary time or in many traditions the season of or after Pentecost. This is the longest season of the liturgical year (June through most of November) or about half the calendar year.

The lectionary typically explores the everyday ministry of Jesus during this time. It is an opportunity for your congregation to be creative.

As you blog this summer, begin with the church lectionary for ideas. Try to tie them into ministry. For example, if the gospel is about healing miracles, explore your congregation’s or denomination’s ministry to those dealing with illness.

Summer is often a time when the favorite hymns are sung. Explore the hymns of Pentecost. Look up the history of a hymn and share it. Run a poll on favorite hymns.

Look at the congregation’s calendar. Will you have a Vacation Bible School? Publicize it. Read the curriculum and share ideas from it. (Give proper credit!) You may not be able to get older children or adults involved during your VBS, but many VBS curriculums publish material for older kids and adults. Get a copy and write posts on the topics presented. Make sure every parent gets the link, so they can learn along with their children.

Scan the church calendar for picnics, service projects and church camp events. Publicize them beforehand. Follow up with photos and testimonials from participants.

In late summer, start to write about back-to-school events. Let people know that activities will soon resume. Work at attracting support for them.

Plan a Rally Day and start to publicize it.

Make sure that any reader who happens across your summer web site is introduced to your church at its most vibrant.

What to Do with Leftover, Gently Used VBS Materials

The internet served us well this week. A Baylor University student in Waco, Texas, found 2×2 and our interest in reviving Vacation Bible Schools in small congregations.

Virginia Smith served an internship through the Western Kansas Conference of the United Methodist Church. They trained four college students to provide VBS leadership to five congregations last summer. Virginia reported that the smallest group they worked with had about 15 students and the largest had between 50 and 60.

We had a long chat about the VBS-aid concept which 2×2 is promoting and the similarities and differences to the Kansas project.

The experience prompted her to start a web-based service project. She shared her web site with us: vbs247.webs.com

Virginia collects leftover VBS curriculum from any denomination or publisher. She reviews the material to assess the condition for acceptable reuse. She photographs the material and adds the items to her web catalog. Congregations can visit the site and purchase the materials for less than half the original price. The items are priced by condition. Unsuitable items are not sold.

The site does not seek to make a profit. The cost of materials goes toward running the web site and handling the materials.

If you are a small church and think you cannot afford pricey VBS materials, visit Virginia’s web site.

VBS-Aid Fosters Team Ministry

2×2 was recently in conversation with a pastor researching the concept of team ministry. He was interested in our VBS-aid program.

Team Ministry is a concept which we think must be explored. It answers many of the challenges small churches face and has great promise. The problem is that it flies against the tradition of the entire parish life revolving around the congregation’s relationship with one pastor (and adding more pastors only as the congregation grows). This age-old model of the church is foundering because small churches cannot afford the salaries all pastors expect, regardless of the number of people supporting a ministry.

The modern era faces another challenge which team ministries can address. Modern ministry requires leadership with multiple skill sets. It is not likely that any congregation, much less the smaller congregations, will find one pastor who can provide all the services they need.

Team ministry is worth exploring for any mission-minded congregations, but especially for those who fear they have no future.

They may face some obstacles. Pastors may feel threatened by outsiders influencing their parish. Congregations might share some distrust. Programs like this aren’t in the current budgets and congregations may be hesitant to fund something “different.”

VBS-aid is an ideal way to give team ministry a try. VBS-aid trains teams of 4-8 people to travel to several churches during the summer to provide leadership for Bible School outreach programs. The program calls for the congregation and its leadership to work with the team to do upfront recruitment and to put a fall program in place so that there is a reason for VBS newcomers to return. VBS-aid pledges to work and help train congregation members, so that the congregation grows its skills while they have some hands-on help to get them started.

Congregations will work with VBS-aid for about two months — preparation, training and recruitment; the two-week Bible School, and follow up. Then they are gone — until next year, if the congregation liked the program. VBS-aid connects congregations, church camps, seminaries, and the community. A lot of talents and skills are made available for a minimal investment ($5000-$7500 — far less than it would cost to hire and train part- or full-time help). The congregation will have had a taste for team ministry and may begin to think of other ways to team with the greater church and the community in mission.

We encourage congregations to visit (www.vbsaid.com) and start to think if the summer of 2012 might be the summer to get your feet wet with team ministry. Talk about it in your congregation and plan to budget for it now. Contact us for more information. We will be glad to make a presentation to your congregational leaders.