VBS

Our second summer event is Vacation Bible School. I know what you are thinking. Not exactly a new and exciting event that no one has ever done, but for us, it simply works. I have heard a lot of children' s pastors who are against Vacation Bible School because the people in their cities travel around from VBS to VBS looking for "cheap childcare" for their kids. I know this is also true here in Frisco, but we do it anyway for these reasons:

1. Scripture tells us that God's word does not return "void". Why wouldn't we want to take every opportunity we have to share Christ's love with the kids of our community. I know that we in the church world like to get the most "bang for our buck", but what greater investment could we make than sharing the word of God with a child. Do I really need to rehash all the studies of the importance of accepting Christ as a child?

2. For us it works as a great first step for people to experience our kid's ministry. We had 800+ kids on campus each day this year for VBS. There were more kids here each day of VBS than we had on Easter weekend!! Needless to say, many of them were visitors. I am not sure of the exact number, but we registered around 1000 different kids for this event. We have seen dozens of families come and experience Hope as a result of their initial experience at VBS. Sounds like a pretty good return on investment to me.

3. There is no greater way for us to get new volunteers flowing into our kids ministry. We require a massive volunteer staff to pull VBS off effectively, and most of those volunteers are new to working with kids at Hope. We get them on board for a week, and many of them stick around and help us out on a regular basis afterwards. It is awesome to hear people tell their stories of how working VBS helped them connect to Hope and to the kids ministry for the first time.

4. We do a family night at the end of VBS each year (on Thursday night because we only do a 4 day VBS). This is a huge opportunity to have moms, dads, grandparents, and brothers/sisters come to the church. This year we ran two services and gave away a ton of prizes. This was a great opportunity for our Pastors and staff to show the community that we really do care for them.

I have always used Group's VBS curriculum. It is well done, and allows for kids to move from station to station. We really enjoyed VBS this year. Let me know if you have any questions!