Posts Tagged ‘VBS’
The Reinvention of VBS March 9th, 2009
I was blessed to grow up with VBS and it was always a highlight of my summers. So, about 15 years ago when I began children’s ministry it was a natural part of my ministry plan. Over the years I’ve been a part of some incredible VBS programs. Kids loved coming, they brought their friends and we had a great opportunity to share Jesus with kids in a creative way. But several years ago I began to see a shift. Even though the quality of our VBS program was getting better and better, and kids and parents loved what we were doing, attendance began to drop off.
As I began to talk to parents and volunteers and ask questions I discovered the problem. The two main VBS formats don’t work well for today’s families. (I believe they are working well in places but not overall) The most popular format has been a 9 am to noon program. As our culture shifts the number of single-parent homes and dual-income families is on the rise. A morning program is impractical for these families and they now make up a majority of our target audience.
Many churches have moved to an evening program to allow these families to attend. It also makes recruiting easier. And I expect the latter is the main reason for the rise of evening VBS programs. At face value this sounds like a good solution. The drawback is that with an evening program most of the people who come are already committed to your church. After a day of work, picking up the kids, fixing dinner and cleaning up, most families don’t want to get back out. And the evidence is that they don’t.
When I started at Brookwood a couple of years ago we had a choice to make. We could either ditch summer programming and pass up an opportunity or find a new way to do VBS. As you can probably guess from the title of this post, we decided to reinvent VBS.
In our reinvention we began with the need. Most families need some type of daytime childcare in the summer. So whatever we did would need to have a full day option. The core of VBS; the large group program, Bible teaching, crafts, recreation, etc… were still very viable, so we decided to keep that. In order to make it feasible and have enough help we would need a combination of volunteer and paid leaders. Finally, for a program of this scale to be affordable for a church there would have to be a cost to the participant.
What we ended up with was “Adventure Week.” Here’s how it works
Schedule
We decided to offer the best of both worlds. Our base program runs from 9 am to 2 pm. This portion of the day looks a lot like a seriously amped up VBS with extended large group programming, sites that run 30 minutes instead of 20 minutes and the addition of a hot lunch. We also have an outside program come in for one of our sites. Last year we had “Mad Science” this year we’ve invited “Wildlife Wonders.” For those who need a full day option we offer early and after care. Early care runs from 7:30 am to 9 am and after care runs from 2 pm to 6 pm. Early and after care have their own programming that is an extension of the main program, though they are more laid back.
Leadership
Our children’s ministry team and volunteers lead the 9-2 portion of Adventure Week. I was worried at first that the additional two hours would be a hindrance to volunteers, but we didn’t experience that. Early and after care are led by paid staff. For us, many of these guys were part of our childcare staff augmented with older teens.
Cost
Everyone attends the 9-2 portion of Adventure Week for a cost of $50. Early care is an additional $25 and after care is additional $50. So, if a child attends the full day the cost is $125. In our area that’s $10 less than YMCA day camp. We give most of our volunteers a 25% discount. Other volunteers with a larger role get a 50% or 100% discount. We don’t make any money from Adventure Week. Registration covers about 75% of our cost with the remaining 25% coming from our children’s ministry budget.
Of course, when we introduced a cost nobody complained. (and if you’ll buy that… ) Truth is, we had some complaints (oddly enough someone from another church who had no intention of attending Adventure Week called to “set us straight.”) but most people realized that the cost was a bargain for what they were getting. My experience has been, that it’s usually only “church people” who expect to get stuff for free. Most of our community expects to pay for things.
Result
Our first year of Adventure Week was an incredible success. We planned to start small without much promotion and registration still sold out. We had plenty of leaders and the program was incredible. The feedback from parents and volunteers was overwhelmingly positive. About 25% of our attendees took advantage of our full day option. This year we’re increasing our capacity by 50%. We’d do more but we don’t want to outpace our volunteer leadership. Registration opened last week and it appears we’ll sell out again this year.
I realize that this is not groundbreaking, but it’s working for us. I know there are lots of other successful summer ministry ideas out there. I’d love to hear what’s working for you. So, take a minute and leave a comment to let us know how you’re reaching kids over the summer.
Tags: Adventure Week, Brookwood Church, Brookwood Kids, Children, Children's Ministry, ministry, Swamp Stomp, VBS, Volunteers
Posted in Adventure Week, Blog, Children's Ministry | Comments (0)
Swamp Stomp is coming February 26th, 2009
It’s almost that time. Registration for Adventure Week starts this Sunday. Here’s a look at our second promo trailer.
Our creative team had a lot fun making these promos. One of the great things about children’s ministry is that it’s seldom boring. One day your working on a volunteer assimilation process. The next day your dressed as a redneck (not a big stretch for me) standing knee deep in mud in 20 degree weather. If you look closely you can see the chunks of ice in the “swamp.” We actually had to break though a layer of ice to get the shot of Bubba and Cletus standing in the mud. Gotta love it. 
Tags: Adventure Week, Brookwood Church, Brookwood Kids, Children, Children's Ministry, Crocodile Dock, Swamp Stomp, VBS
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Swamp Stomp Trailer February 21st, 2009
Hard to believe we’re already well into planning our summer Adventure Week. This year our theme is Swamp Stomp. JC and I will go from the German (or Jamican when our accents slipped) scientists Hanz and Franz to Bubba and Cletus who are, shall we say, a little less refined. This is going to be one incredible week. Here’s a teaser trailer to set the mood. Enjoy!
Tags: Adventure Week, Brookwood Church, Brookwood Kids, Children's Ministry, Crocodile Dock, VBS
Posted in Adventure Week, Children's Ministry | Comments (0)