New expressions of VBS
Churches get creative with summer outreach programs, post-covid.
This past summer, Vacation Bible School (VBS) was back in full swing at our church for the first time since the pandemic. Registration was full. T-shirts were made, or dug out of the back storage room. And, as I noticed while checking out VBS programs run in 2023 across Canada, summer programming looks a little different than it used to.
VBS has a long history. Starting almost 150 years ago, it began at a time when home and church took joint responsibility for childhood education. The first week-long Bible schools during summer breaks were created to prevent children from being idle. The programs were praised by pastors and local leaders and have been a staple in many church budgets and communities ever since.
During the pandemic when church couldn’t operate as normal, many families in our community sorely missed VBS. The change in operations also affected Christian publishing houses such as Lifeway Christian Resources. Lifeway’s budget shrank by 10 percent during covid, which it blamed on an inability to market and sell church camp materials. The publishing giant has since fully recovered, but its annual loss in revenue was significant, as reported recently by Christianity Today. And it’s not surprising that the numbers are large: I estimate VBS spending in North America to be around $500 million annually for programs, crafts and materials. This is based on 440,000 churches in North America, almost half of which offered a VBS program this summer, spending between $3,000 and $4,000 each. This doesn’t account for volunteer expenses.
Other changes
Today there’s a wide range of topic-specific curriculum available. Churches with a specific identity in their community can reinforce that with corresponding material. Are you a gardening church? If so, you can find material that is nature themed. There’s sports, science and Food Truck curriculum – it all depends on what kind of VBS your church wants to run.
The time frame has shifted from its earlier patterns, too. Not all options are just one week; some programs run for three or four weeks, others for two weekends. Others have added Sunday School curriculum that goes with the VBS program, with content for adults included. That aligns with another fundamental change: VBS is no longer just about the kids. Churches want to connect with parents, too.
When I interviewed a dozen VBS planners, many of them told me that their local community, even more than the participating kids, was the focus. Others see it as a way to get church members involved. As one planner said, “we are a small church in a remote community. We need EVERYONE to help pull off VBS.” To this end, a church in Western Michigan decided to try hosting a variation of VBS in a local park. They didn’t advertise, they just assembled five or six volunteers to help them with setting up, running the programs and cleaning up. On a Wednesday night, they would go to the park and set up tables. One table would be for crafts. Another would be for face painting, and someone else would tell stories in the gazebo.
That first week, a few children walked up, holding a parent’s hand, asking, “Can I have my face painted?” The answer came back: “Why, of course!” And off they would go. No registration. No take-home cards. Kids and parents were invited to check out the other tables, and to return in two weeks. The first time there were two families – four kids in total. By week five, they had connected with over a dozen families and 20 or so children. Two families ended up joining the church.
Creative iterations
I had a chance to sit down with Laura and James, Crossfit business owners in Bowmanville, Ontario. The couple wrote their own lessons and designed corresponding exercises for a summer camp they called “Faith and Fitness.” It’s essentially a para-church VBS program, in which kids learned about their bodies, exercise and diet through the biblical narratives of Daniel and Samson. Laura and James borrowed soccer supplies from their children’s Christian school for outdoor play, but they didn’t need much – their own facility’s ropes course and ninja activities were already perfect for the age range advertised. The program ran for four days twice this summer, hosting about 60 kids in total. There was a cost to attend Faith and Fitness, but it was affordable.
When I asked Laura if she thought of their camp as a VBS, she said, “We don’t have a church that it is connected to. I suppose we just want kids to know that there are Christians out there everywhere and that believing in God impacts more than your soul; it affects your body, too.” Their hope is to support other VBS programs in the area by running Faith and Fitness in the afternoons next summer, matching up with planned VBS programs in the morning at local churches.
Rock walls, ninja training and food trucks are probably not what Lifeway Christian Resources or D. T. Miles, the pioneer of the first VBS in the 1890’s, had in mind. Yet like many practices in the post-pandemic church, the people of God are looking for new ways of doing children’s ministry or reforming old practices in order to make meaningful community connections. As churches across North America found this summer, there are many good reasons to host VBS again. It’s a reminder to communities, and to ourselves, that church is a place for faith, families, friends – and fun!
