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6 Tips You Need for Leading VBS Training

mary

VBS training time is here! Are you a leader who likes to lead from behind-the-scenes and is a little intimated by training? Are you a leader who has been training people for years and years and just needs something to make it fresh? Maybe this is your first try at training your church leaders to lead VBS and you just need some tips to do so. Here are 6 tips to consider when leading a VBS training session… just to get the conversation going.


1. Start and end when you say you will.
Build trust and respect with your teachers now.
2. Get to know your teachers.
If you want your teachers to learn how to build relationships with the kids in the VBS class, make sure to be building relationships with them.
3. Don’t be all business.
VBS is fun! Make sure to work some fun into your training!
4. Empower other leaders.
If you feel like it is important to talk through what will happen at recreation or during missions, allow those teachers to speak to that. Empower every teacher by giving them your expectations and what success at VBS looks like, which is spending time with kids teaching them about Jesus, so that they may see Him and desire to follow Him!
5. Give leaders specific ways to pray.
Pass out a prayer calendar that has a specific thing to pray for each day between training and VBS. Pray for teachers as they prepare, kids as they get excited to come, and parents as kids go home and tell them about what they learned.
6. Consider ways to include the entire church.
Allow your volunteers to help you think about as many ways as possible to get your entire church involved in VBS. Share your prayer calendar with the church, ask them to come to the week’s night of celebration and get to know some of the families, or have them prayer walk through the church the day before VBS begins. There are tons of ways to include your church, so think through some ways to do so and make it happen!

If you missed last week’s post about training, find it here.

What is the best tip you can share with us about leading a VBS training session?

Get the Most Out of VBS Training

maryIt’s that time of year! You have probably already planned a date to train all of your volunteers for VBS. Training is pivotal to a successful week of kids learning about Jesus and building discipleship relationships with leaders. Here are 6 quick tips to help you spend your time wisely during training.

1. Cast vision instead of teaching details.photo 1
Begin with prayer and remind teachers that more than great decorations, seamless transitions, and a ton of fun that will be had at VBS, the ultimate goal is to help children see Jesus. Trust your teachers to go home and read their curriculum, or even better, get it to them prior to training and have them study up. Ask them to bring you their questions during training (but make sure they know they can send you questions anytime, both before and after training as well). Cover those things that they won’t learn from their curriculum plan. Explain how your church may do things a little differently from what they will read and explain the goals and purpose of why you do VBS… It will be a successful week if kids leave having had a life-altering experience with Jesus – rather that be learning more about Him than they knew before, entering into a relationship with Him, or being challenged to live it out and tell their friends.
2. Create the atmosphere in the training room that you expect them to create in their rooms.
The room itself should train your leaders and show them your expectations for their rooms. Explain how to use the entire room and have kids get up, sit down, and move around throughout the lesson to keep them engaged.
3. Teach them how to connect with children and talk about the Bible content. Don’t just run through the stories.
Teachers will read through the stories and prepare well. Help them also prepare well to really connect with kids by asking them questions about their lives, finding common interests, and really listening as they speak. Help them to understand how to be relational while moving through rotations and during the Bible story lesson and how to balance it with staying on task.
4. Don’t waste time that doesn’t have to be wasted.
If each volunteer is getting a shirt, collect sizes, label beforehand with masking tape, and hand it to them with their curriculum as they walk in the door. Give each volunteer a sheet (or send an email prior to training.. or both for those who forget to check their email) detailing what room they will teach in, what their rotation schedule will be, drop off and pick up details, security and safety procedures, and any other pertinent information that they will need.
5. Video content and music is great, but make sure you are very comfortable with using the equipment to play these.
Always have a plan B since technology doesn’t always cooperate like we would like it to.
6. Give teachers time to connect with the other teachers in their age group to brainstorm ideas, choose activities, and determine responsibilities within their classroom. Hopefully, your teachers will come prepared with ideas. This time will be so valuable for them to begin to put some serious planning in for the week. They can go see the room, determine when they will all come to the church to decorate, and begin to pray over their rooms.

What else will you be covering in your training that might help other churches plan their training time?

Getting your Whole Church Involved in VBS

marySo, you are looking for VBS volunteers…

You may have exhausted your resources of those that are teachers, the youth, and those that are retired who can give a week to serve. You may have every teaching slot filled with a few to spare or you may be far from having a full roster, but more help is always good, and more participation means more buy in by the members of your church.

Here are 8 ways to get more of the congregation involved:

  1. Get Sunday school classes to help prepare crafts. Make a party out of it!
  2. Pair someone (or a few someones) who cannot serve during the week of VBS with a teacher. Have that person help decorate, prepare supplies, and pray specifically for the kids that will be in that classroom.
  3. Give the congregation a prayer list for VBS and ask them to pledge to be faithful in praying for the requests before, during, and even after VBS.
  4. Encourage your entire church to come to the Family Night/Week’s Celebration. Ask them to be very intentional in connection with families during that time. Ask them to pray beforehand for opportunities to get to know a family and to minister to them specifically.
  5. Designate a room for prayer during the week of VBS. Staff the prayer room throughout the day and night, having the congregation pick an hour or a half-hour to pray through the list of children who are attending VBS, the list of teachers, the activities they will be completing, and that the Holy Spirit would move.
  6. Remind your congregation that bringing in needed supplies and praying for VBS is being a huge part of kids hearing the Gospel! Just because they can’t teach during the week doesn’t mean they are not making a difference.
  7. Continue to cast the vision that VBS is an opportunity to reach the families of your community. Talk about the importance of connecting with the families frequently from the pulpit even now.
  8. Encourage those who weren’t teachers to join those who were in follow-up. Challenge the congregation to make connections with families during the week’s celebration and to be a part of the follow-up that they receive.

What ways do you involve the entirety of your church in serving the community during VBS? What other helpful tips can you share with us?

Kids and Discipleship

mary
Prior to working with the VBS team, I was a CentriKid Camp Specialist. One of my favorite job responsibilities in this role was interviewing potential staff. However, after a few days of interviewing, I had a very clear picture of what discipleship in the church 10 years ago looked like. It seemed that four out of every five had a story that went something like this:

“I believed and prayed a prayer when I was (insert age between 6-12). I know that I truly believed then, but I didn’t really understand the decision I was making. It wasn’t until I got into youth and my youth minister really helped me understand what it meant to follow Christ that I think I my faith really became real.”

Heartbreaking. This is what I’m hearing: The Holy Spirit moved in my life and I believed in Jesus. I made a decision and asked Jesus to be in control of my life, but I didn’t know everything that I know now. I didn’t have anyone walking beside me, so I didn’t know that it’s ok to not know everything. No one explained to me how to trust Jesus or follow Him daily. No one taught me to have a quiet time. No one discipled me.

May this never be in your children’s ministry or the lives of the children that you parent! Here are 3 practical things you can do today to begin discipling your kids.

  1. Talk about Jesus and what He is doing in your life. God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit should be frequent in your vocabulary.
  2. Follow up after Bible teaching. If your kids went to Sunday school, a Disciple Now weekend, or any other place teaching happens, ask questions. Help them process what they learned by asking them to rehash it for you.
  3. Most importantly, be a disciple yourself. One of my favorite quotes is from David Platt on discipleship: “Making disciples is a supernatural overflow of being a disciple.” Serve and teach your kids out of the overflow of what God is teaching you through your time with Him. I know you are so busy, but this is pivotal to make time for. You can do it! I believe in you. I know having 168 hours in a week is a staggering picture… but use yours wisely!

In case you missed it, here’s an earlier post about discipleship:
http://blog.lifeway.com/vbs/2013/02/28/training-parents-in-discipleship/

3 Ways to Equip Parents to Prepare Kids for attending VBS

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Spiritual formation does not happen in one week at VBS, however, they can grow in leaps and bounds during a week of VBS with the right support and discipleship at home. Kids need to know that Jesus is not just for church or VBS. Following Jesus transforms the entire life of a believer, and kids need to see that Jesus is an integral part of each piece of your life, including your home life. Here’s three practical ways that you can equip parents to prepare their kids for attending VBS, all while establishing or continuing discipleship in the home:

1. Send home an outline of what kids will study each day. 

Guide parents to ask their children what they know about the Biblical characters that will be studied. Ask parents to get a good feel of where their kids are on understanding the Bible stories and the Gospel message prior to VBS so they can ask similar questions afterward and evaluate their learning, clearing up any misunderstandings or questions they may have.

2. Even now, you can begin to discuss with them what to expect out of the experience.

Meet with parents or send home some information about what a normal day at VBS looks like. The more comfortable a child new to VBS or new to specific teachers, the more receptive they will be to the message being taught. Tell children that you know the Bible is true. Tell children that they will learn more about Jesus at VBS and explain why you follow Him and what it means to do that.

3. Explain the phrases they may hear at VBS.

Train teachers well to not use confusing statements like, “ask Jesus into your heart,” and “Jesus lives in me.” Children, especially younger children, are very concrete in their thinking. These phrases sound scary — Does that require surgery? Communicate with parents what they may hear like “asking Jesus to be in control of your life” or “following Jesus.” Explain what these mean prior to VBS and your child will have a better grasp on the message that is being presented…and who knows what great conversations may come of it!?

How do you prepare the kids at church or your own kids for VBS?

Training Parents in Discipleship

DiscipleshipThere are 168 dots in this image, one for every hour of the week in a child’s life. Many of those hours are spent sleeping or at school, but what about the other hours during the week?

As church leaders, we are lucky if we get to see kids 2 hours per week. In a lot of cases, this is the only spiritual investment that kids receive. This is not only true in those households where church is just a place that parents drop off their kids so they can have some peace and quiet, but it is even true in the most Bible-believing, church-going families.

Why? Here are 3 misconceptions most parents in the church hold:

  1. Most parents believe kids will learn all they need to know at church. Two hours is plenty of time to build foundations and understandings of the biggest spiritual concepts. Teaching children to follow Jesus is the church’s responsibility anyway.
  2. Most parents believe they aren’t capable. They think that if they don’t teach Sunday school or preach, they don’t have the skills or don’t know enough about the Bible to teach their children to follow Jesus.
  3. Most parents fear failure. If their child falls away from the church later in life they are afraid that they will be responsible.

Why does this matter to you?
Whether you are a parent, a VBS director or volunteer, a children’s minister, or a Sunday school teacher, the spiritual development of children is something that you have a direct hand in both in the classroom and through the relationships that you have with their parents. Discipleship is not something that parents will learn to do in a quick training session. As you seek to train parents to disciple their children, here are a few good starting points:

  1. What can you send home that can start a conversation about Jesus?
  2. Encourage parents. Help them understand that they don’t have to have all the answers. They don’t have to have a family devotion time. That fits some families and doesn’t fit others. Do what fits your family. Ask them to start by trying to point to Jesus in one conversation that they have with their kids each day.
  3. Remind parents that failure is not a possibility. Their job as a parent is to point their children to Christ. It is the Holy Spirit’s working that calls them to Jesus and creates a growing relationship with Him.
  4. Create ways for parents to network and direct them to talk about how they are pointing their kids to Christ. Hold each other accountable and partner with each other.
  5. Pray, pray, pray. Raising kids is hard work. Pray for parents and remind them that they are not alone.