It’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.
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?

I apologize for not telling you earlier. Once you post your VBS information on LifeWay’s “Find a VBS” site,  it will take approximately 24 hours for the information to appear on the site.

With the biggest week of VBS just 28 days away, are you certain you have spread the word every way possible?  How about the free posting on LifeWay’s “Find a VBS” site?

Seriously, one of the most under utilized ways of publicizing VBS is online. For a moment think about the online possibilities that stretch beyond your church web page. What about community calendars, church member blogs, tweets, and Facebook? And what about LifeWay’s “Find a VBS” site?

Click here and check it out!

You might be surprised at the number of phone calls I receive each summer from parents looking for Bible schools in their community.

Often it is a family who has just moved to the community and has not yet established a church home. Their kids went to VBS every year in their previous community and want a similar experience in their new community.

Sometimes it is a parent who has heard about VBS but doesn’t know anything about it. They Google VBS, and end up at LifeWay’s VBS. At which point they make a phone call to LifeWay’s corporate office and the call is directed to me.

When I receive these calls I frantically go to lifeway.com/vbs. Click on Events. And then click on Find a VBS. Since I can search by by city name and/or zip code the search is quick and easy – at least until there are no entries found.

No entries found means churches in the community did not take advantage of this free opportunity to publicize their Bible schools. Don’t be one of those churches – post your VBS dates today by clicking here.

Please make sure all the information is correct before you hit submit. It is impossible for you to change the information once you hit submit. The only way to make changes is to send me an e-mail (jerry.wooley@lifeway.com) with the corrected info. So three cheers for checking twice and submitting once!

If at first your information can not be found, don’t panic! Once you submit your information it will take up to 24 hours to appear.

Looking forward to seeing your VBS posted today!

This got me to thinking about ways LifeWay VBS curriculum helps face those limitations in a small church, or just those doing VBS in tight spaces or with a tight budget. Here are a few things to remember when attempting to conquer those limitations:

1. A little goes a long way: if you have a small space and not much money to decorate it, things like the Super Duper Sized Backdrop can pretty much fill the backdrop of a Worship Rally space or even a Bible study room. It is complete in and of itself, or can connect to another backdrop to expand it, depending on the size of your space. It’s simple, doesn’t take a lot of volunteers to get it on the wall, and sets the mood since it was designed specifically for the VBS theme.

3. The leader packs often have all that’s needed to make the teacher look he or she really tried hard with visuals that help kids stay connected with that day’s Bible truths.

4. Clear outlines, information on how to prepare, and facts about the age group the teacher will be teaching help even inexperienced teachers prepare to succeed. I know that helped me when I first started teaching at Witt Baptist Church (see last week’s post) when I had little idea of what I was doing, but knew my church was in great need of volunteers. This helps might help you encourage a recruit who says they don’t know enough to actually teach a class, though they really do want to help.

These are just a few things I’ve noticed that can help small churches succeed with LifeWay’s VBS. What other helpful things have you seen? What else would be helpful to you as your prepare for VBS?