If you missed last week’s post, CLICK HERE to catch up on our church’s story of how the idea of our Spring Break VBS was born.

Our location was set. Now the promotion and planning needed to take place. We had never done something like this before. Our church is only 2 years old and not being as established in our community, we have certain challenges that we know we have to overcome.

One of the biggest helps that we had was LifeWay’s Backyard Kids Club Director Guide. Like I mentioned before, we had never planned a VBS before, so this simple guide literally saved us hundreds of hours of putting things together. From the promotional ideas to planning our schedule, activities, rotations, etc. it had us covered. I remember our pastor saying it took out a lot of the guess work and mystery of what we needed to do. Although we weren’t doing a Backyard Kids Club per-say, all of the principles were still very applicable. And although we adapted a lot of the ideas from the guide because our context was different, it was a solid foundation and starting point.

We decided to concentrate on a limited number of families to reach. Like I mentioned in my previous post, the school was literally within 1-2 miles of over 3500 families. So we used the power of postal codes and postal routes to send out a postcard to a specific group of homes. We spent time passing out water bottles at our YMCA (where our church meets), having conversations with families in the surrounding neighborhood of the school, and getting the word out via our church member’s social media channels. We had to be very intentional about our promotion because our church is only 2 years old and not as established as most churches in our community. We wanted to target specific neighborhoods surrounding the school, and so we made sure those specific families knew who Redeemer Church was and what was taking place at the school just down the road.

Several weeks of promotional work was now complete. Together as a church family, we spent time in prayer asking God to draw families to our Spring Break VBS. We were never concerned about how many people would come, but that the Lord would bring those who needed to come and that we would get an opportunity to share the Gospel message and story of redemption to those who have not heard what Jesus has done for them.

Next week, I”ll wrap up our story and share what God did during our week of VBS. Stay tuned!

Want to win an iPad mini and free Bible Studies for Life for an entire year? Click here to learn more! Hurry! You only have until Thursday to enter!

You’ve heard us talk about it before– coming in the Fall, the same trustworthy content you love is coming to your Sunday School classes in a new and improved format. Bible Studies for Life: Kids is focused on discipling kids and strengthening families. It’s great as a stand alone resource to strengthen families in your kids ministry, but it’s also the perfect choice if you want to align the biblical concepts your kids, students, and adults are studying each week. Multiple translations are available (view options here) and it will be available in print and digital format to make things easier for you!

Throughout the week, we’ll be telling you more about the new changes and neat features you can expect to see when Bible Studies for Life launches this fall.

And to celebrate the upcoming launch, we’re giving away an iPad mini plus an entire year of Bible Studies for Life for your whole church!

Do you want in on that giveaway? Click here to learn more. Hurry! The giveaway ends this Thursday night!