Some of my warmest VBS memories are based in a 6,200 square foot church facility with a body of about 100 in most worship services and 50 in Sunday School.

It’s where I learned an important lesson: a large building, budget, and body aren’t necessary for VBS. What’s needed is a committed church family and God’s blessing.

It’s also the church where my dad is the pastor and one of my best friends is the VBS director. I was a member before moving to Nashville. There. Biases disclaimed.

I’ve long been amazed at how Witt Baptist Church nails VBS. It is a small, traditional church with a rural background. Last summer, their average VBS attendance was 139, with a total of 189. Witt borrowed a second bus for transportation.

VBS was a huge success, as usual.

So I asked my dad, Dr. Doug Brown and director Tiffany Taylor how they and their volunteers make VBS work in a small church.

A key ingredient is that Witt is a close-knit family and values VBS.

“The general church feeling regarding VBS is one of excitement and anticipation. VBS is near the top of our priority in ministry and is the most effective thing that we do in reaching children,” my dad said.

Reasons for this include the ability to share the gospel with more children and parents, the chance to bring the church together as a team, and the chance to get visitors involved.

“My favorite thing about VBS is the way that everyone comes together to carry out this ministry,” he said.

Everyone gets involved in Witt Baptist Church’s VBS.

One of the ways the church stretches a thin budget is by borrowing decorations from a larger church each year, then passing them on.

The church’s teamwork is also vital.

“VBS workers often use some of their personal funds/items as they carry out their ministry,” he said.

The generosity during this time is a beautiful thing to see.

“I think Witt is extremely blessed in that we have members who see the impact that Vacation Bible School has on children,” said Tiffany, “and … in that our workers and volunteers and teachers …see it as … an opportunity of worship.”

There are challenges to VBS in a small church.

Tiffany said they overcome recruitment challenges with the family atmosphere.

“It does require personal interaction … you have to ask people face to face.”

They begin recruiting early, pray, ask God to bring individuals to mind, build excitement about VBS, and thank volunteers with words and small gifts.

“Space is our biggest problem,” Tiffany said describing the sometimes-overwhelming noise level in the small building.

The main solution is to encourage respect for other classes, while keeping perspective.

“They’re kids having fun learning about Jesus,” she said. “They’re excited; you should be too. It’s about letting go of the reins a little bit and knowing when to pull back as well.”

“When it comes down to game time and it’s the week of and everything’s got to go just according to plan … even if it’s not, when you see a hundred kids running around just excited to be there it puts everything in perspective,” she said.

I asked for advice and encouragement for a small church doubting if trying VBS would be successful and worthwhile.

“It’s definitely worth it… to get that week of sharing the gospel with kids … that may be the only time they hear it until next year when you do it again,” Tiffany said. “So this may be the only time that your church, no matter how small, can plant major seeds.”

My dad agreed that “VBS is worth all the time, effort, and resources that we muster. It is an opportunity to reach out to families that do not normally attend church. Furthermore, VBS is an opportunity to build a sense of unity and purpose in your church. Also VBS is an opportunity to include worship attenders as volunteers and help them feel a sense of belonged-ness. I would also commend a prayerful dependence on God and his ability to help VBS to be a success… God always helps us know that the effort has been worthwhile when a child responds in faith, a family has been encouraged or a church member finds their niche in ministry.”

Do you attend a small church? Do you have any tips for how to make VBS a success? Maybe you’re in a larger church. How can you encourage some of the smaller churches in your area? Let us know in the comments! And stay tuned next week for part two- tips for using LifeWay curriculum to make VBS a success in a small church.

For previous posts in this series: Part 1 | Part 2

We couldn’t have been more excited about the results of weeks of planning and preparation. We ultimately landed on doing our VBS from 10AM-Noon each day of Spring Break. Our rotations consisted of the bible story, crafts, snack, music, and recreation. The volunteers that signed up to help overwhelmed our team leader. Without their willingness, hard work, and dedication, we would not have been able to do what we did. For example, we had a couple of guys from our church who also work at a local workout facility and they transformed some of their activities and workouts they do with their clients and made them kid-friendly. They loved it! We also had a small team from Union University (in Jackson, TN) come and spend the week with us and serve as team leaders for the different grade groups.

Like many churches, we had a very small budget to work with. So we had to be creative. We opted to not spend dollars on many decorations, but instead, focus on the essentials while making sure the kids had fun while they were with us. One cool and fairly cheap idea we had was for each group to have a different color bandana – so we would be able to instantly know who was a part of what group. It worked out really well!

The week was capped off with a family event. We desired to be very intentional. We wanted the parents to hear directly from their kids what they learned throughout the week, and we wanted members from our church to connect with these new families. So on the last day, we asked parents to arrive at 11:30AM. They came in and we all gathered in a circle and our kids (along with our worship leader) sang some of the songs they learned throughout the week. The kids also shared about the different crafts they made and the bible story that went along with each craft. We ended the event by providing Chick-Fil-A box lunches for everyone! Our volunteers and church members intentionally spread out among the different families to have conversations with the kids and parents about what they learned as well as just getting to know them. We loved getting to meet new friends and hopefully by connecting in this way, as families might visit our church, they’ll have a familiar, friendly face when they show up on Sunday.

With over 40 kids taking part and getting to meet over 20 new families, we considered our first ever Spring Break VBS a success. It took tons of planning, preparation, and time to make it happen, and now we continue to pray that the Gospel message we shared each day would take root in the homes of these 20+ families and that the Lord would soon draw them to our church. Praise God for his provision and his grace! He showed up in a big way during our VBS and we are already looking forward to what He has in store for us in the future!!

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!

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