For many families the week of VBS is the first and possibly only connection they will have with your church or any Christian church. It is a new beginning for both the families and the church. Growing these relationships is not the responsibility of the unchurched families. It is our responsibility! It is the responsibility of the church!

Recently I wrote about the importance of replacing our way of thinking about follow-up – as a simple postcard or one-time phone call – with the goal of making continued connections.  This goes way beyond a simple “thanks for coming to VBS” into a series of actions resulting in ongoing life-impacting relationships.

While building a relationship is an ongoing process of connections built on top of connections, there must be a beginning. For most of us the beginning step is the age-old idea of follow-up – making that initial contact with guests and anyone making a salvation decision during VBS. The problem for most of us is that the initial contact is also the last or only contact.

As you start preparing for these contacts, consider the following four levels or types of contacts that need to be made. Each requires a unique message and response time.

Level 1: Individual making a salvation decision or asking questions

Response time for this contact needs to be given top priority and made within 24 hours aof the decision if at all possible. If it is a child making a decision or asking questions, the contact needs to be made with parents as well. The person making this contact needs to be able to review the decision or questions, help the individual confirm his or her decision, and then share information about next steps such as baptism and church membership.

Level 2: Individual with no church affiliation

Response time for this contact needs to be made within 48 hours of the last session of VBS or the last session the individual attends VBS. This contact needs to be made in person if possible, but in a relaxed and non-threatening way (i.e. a quick front porch visit instead of entering the home). The person making this contacts needs to be able to share about other ministry opportunities the church has available for each member of the family. The purpose of this contact is to deepen the relationship by connecting family members to on-going ministries such as other special events and weekly Bible study.

Level 3: Individual from another church

Response time for this contact needs to be made within the next week unless the individual also requires a Level 1 contact. The goal of this contact is not to entice the family away from their church, but to let them know their participation was welcomed and appreciated, and that they are always welcome to participate in other ministry events in the future. If the individual has made a decision or is asking questions her church should be contacted and made aware of the situation.

Level 4: Individual regularly attending your church

Response time for this contact should also be made within the next week. This contact can be a postcard, phone call, or home visit. The goal of this contact is to make sure those kids who attend every Sunday are not overlooked. They may not have been the primary focus of VBS, but they need to know they were noticed, loved, and appreciated.

As I wrote earlier, these contacts are first steps within the process of continued connections. This is a critical beginning, but just a beginning.

You’ve been hit by early arriver fever.

Early arrivers come in lots of forms, from VBS teachers’ kids, to working parents’ kids who have an unwieldy schedule to keep, to, at my home church, the first group of kids who ride the bus, since the bus often needs to make two trips. And the same reasons kids arrive early may also make them need to stay late after VBS is over.

So what do you do with these kids to keep them from causing chaos or being bored at VBS before it’s even started?

Don’t get me wrong. As a teacher, I’ve had some great chances to bond with my kids who arrived early since there was more time to get to know them and let them ask me questions.

But it also pays to be prepared for those empty times. The adage is true, if you don’t have a plan, your kids will.

Your teachers will certainly thank you for an extra few undistracted minutes preparing rooms and getting hearts ready for VBS.

So here are some ideas you can keep in your back pocket in case you have extra time to fill:

1. Enlist volunteers who love kids but aren’t comfortable in a formal teaching role. Make sure there are always at least two adults with kids. Provide them with details about the Bible study material so that they can be prepared to reinforce concepts in casual conversation. Consider suggesting some silly and serious ice breaker questions, from “if you could be a ice cream flavor what would you be?” To “what did you learn at VBS this week?” and everything in between that will help kids feel loved and known.
2. Designate space- whether it’s in your church sanctuary, in an unused Sunday School room, or on your church playground, choose a spot where all your VBS workers know to send early arrivers after they’ve been registered for VBS. That way, if a straggler runs into you in the hallway, you have a safe place to send him.
3. Music- Kids I’ve seen never seem to get enough of the VBS music. They always want a little more time with their favorite song. This could be extra time for teaching motions to a new song on any day. After the first day, let kids compete to say the memory verse to you. Those who do it correctly get to choose what song you replay for them.
4. Games- Provide volunteers with some easy games from the Recreation Rotation Leader Cards that won’t take much setup, are adaptable, indoor/outdoor and will allow for repetition and multiple age groups. A few in Colossal Coaster World that fit this description include Quick Pass, Screaming Scrambler, Ferris Wheel Relay, Tilt-A-Whirl, Frozen Fun House Tag, and the games on the Family Connections card for families to play when they’re waiting in line somewhere.
5. Take pictures and video of kids throughout the week and have these playing as a slideshow where kids can watch and pick themselves out.
6. Provide an extra craft or activity that relates to the day’s Bible content.
7. Encourage teachers to arrive as early as possible to finish their preparations for the night and then be ready to spend time with their kids. Time spent developing relationships is never wasted at VBS.

• Pre-register your church kids. Any time that you can pre-register kids, it helps you estimate the number of children you need to prepare for and it helps to speed up the registration process on the first day of VBS. Set up a registration booth outside the sanctuary or in the welcome center two to three weeks before VBS to allow time for church members to pre-register their children.
• Online registration. Some churches offer online registration. This allows parents to register their children at their convenience and if you have a link on your website for online registration, it can help those who will be visiting your church to pre-register.
• Offer registration every day of VBS. You will have some children who only come to VBS one day, and for some it may be the very last day. Therefore make sure you have registration every day so that you can gather information from every child who visits your church.
• Get complete information. I know on the morning of VBS parents are in a hurry and children want to get to their rooms, but make sure that registration forms are completely filled out. Any information that is left off makes it harder to follow up with the child and his or her family after VBS is over.

VBS Registration Flyers can be purchased at your nearest LifeWay store or online. Each flyer features a customizable Colossal Coaster World announcement on one side and a ready-made registration form on the other. Flyers are perforated so parents can return the registration form and keep the announcement as a VBS reminder. You can also find registration forms on the Administrative Guide CD-ROM in the Director’s Helps folder.

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?

We’re doing our best to find what you’re pinning and pin it to our board so that our followers can see what you’re up to.  Be sure to check out the TONS of ideas VBSers have posted online!

Tip: Don’t see what you’re looking for on our board?  Type “Colossal Coaster World,” “Jungle Jaunt” or search terms like “theme park decorations” in the search bar and hit enter to see what others are posting.

Happy Pinning!

Here are six steps to consider during the final days of enlistment for VBS 2013.

Step 1: Put your strongest and most experienced workers in speaking or lead roles. This will take the pressure off apprehensive volunteers and well as scale back the pressure on you to find workers who already know how to teach or lead the different areas of VBS.

Step 2: Look beyond the usual list of workers. It may be that the very best VBX leader is someone you have not even considered. I write from personal experience here. We were desperate for workers willing to spend a week with sixth graders. We had a lead teacher but no one else had stepped forward.

One afternoon Dava (our VBS director) said, “I think we should ask Tim if he would help us with the sixth grade.” Obviously my response was, “I can’t see Tim saying yes. I really can not see him relating to sixth graders.”

Thankfully Dava won the day and asked Tim, who obviously said yes – otherwise there wouldn’t be a story here.

To put it simply, Tim was awesome! After VBS he came to me and said he would really like to continue the experience by working with sixth graders in Sunday School. How often does that happen?

Within a few months Tim became the director of the department, and within the year he had expanded his ministry to include an extremely successful community outreach basketball program for inner city kids.

Thankfully Dava looked beyond the usual!

Step 3: Realize that quiet often the problem with recruiting volunteers might just be you and your attitude about enlisting. It is not unusual to find a director who is uncomfortable personally asking people to help. As a result, the director depends on bulletin announcements – the lest effective way to enlist workers – and then is bewildered when few if any respond.

Typically there are more people then we realize who will say yes if personally asked, but will never respond to mass appeal. If you have a difficult time recruiting personally, enlist a team of people who are good at it. In this way you are recruiting only a few people who in turn will recruit the masses. Beside, getting more recruiters on the team will help take care of the issue of looking beyond the usual list of workers.

Step 4: You also need to realize that there are potential volunteers who are willing to help, but might never volunteer because they feel inadequate,or are afraid to volunteer only to be rejected because the position has been filled by someone else. Often a hesitancy to volunteer has more to do with fear of rejection then fear of the job.

Step 5: When you do ask someone to help, make sure you know what you are asking him to do. Give him a list of specific responsibilities using terminology that is self explanatory. For example, don’t ask me to be the lead teacher for the first grade class without telling me exactly what a lead teacher is expected to do. When people know exactly what they are being asked to do they are much more willing to agree.

Another aspect of Step 5 is don’t ask someone to just be a warm body to fulfill worker/student ratio in the classroom. No one – even if they say they do – wants to just be there with no responsibility or purpose. Believe me, I have been recruited as a warm body and it was the most boring and uncomfortable thing I have ever been asked to do. When you ask someone to be a helper, make sure you have at least a short list of expectations. People willingly serve when they recognize and identify with a purpose. Give every worker a purpose and show him how his job fits into the big VBS picture.

Step 6: Realize that no matter the size of your church, finding enough workers is not easy. It is all proportional.

While in seminary I served at a church of about 75 regular attenders. A friend served at a church of about 5,000. I desperately needed two additional workers for our preschool Sunday School. One day I whined that if I were at a church the size of her church I wouldn’t have a problem finding enough workers. She quickly informed me that while I desperately needed two preschool workers, she needed a new group of 250 preschool extended teaching time workers every Sunday.

Lesson learned! No matter the size of the church there is always a need for workers. AND no matter the size of the church God has placed just the right number of volunteers.

As we approach the Day of Prayer for VBS this Sunday (May 19), know that LifeWay’s VBS team is praying for you and the workers needed for the harvest in your community.

 Have you ever flipped the switch on a lamp several times and nothing happened? Do you remember the frustration of, “Why isn’t this thing coming on?” during your fruitless flips up and down. What about that sheepish, “oh,” realization when you see the disconnected plug?

This is a pretty good picture of our efforts to spread the gospel without prayer. Prayer is the power source that enlightens and charges our efforts. We are less than a month away from what are typically the two biggest weeks of VBS. Even if your VBS is later in the summer, the time to begin praying is NOW!

The VBS 2013 Administrative Guide has great prayer resources from prayer calendars to prayer walk brochures. And, this Sunday, May 19, 2013, is the National Day of Prayer for VBS.

I started thinking about praying for VBS and it occurred to me that V. B. S. is a great acronym for praying for VBS everywhere.

V – Volunteers! Recently on our Facebook we asked people to share their prayer requests. (Our team prays for you!) One of the most requested prayer concerns was for volunteers to help. Jesus told His disciples to pray for workers (Matthew 9:36-38). It is still an urgent prayer. The harvest is ready!

B – Bible! God’s Word changes lives. God promised that His Spirit would be our Teacher (John 14:25-26). We need His power and guidance as we teach Bible truths to others.

S – Salvations! VBS is still one of the strongest evangelistic efforts made by many churches. Prayer, concentrated Bible teaching, and the forging of relationships set the stage to share the gospel in a powerful way. Pray that hearts are prepared to respond to the gospel of Jesus.

I hope you’ll join me this Sunday, as we pray together for VBS!

Last week, someone forwarded me these images of an incredible welcome space Prestonwood Baptist created for their VBS registration.  They were even kind enough to share the instructions so you can build your own coaster!

DOWNLOAD ROLLER COASTER INSTRUCTIONS

Check out that Ferris wheel to the left!  You can find Melita’s easy instructions for building your own moving Ferris wheel here.

You can get your own giant roller coaster background by purchasing the VBS 2013 Supersized Coaster Backdrop.  These 6′ x 3′ backdrop panels can be used like wallpaper to create a topsy-turvy coaster that will wrap around any space. Ideal for hallways and classrooms, it’s a set of three panels packaged without folds for a crease-free, easy set up. The design allows you to connect multiple sets over and over for an endless coaster scene.

We love this giant coaster they have suspended from the ceiling! Looks like it was made out of pipe insulation.  And I spy several of the VBS 2013 Inflatable Coaster Cars up there!  They make the perfect addition to any homemade coaster and also function well as a fun table-topper!

In this picture, you can see even more of the suspended roller coaster, as well as a DIY marquee “ENTER” sign.  You can find instructions for making your own lighted sign here.

If you have pictures of your VBS space, please send them to us at katie.decillo@lifeway.com or upload them to our Idea Share App.

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’ve gotten lots of questions on the VBS Facebook page about clipart this year.  We’ve got clipart!  And we want to make it easier for you to find.

For FREE downloadable images, visit this page right here on our VBS website.

To return to the site, follow these instructions or bookmark the page within your browser.

• Visit http://blog.lifeway.com/vbs
• Hover over Planning & Tips. You should get a dropdown menu.
• Click on Downloads

Once you’re there, be sure to click on Images on the sidebar to download cool desktop and cell phone background images!

If you’re looking for additional images, you have two options.

1. If you or your VBS director purchased a Decorating Made Easy Guide, there is a clipart CD-ROM included in the guide!  This is where you’ll find rotation signs, etc.
2. You can purchase a digital clipart pack from LifeWay.com.

Jungle Jaunt clipart can be found by following this link and clicking on “Jungle Jaunt” on the sidebar.