Vacation Bible School
15/06/12 05:30
A quick drive around Rapid City will reveal a lot of signs in churches advertising their summer Vacation Bible School programs. The popular program in our town this year is called “Sky.” It is a packaged program from Group Publishing. The basic starter pack sells for $142.19. Of course the marketers hope that churches will purchase lots of the extras including nametags, name badge holders, “memory buddies” which are trinkets that can be used as prizes. They also sell supplies for the crafts and games. Their big selling point is that everything is available from the publisher so that all local leaders have to do is follow simple instructions. I sometimes refer to this style of program as “cookbook,” because it is designed to be replicated by following the written step-by-step instructions. The problem with cook book curricula is that you can get cookie cutter results.
A church can produce excellent results from a program like Sky, but only if they add their own ingredients, especially caring and well trained adults with a variety of supplemental activities in reserve. There is no substitute in any program for really getting to know the participating children and listening carefully to their concerns.
There are a lot of other package VBS programs available. Group Publishing also has Babylon: Daniel’s Courage in Captivity. Gospel Light’s program this year is “Sonrise National Park,” not to be confused with Bogard Press’ “Sonlight Express.” There is “Promise Island” from Standard Press and “InrediWorld Amazement Park” from AIG. Baptist Press has a couple of revised versions of “Bug Zone.” You get the picture. Gimmicks and glossy posters are far more prominent than sound educational theory and consistent theology. Bug Zone, Fishin’ on a Mission, IncrediWorld and Sonlight Express all tout the fact that they use the King James Version of the Bible as if that was some kind of promise of theological consistency. Those who tout that particular version of the Bible as a sign of conservatism know very little about the history of Biblical Translations. I guess they just like it because it somehow sounds old. I love the KJV’s translations of the Psalms and find it to be a good bible for devotions and some worship uses. But it is not a children’s bible. The use of “Thee” and “Thou” makes the Bible sound foreign to young ears. The last thing needed in serious Biblical education is distance between the Bible and the reader.
In general, package VBS programs are lightweight on education. They seem to choose their bible stories at random. Of course narrative stories are easier to teach. And there will always be teachers who want to teach only the things that are familiar to them, which results in an ever “shrinking” Bible as fewer and fewer stories are familiar.
A more detailed critique of VBS programs would get boring for a blog. The real tragedy is that virtually all of them are the result that churches no longer invest in curriculum for instruction. They expect educational resources to at least break even, and in the case of Group, Gospel Light and Standard, they are in the business of making money from their resources, which means that there has to be a difference between what it costs to produce and what the churches pay. From that perspective the most valued products are ones that are inexpensive to produce and sell in big volume. The highest quality rarely comes at the lowest price.
And none of these products addresses a couple of underlying problems in Christian Education. As families struggle with ever-busier schedules, the volunteer base for VBS leaders is shrinking. Most of our congregations have to plan programs that allow for substitutions because we can’t get people who are able to volunteer for five days in a row. Many congregations are resorting to younger and younger leaders in order to staff their programs.
While VBS can be an opportunity for outreach into the community, it rarely produces committed members for a congregation. That doesn’t mean that it isn’t a good thing to do, it just means that some people in the congregation will have expectations that cannot be fulfilled.
Our VBS program for 2012 concludes with a big picnic this evening. In general, I think it was a success. We once again developed our own program after reviewing many packaged programs. We decided that substance and consistency were more attractive than trinkets. That meant that we had to do a lot of work to prepare. Opening activities and videos were not all on one easy DVD. We had to learn new songs well enough to teach them. We had to put together our sets and decorations. We had to design crafts and games and our story center. It was worth the investment.
But it is not without challenges. Some of the participants in our program are what I dub the “VBS Pros.” These are children whose parents sign them up for multiple programs each summer. One child in our program will participate in eight different VBS programs this summer. He obviously participated in quite a few last year as well. He knows how to work the volunteers for extra attention, has a system for pushing the edges of the rules, and doesn’t become too attached to other kids since he’ll be with a different group next week. We offer a high-quality program at no charge to these children along with the others because we know that kids like this boy will have lots of repetition throughout the summer. He’ll probably see the Sky curriculum in at least four of his eight weeks, based on the yard signs at the churches in town.
We have several children who are participating in our program whose separated or divorced parents are using our program as an exchange point for their children. One parent drops the kids off and the other picks them up. This allows the parents to make the kid exchange without actually having to talk to each other. It may be convenient for the parents, but it is a challenge for their children.
The world has changed a lot since I was a kid in VBS. But our commitment to the children of the community is no less than it was in those days. We work hard to create a safe learning environment and to provide quality experiences for all who come to participate. I continue to believe that it is worth the effort. Who knows, after eight VBS experiences in the same summer, perhaps one will stand out in the memory of a little boy whose parents see church as a modified form of childcare.
There is much that remains to be taught.
While VBS can be an opportunity for outreach into the community, it rarely produces committed members for a congregation. That doesn’t mean that it isn’t a good thing to do, it just means that some people in the congregation will have expectations that cannot be fulfilled.
Our VBS program for 2012 concludes with a big picnic this evening. In general, I think it was a success. We once again developed our own program after reviewing many packaged programs. We decided that substance and consistency were more attractive than trinkets. That meant that we had to do a lot of work to prepare. Opening activities and videos were not all on one easy DVD. We had to learn new songs well enough to teach them. We had to put together our sets and decorations. We had to design crafts and games and our story center. It was worth the investment.
But it is not without challenges. Some of the participants in our program are what I dub the “VBS Pros.” These are children whose parents sign them up for multiple programs each summer. One child in our program will participate in eight different VBS programs this summer. He obviously participated in quite a few last year as well. He knows how to work the volunteers for extra attention, has a system for pushing the edges of the rules, and doesn’t become too attached to other kids since he’ll be with a different group next week. We offer a high-quality program at no charge to these children along with the others because we know that kids like this boy will have lots of repetition throughout the summer. He’ll probably see the Sky curriculum in at least four of his eight weeks, based on the yard signs at the churches in town.
We have several children who are participating in our program whose separated or divorced parents are using our program as an exchange point for their children. One parent drops the kids off and the other picks them up. This allows the parents to make the kid exchange without actually having to talk to each other. It may be convenient for the parents, but it is a challenge for their children.
The world has changed a lot since I was a kid in VBS. But our commitment to the children of the community is no less than it was in those days. We work hard to create a safe learning environment and to provide quality experiences for all who come to participate. I continue to believe that it is worth the effort. Who knows, after eight VBS experiences in the same summer, perhaps one will stand out in the memory of a little boy whose parents see church as a modified form of childcare.
There is much that remains to be taught.