Here's what happened at our VBS

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Here's what happened at our VBS

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Ashley_S

Posted 7/11/2008 1:53:13 PM

Junior Member

Group: Forum Members
Last Login: 7/15/2008 8:25:49 PM
Posts: 18, Visits: 39

This was my first time directing VBS at a small, somewhat troubled church. I had a hard time recruiting volunteers and a little over a month ago, was ready to cancel. But I knew that the Lord had called me to do this, so I told the congregation that if they thought they might be the slightest bit interested, to come and look at the station leader manual in the area they felt called, and then pray about it. To those who accepted the manuals, I said: "I have never done this before and have no clue what I'm doing. If you take this manual, you are responsible for everything in it, the supplies, any help you need, everything. I will supply the budget and the room, and if you can't find something you need and let me know in a timely manner, I'll work with you on finding it. That's all. The rest is up to God."

Then I just asked God to show me each day what he wanted me to do for VBS that particular day so that it would all get done.

Getting all the supplies was a bit challenging, but within two weeks, I had every volunteer we needed. Because we were only expecting 20-25 kids, we decided to open it to kids 4 thru entering 6th grade. We had no preschool program, so the 4 and 5 year olds were in crews with their siblings to make things easier. This worked brilliantly! Everyone felt safe and loved and the older kids really made the adults' jobs easier.

We also used middle school age kids as crew leaders, since there were enough adults to oversee them as they moved from station to station. This wasn't perfect, but it worked really well, and you could see those 12 year olds growing as servant leaders as the week went on. Early in the week, we had to encourage them, "serve your crews first, then yourselves," but by today, the last day, they knew what to do.

We had 23 kids enrolled the first day, 25 the second day, and 28 by the end of the week. For the first time ever, every single kid came every single day (with the exception of one family that dropped the first day). Every single family showed up for the open house last night (4th day). This has never happened in our church.

On Thursday morning, during the leaders' prayer time, we prayed for just one child to come to faith in Jesus Christ. By the time VBS ended at noon, 9 of our 28 kids accepted Christ as their Savior.

Post #41942