Has anyone ever had a V.B.S. (Vacation Bible School) event that was NOT a success or well attended?
My mother’s first cousin was asking for paper donations for their Vacation Bible School, and to recruit me for help with puppetry (which I was an expert many years ago).
I refused to help with puppetry because of too many irons in the fire—but did agree to help with whatever needed to be done—not expecting her dinky, past-its-prime church to need much. I am willing to help ANY event that benefits children or the community, however.
What surprised me was, there were 60–90 kids every night of the event. Very surprising in a church that has only 5–10 kids on Sunday.
Maybe not as pronounced—but my parents’ church has a fairly healthy childrens’ program with maybe 70–80 active child participants but over 250 in V.B.S.
How church leaders knew to be prepared for such crowds is beyond me. Registration sometimes doesn’t happen until the day of the event. And I’ve never heard of anyone overplanning but I’m sure it does happen.
Why are these events so well attended? And, has anyone ever planned for a crowd that didn’t show?
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All the ones I organised were successful.
90%+ conversion rate to Satanism. You should have seen the piles of headless hamsters.
The Bible camps I’ve seen in TV documentaries looked like hell on earth, to me. If I had been forced to attend one as a child, I would have been fantasizing about murdering the organizers the whole time.
Had a friend with a summer house on Lake Michigan. She would take her kids out and enroll them in subsequent vacation bible schools whatever the denomination. Free or cheap summer child care; that’s the reason for the high attendance.
@Zaku- Bible camps and vacation Bible school are not the same thing at all. The camp is a destination, and the kids stay a few days or weeks. The vacation Bible school lasts a few hours in the afternoons or evenings, and continues for a week, then stops.
Churches in small towns will often agree to each take a week during the summer. Like @janbb said, The kids end up attending one VBS after another most of the summer long. In a town that doesn’t offer much for entertainment, it keeps the kids occupied. From what I’ve seen, it’s lots of fun.
@snowberry Thanks for explaining that to me! A world of difference.
Hey, Zaku— I saw the Jesus Camp documentary and yeah, it was sheer hell. Very unnatural environment, even though I think its woman in charge genuinely loved the children and cared about their well being. Children need a natural environment with time away.
Regretably I think some “bible camp” leaders see that separation from the familiar environment as an opportunity for indoctrination and something like brainwashing—even though they believe they are doing something for the children’s eternal benefit and salvation
My summers as a child were probably hokey by today’s standards, but we really did hold hands and sing Kum Bah Yah. There was horseback riding, archery, arts and crafts, evening devotionals, etc. I remember kids geting homesick as a child and later as a counselor but I never saw a child genuinely being forced to conform or any forced ”“conversions” For me, it was a place of acceptance and cooperation and people who genuinely cared. Even in the programs I’ve been and seen little more than babysitting, there were still growth experiences through relationships and doing things that were adventurous or new experiences with being away from home.
Never saw a forced V.B.S. attendance. Never seen a poorly organized one or kids who didn’t like it. But then again, I’ve never been to Boston, India, or Wyoming, so there could be more out there.
I enrolled my kids in VBS, and and I would today. It offers them a little structure during a summer of no holds barred.
I only remember one VBS as a kid. I really enjoyed it. They had several slabs of wood and we choose one, then we got to choose whatever Bible themed picture we wanted out of a magazine, then we shellacked the picture onto the wood. It was cool. Each day we’d add another layer until it was all one thing. I had it for many years. It’s probably still around here somewhere.
I don’t recall any preaching or attempts to convert.
But, I enjoyed school and I especially enjoyed projects.
I had to do this as a kid, but I went to the church near my grandparents’ house. I suspect kids from other places probably do the vacation BS thing, but are not involved in that specific church.
@Yellowdog Thanks Yellowdog. Sounds like you were in a good program, and I’m sure many are, and that the Jesus Camp example is an outlier shown in a way to focus on the extreme aspects of that place. I was raised by parents who didn’t like their limited Sunday School experiences as kids, and who told me about them and didn’t make me do many things I really didn’t want to. I’m grateful for that but I also have an aversion to pushy spirituality. I also know many really great (and non-pushy) Christians.
I know lots of great and non-pushy Christians too.
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