These tips are tried and proven with Vacation Bible Schools ranging in size from 20 children to over 400. They’re things I’ve learned partly through observation but mostly from trial and error. I hope you find something worth remembering here.
- Start planning your VBS well in advance. I find that I need a bare minimum of 8 months to plan.
- Recruit a ton of volunteers and delegate like it was going out of style. Volunteers are what make VBS happen. When it comes time for the actual week of VBS you as the VBS Director/Coordinator should have very little, if anything to do. The week of VBS your main responsibility should be walking around, “putting out fires” and getting to know the kids. Under no circumstances should you be confined to one area or “teaching role.”
- Decorations are key. Decorate your whole church to the n-th degree. When you spend a lot of time and effort in decorating the church it directly communicates to the parents and children that you really do care about the kids and VBS.
- Actively promote your VBS in the community. You may be putting on the best VBS in town but if no one knows about it, no one will come. Consider radio, billboards, posters, television, newspapers, fliers, mailings, etc.
- Honor your volunteers. The two most effective ways to praise people are 1) give them money and 2) publicly recognize them. I highly recommend you do one or both of these for your VBS volunteers.
- Get as many walkie-talkies (two-way radios) as possible. First, they help you be readily accessible to key volunteers. Second, they just look cool and professional.
- Take tons of pictures throughout the week and compile them into a slide show for the whole church to see. You need to show the church what happened at VBS to get them to support you again next year. Oh, and when I say “tons of pictures” consider that I had over 1,500 pictures this year from 3 photographers.
- Make professional-looking, laminated name tags on lanyards for every volunteer working in VBS. This serves a couple purposes: 1) the children can see the adults names and 2) parents and other adults know at a glance which adults are supposed to be there and which aren’t. This becomes important when you consider that there really shouldn’t be any “strangers” walking around VBS. If a visitor does happen to stop by then have a “visitor” sticker for them to wear. We need to take every step to help protect the children that have been entrusted to us, having all official staff wear a name tag is one way to do that.
- If you decide to utilize your teenagers as volunteer staff make sure you communicate to them exactly what they are supposed to be doing and what they’re there for. If you don’t communicate this then you run the risk of some teens viewing VBS as a hang-out rather than an opportunity to minister to children.
- Normally in a VBS you have snacks for the children. I strongly recommend you set aside a room for a “staff lounge” in which you have more adult-like foods. It provides your volunteers a brief reprieve from the kids and a chance to have adult conversation. I promise, this will not go unnoticed! The better you treat your volunteers this year, the easier time you’ll have next year finding people to fill positions. Also, it’s nice to have Diet Cokes on ice whenever you’re thirsty!
