VBS publishers employ more digital content to reach the younger set

Vacation Bible School (VBS) is a product that connects stores with local churches, and churches to the families in their communities. As VBS comes into the digital age, suppliers are utilizing technology to connect retail, church leaders and consumers, and keep the VBS dialogue going all year long.

Christian Retailing talked with three publisher representatives about the ways that VBS products are evolving and expanding.

Taking part in the conversation were:

• ROBB FAUST, assistant brand manager, Standard Publishing
• ROBERTA LEHMAN, marketing specialist, Lifeway Kids
• CRYSTAL MCDOWELL, VBS editor, Urban Ministries Inc. (UMI)
• KAREN MCGRAW, associate managing editor, VBS for Gospel Light
• SHANNON VELASQUEZ, public relations/special events manager, VBS/women’s ministry, Group Publishing

CHRISTIAN RETAILING: What makes VBS continue to be a viable product for churches and Christian stores?

ROBERTA LEHMAN: VBS is the most effective outreach event of the year for many churches. VBS gives churches opportunities to cultivate and establish ongoing relationships with all who attend. On average, 10% of kids who attend VBS are unchurched. For the average VBS, 10% equals 10 people. Discovering new 10 people plus their family members is a big deal!

CRYSTAL MCDOWELL: I think VBS remains popular because you still have children who are available over the summer, and parents are always looking for something different and fun to make Jesus exciting.

KAREN MCGRAW: VBS is a prime opportunity for churches to reach out to unchurched kids and their families—and it’s a great program for kids who go to church on a regular basis. Any time God’s people can get together and lavish love on God’s children—that’s a great place to be.

SHANNON VELASQUEZ: I think there is that one point in a life where someone can be reached with the gospel message, and we know that often the easiest time to receive it is as a child, so to get children to have one entire week of VBS, where the gospel is the focus, is just huge.

CHRISTIAN RETAILING: How much is VBS still about evangelizing unchurched kids?

FAUST: The great thing about this year’s VBS for us is that kids are 

learning how to practically serve every day. The first day they are learning to serve their families. The second day they are serving their friends, then their neighbors, then their community, then Jesus. Every day they have a lesson on the topic of serving, then a service challenge to go home and do, so it doesn’t matter if the kids are in church, they can serve others and learn to serve Jesus. We are also introducing a missions component this year with Back2Back Ministries (back2backministries.org). They help orphan kids in Mexico, and the VBS offerings will go to Mexico to help these kids. All week long at VBS, kids will see the missions DVD in the opener. It is the story of Joel, and they will follow his story all week long.

LEHMAN: We call LifeWay’s VBS “The Evangelistic VBS.” All aspects of our VBS include age-appropriate outreach. Everything we do in VBS ties into the biblical content, and there is a special message on day three designed to teach grade school-age kids the ABCs of Becoming a Christian. The VBS scripture for 2013 is 2 Tim. 1:7.

MCDOWELL: I have seen that VBS brings in a lot of the kids already in the church, but leaders are still encouraging them to bring friends to VBS. If they bring a friend or two, you are teaching the kids to reach out to other kids with the gospel. By even just inviting them, they are practicing evangelism.

MCGRAW: At Gospel Light, we definitely develop VBS curriculum for unchurched kids. We realize that a number of churches have more “churched” kids attending than not, but for many, many churches, VBS is still their biggest outreach event of the year. We write all of our materials to address the needs of unchurched kids. And every lesson in Gospel Light’s VBS has evangelistic opportunities written for VBS leaders to talk to kids about becoming members of God’s family.

VELASQUEZ: We have tremendous success reaching out to kids who have never been to church before because we design our VBS with one simple Bible point that is reinforced in every rotation activity. It appeals to kids who go to church, but is also simple enough that even kids who have never heard of any of this before can get it. The one simple daily Bible point is pivotal for us.

CHRISTIAN RETAILING: What brand-new elements are you introducing for 2013?

FAUST: We have two themes this year, which is new for Standard. We have God’s Backyard Bible Camp: Under the Stars and God’s Backyard Bible Camp: Under the Sun. Fifty-three percent of churches now hold VBS in the evenings, so the Under the Stars kit is geared specifically for that timeframe, although it can be used during the day too, but all the Bible stories in that kit take place sometime in the evening. We also decided this year to offer everything in one kit. We used to offer a basic kit and a power kit, but now everything you need to hold VBS is all in one kit and is still just $199.99, although it includes more than $500 in resources. We completely redesigned our materials, so that instead of a big leader’s guide, we are offering leaflets, booklets and cards for each day that you can tuck right into your Bible. There are newly formatted bundles for each age group, including a preschool bundle, elementary/preteen bundle and teen bundle. We also include a DVD set that contains a missions DVD, planning DVD, music DVD, bonus music CD-ROM and an exportable media disc with all mp3s and mp4s of the music and videos. Another disc set included in the kit contains all the teaching resources and leader’s guides as pdf files, so if you need an extra guide, you just print it off. Everything you need to lead and plan our VBS is now in one kit.

LEHMAN: New for 2013 is the Backyard Kids Club. Many churches are looking for ways to take VBS outside their church and into their communities. Our VBS 2013 Backyard Kids Club Director’s Guide and Backyard Kids Club Kit provide portable resources that can be used easily wherever there is a group of kids gathered. The VBS 2013 Backyard Kids Club Kit is an all-in-one box designed for a club of about 20 kids. The VBS 2013 Backyard Kids Club Director’s Guide provides step-by-step guidance to the person or team who will be coordinating and planning the Backyard Kids Club. It’s all based on the Colossal Coaster World theme and coordinates well with the numerous accessories, decorations and promotional tools available.

MCDOWELL: I think our new element would be our DVD. Our theme for 2013 is Jesus Family Reunion: The Remix. We had a Jesus Family Reunion VBS in 2006, and it was very successful. This year, we are taking each theme and relating it on the DVD to a family situation. In the lessons, we also picked family situations in the Bible that can be used to understand things like forgiving and obeying.

MCGRAW: In addition to adding more resources to some of our electronic products, we’ve created a brand-new Parent Pocket Guide to help churches extend the VBS lessons beyond the threshold of the church. The Parent Pocket Guide gives parents all the information they need to reinforce the lessons their kids are getting at VBS. Our student guides also include a fun family activity to further promote involvement of the whole family.

VELASQUEZ: We introduced Imagination Station last year, and it is coming back this year. We reimagined crafts and introduced science, fun gizmos and experiments that flew off the shelves. This year, for our Kingdom Rock VBS, we are reimagining our student books and how to get them back home so kids can continue learning and talk to parents or friends and family member. We are also reimagining our Bible Memory Buddies.

CHRISTIAN RETAILING: Is your VBS focused primarily on elementary ages? How does it work for nursery kids and teens?

FAUST: We have a book called Beyond Your Backyard that is an adult VBS curriculum. … Our kits also have preschool, elementary/preteen and teen components and leader’s guides. We have a VBS designed for preschool through adult.

LEHMAN: LifeWay’s VBS provides content for all ages. Babies, 1s, 2s, 3s through Kindergarten, Grades 1 and 2, Grades 3 and 4, Grades 5 and 6, Youth, Adults and also children and adults with special needs. We also provide a full line of Spanish VBS resources. LifeWay’s Youth VBS is perfect for preparing youth to serve during children’s VBS. It’s also great for retreats, Bible studies or as a weeklong youth VBS program.

MCDOWELL: We want VBS to reach the whole family. We created lessons with family situations from the Bible that can be used from preschoolers all the way to teens. Our VBS is geared toward the black community, and that is shown on our DVD and in the music. I think about where the black community is when I write the lessons, but the message is for everybody—it’s Jesus.

MCGRAW: We don’t think of VBS as a program just for elementary children. It’s a program for the whole family. Whether as a team member or as a kid attending VBS, everyone can be involved. Even those parents who can’t participate by volunteering can be involved through our Parent Newsletters, the new Parent Pocket Guide and the family activities provided on the student guides. Not to mention attending Closing Programs and other family-oriented VBS events. Gospel Light has a number of products for preschoolers. The Pony Corral Teacher’s Guide has Bible stories and Bible Learning Activities geared for children from 3 years old through Kindergarten. We also have Pony Corral Fun Pages for each child for each day of VBS. Also included in our Director’s Planning Guide is the Nursery and Toddler Guide. We recognize the need for churches to provide quality care for the little ones whose parents volunteer at VBS. We also have youth and adult guides provided by our Regal book division. These Bible studies are designed to take the Bible content covered in VBS to a deeper level. Our focus is always on providing curriculum that is age-appropriate.

VELASQUEZ: With our VBS programs we really encourage older kids to come back and help. We call ours the easy VBS program because you just have to learn one simple Bible point. And if you are a crew leader, you have a group of five kids that you are taking through the rotations. If you are a helper at the Imagination Station, you stay there the whole time. We also offer a program for teens every year called Unlimited Youth that comes out with our traditional VBS.

CHRISTIAN RETAILING: How is VBS turning to the digital age? Are you, the developers, putting more online? In addition to websites, how are you utilizing the web in other ways as well as media?

FAUST: It’s exciting for us that Yancey did our music again, and she produced all the music videos herself. Some have kids doing motions. Some feature Yancey, and some just have the words, so churches have a variety of options. Yancey has already posted clips on YouTube and is getting a lot of hits there. We are also putting some on Facebook and seeing traffic increase. There are eight new songs from Yancey, and they are reproducible.

LEHMAN: Many of LifeWay’s VBS resources are available for download from lifeway.com/vbs. Clip art, videos and other helpful free resources are available at lifeway.com/vbs. We also have an ongoing Lifeway VBS blog that offers ideas and creates community (http://lifewayvbs.wordpress.com/). You can follow LifeWay VBS on Facebook and Twitter, and our VBS Blog has something new each day.

MCDOWELL: I know that we are working on media right now, using Twitter and Facebook more this year. We want to try to be more out-of-the-box.

Online and other electronic resources are something we are constantly working on improving. In addition to our reproducible Music & More CD, which churches are free to reproduce for every family that attends VBS, we have a CD-ROM in our Director’s Planning Guide that includes dozens of forms and checklists for the director, volunteer and parent newsletters, as well as training articles that can be either printed out or emailed to team members. We also have a variety of music and skits DVDs and a brand-new Rip-Roarin’ Multimedia CD-ROM that churches can use in conjunction with presentation software to display images on screens during large-group assembly times. As far as social media goes, we have our websites, gospellightvbs.com and myvbsparty.com. We also have a Facebook page, Pinterest page and Twitter accounts (@Gospel_Light; @HenriettaMears).

VELASQUEZ: Technology is so big for kids these days, so we reimagined our Chatter Chipmunk puppet, and he went digital because animation is so cool to kids. We also have an online presence (4everybuddy.com) that kids can go to every day after VBS and see video trailers and play games to reinforce the points they’ve learned. For our friends in ministry, Facebook has become a huge thing for us. We have seen a tremendous increase, I think because it’s an easy, informal way to communicate. Also, we have all of our decorating tips on Youtube, and the videos are a big hit. Families who participated in our VBS find us on Facebook too. Recently, a mom wrote to tell us thank-you for VBS, because her 3-year-old daughter attended last year and then was diagnosed with cancer. The little girl—even at 3—remembered our Bible point, which was “Trust in God.” That is just one of example of why I love VBS.

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