Spring is in a few short weeks which means that summer is just around the corner. As the snow begins to melt, and the tulips start to show off their spring colors, your team should be well on its way to planning your summer vacation bible school.
Planning church events can be fun and stress free as long as there is detailed planning and lots of hands to help. This means taking the time now to get your event organized will ensure a smooth running event.
7 Things You Should Be Doing Now
1. Event Budget
Creating an event budget is important to being good stewards with church money and can help you to designate funding for each area of the event.
Meet with your team and determine what resources are available and allocate them to each budget area. Most events require budget dollars for these key areas:
- Supplies
- Rentals
- Marketing materials
- Food/beverage
- Decorations
- Miscellaneous
Determine the projected cost of each of these areas, estimate the number of kids you anticipate attending and this will help you figure how much to charge for the event.
For example, if you are expecting 100 kids to attend your VBS and your budget is $1000, then you would charge each child a registration fee of $10 to cover the cost of the event.
2. Theme and Goal for Event
The theme of your event is one of the first orders of business in your planning process because the theme dictates so much of the planning details.
So whether your theme is a book of the bible or a biblical character, your team should be finalizing the theme and goal of your VBS.
For example, if your theme is the story of Daniel, then you should identify what it is you would like the children to learn about the life of Daniel by participating in the event.
3. Planning Games and Activities
Vacation bible school should be a fun event that kids look forward to. Much of that fun is the result of planning activities and games that engage and challenge the children.
Kids also like to learn by doing so create events that provide some hands on activities to help to solidify the biblical lessons you are striving to instill in them.
4. Recruiting Volunteers
It takes lots of hands to facilitate a vacation bible school so you should be recruiting for that help now.
Spend some time with the planning team to identify all of the different roles you will need to fill and start the recruitment process.
Make sure you write a detailed job description for each of these roles so that your volunteers have a good understanding of what their job responsibilities are and how to access needed supplies.
For example, if one of your volunteer roles is to help the kids with a hands on craft project, make sure that volunteers know where to find their supplies, have an understanding of how to do the craft, and who to go to if they need help or have questions.
5. Marketing the Event
It is not too soon to give the church notice to save the date for this summer event. Most people plan vacations months out and appreciate knowing the week VBS will be held so they don’t make other plans for that week.
This is also true for volunteers to reserve the week to help with the event.
6. Registering Kids
The sooner you get kids registered the sooner you can finalize your supply lists and activity organization. You can start the registration process as soon as you have a date, a theme and a price for the camp.
If your church has a budget to pay for the VBS that is great, but if you need to charge a registration fee to offset the costs of the camp, you will need to determine what that fee will be early in the budgeting process.
7. Screening Volunteers and Assigning Jobs
As you begin to identify volunteers to help, make sure you do a background check – particularly for anyone who will have direct contact with the kids. It doesn’t matter how long you have know the person, securing a background check will help to minimize the liability for your church.
Place volunteers into jobs that fit their interest and social style. Use the people who like working with kids (not everyone does) with the kids and use the other volunteers for the many other behind the scenes job that need to be done.
Take the time to determine the best fit for volunteers to ensure the kids have the right leaders and that all volunteers are able to use their unique gifts.
Summer vacation is a great time for kids to get together, have fun and learn a lesson from the bible. Your team’s ability to plan, organize and execute a children’s vacation bible school will result in lots of kids learning about God and having fun in the process.
Have you started planning this summer’s VBS?
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