Choosing VBS Kits for Small Church Volunteers

Vacation Bible School is usually described as a week-long religious event in summer for children and pre-teens. In a small congregation you feel that definition in practical terms. You need someone to greet, someone to teach, someone to lead songs, someone to set out crafts, and someone to clean up. If you can name those people, you can read every kit description with a clearer eye. The Parish Shelf was built for that kind of evaluation, and how small churches evaluate Bible study curricula uses the same habit of matching pages to people.

History shows how flexible the week can be. In Hopedale, Illinois, in 1894, Sunday school teacher D. T. Miles, who also taught in a public school, started a daily Bible school in summer because time on Sundays felt short. That first school enrolled 40 students, lasted four weeks, met in a local school, and used an adjoining park for recess. In 1912, Abraham L. Latham of Third Presbyterian Church in Chester, Pennsylvania, ran a five-week school for four hours per day that at its peak drew 650 to 700 students. Modern programs usually run for one week of religious education for elementary school children, with Bible stories, religious songs, arts and crafts, skits or puppet shows. You can decide whether your team can sustain five evenings, three mornings, or a full week before you look at themes.

A kit is a themed curriculum program from a denomination or an independent publishing house, built for easy preparation and often paired with marketing tools. Cokesbury groups that idea under headings such as finding the right VBS program for a church, exploring VBS themes, and keeping everything needed in one place. The Cokesbury page does not publish kit prices. What you can expect from the category in general is leader guides, student pages, music, craft ideas, and drama ideas centered on Bible stories. If your shelf already holds music books or craft supplies, note what you would reuse and what you would still need to buy.

Start with what your children can follow and what your volunteers can teach with confidence. Some churches run their own program without a national organization, while others choose a themed set from a publisher to save preparation time. You can compare current options on the Cokesbury VBS curriculum page before you narrow themes to two or three. Look at the central Bible passages, the daily flow, and the words children will repeat in songs and memory verses. A theme that needs a large stage set or a large cast will strain a team of eight, while a theme built around storytelling and singing will fit the room you already use for Sunday school.

A Lutheran classroom will weigh language about baptism, communion, grace, and the cross with care. Publisher pages describe programs as fun and easy to use, and point to a comparison chart to match a program to a church, plus resources for the whole church beyond the summer week. Read the sample lesson, not only the theme title. Check how sin and forgiveness are explained, how prayer is modeled, and whether the leader script leaves room for your pastor to review. If two kits look similar, the one whose teacher notes explain the "why" behind each Bible story will help volunteers answer questions during the week.

Early summer schools relied on seminary students and neighborhood teachers. Robert Boville of the Baptist Mission Society promoted the summer school started in 1898 by Virginia Sinclair Hawes, director of the children's department at Epiphany Baptist Church in New York City, who had opened an Everyday Bible School for neighborhood children in a rented beer parlor on the East Side. Boville set up several summer schools taught by students from Union Theological Seminary, with 1,000 students enrolled across five schools in one summer, and in 1922 he founded the World Association of Daily Vacation Bible School. You will not have that pool, so plan for rotation. One teacher can stay with one age group all week while helpers rotate through music, crafts, and games. sharing VBS volunteers between churches shows how nearby congregations trade teachers for evenings they cannot staff alone.

Most churches provide VBS programs at no cost to those attending, though some charge a fee. Your costs lie elsewhere. Standard Publishing produced the first printed VBS curriculum in 1923, one year after the World Association was founded, with enough content for a five-week course at three age levels called kindergarten, primary, and junior. That model of age levels still shapes printing, which means you pay for guides by level, student take-home pages, music access, crafts, and snacks. Barna Research counted 81 percent of United States churches offering VBS in 1997 and 68 percent in 2012, a decline many small councils link to volunteer time as much as money. List your fixed costs on paper, then see which kit lets you reuse what you own.

Do not buy what sits unused ten miles away. Decor, risers, songbooks, folding tables, and craft punches travel well between congregations when dates do not overlap. A short loan agreement with dates, names, and a plan for broken pieces keeps goodwill intact, a practice described in lending ministry kits to each other. Catalog the borrowed set when it arrives so it goes back complete. A plaque in the foyer of First Baptist Church in Charlottesville, Virginia, honors Hawes for starting small with rented space, which is a useful reminder that a borrowed room and simple tools can carry a full lesson.

Yes, that question now has its own answer on publisher sites, alongside what VBS is, how to choose a theme, and what a kit holds. For a small team, the useful test is concrete. Can one leader teach two ages together without rewriting the lesson? Can music be led by one voice and a recording? Can crafts be cut in advance by two people on a Saturday? If the answers are yes, the kit fits even if attendance grows for one evening when families invite cousins. Choose the program that your present volunteers can run without adding roles you cannot fill.

Pull your volunteer list, circle the week you can staff, and match the kit to those names rather than to the attendance you hope to draw.