Help /Simple/Very small church/Help!! VBS

[hjemerson]

Help I need to find a book that will help me with VBS
Somthing VERY easy AND Small church !
WE have no children in our church! ! But for vbs we run last year 60 from 2-13yr ,(When they can for sunday school no one would teach then)
all the adults are 60 and older!
( belive me in my 40 years I have never been in a church that has not one under 50,they one room for a baby room just because, and the rest of the church is class rooms for adults IF a family come with chidren they sit with the parent in SS etc! Usely they never return WONDER WHY! )
The pastor want us to have VBS(this is my frist year to be at the church) Last month I put up a sign up sheet for help all I got was 5 ladies and they all want to be in the kitchen ! The pastor told Me last night: we Will have VBS frist week of AUG!
How I do not know!
SO here were I ask for help I need a simply theme book I have done preschool and VBS in the past so I know what I doning to some what.
Can any one tell me where to find a very simply easy to use <just hand to adults so they can teach !
We do Have 6-8 teens that will be one or two in each room to assit(they do not want to teach but are exper form their church in with children-they come to our youth group they do not have youth at their church)
I plan to do 6:15 till 8:15 Frist 15 in opening rest time in class room , Parents pick up at 8:15 or 8;30,
We have 300.00 bugdet which i know will go very fast with crafts/snack/etc.
HELP! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
ASAP
I know only thur God grace I can do this only with HIS help.
Serving HIm,

[TrinityJen]

Hi there and welcome. I am not sure I have much help, but I do know Gospel Light curriculum is a great start. For the lower cost ($50 but I've seen it closer to $30) the Rock Solid Followers is easy, but it is set up more as an hour, but could be stretched to 2 hours. We never have enough time for the entire lesson in 45 min. It would give you 13 lessons, and you would only need 5.

You could also buy only the teachers books and other supplies for the SonRock VBS. More to think ahead, but you just hand the books out and they do the rest.

If I were you I would look for a church close to you that is doing SonRock before you and see how they can help you. These boards are also a GREAT place to make connections. So, what major city are you close to?

[donnalucas@gospellight.co]

Help I need to find a book that will help me with VBS
Somthing VERY easy AND Small church !
WE have no children in our church! ! But for vbs we run last year 60 from 2-13yr ,(When they can for sunday school no one would teach then)
all the adults are 60 and older!
( belive me in my 40 years I have never been in a church that has not one under 50,they one room for a baby room just because, and the rest of the church is class rooms for adults IF a family come with chidren they sit with the parent in SS etc! Usely they never return WONDER WHY! )
The pastor want us to have VBS(this is my frist year to be at the church) Last month I put up a sign up sheet for help all I got was 5 ladies and they all want to be in the kitchen ! The pastor told Me last night: we Will have VBS frist week of AUG!
How I do not know!
SO here were I ask for help I need a simply theme book I have done preschool and VBS in the past so I know what I doning to some what.
Can any one tell me where to find a very simply easy to use <just hand to adults so they can teach !
We do Have 6-8 teens that will be one or two in each room to assit(they do not want to teach but are exper form their church in with children-they come to our youth group they do not have youth at their church)
I plan to do 6:15 till 8:15 Frist 15 in opening rest time in class room , Parents pick up at 8:15 or 8;30,
We have 300.00 bugdet which i know will go very fast with crafts/snack/etc.
HELP! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
ASAP
I know only thur God grace I can do this only with HIS help.
Serving HIm,


What a challenge God has placed in your path. I am so glad to see that you know that it is only through him that this will be a success. I am hoping that you can convince enough people to help and that this program is so contagious that someone will jump up and want to have a SUnday School program for these precious little kids.

Trinity Jen's ideas of looking for a church that may be able to donate some product to you would be great. But you can also keep it very simple by deciding which centers you will have the time and help to do and just get the supplies you need for that center. you can send me an email or call me at Gospel Light and I or one of our consultants can help walk you through this.

This is doable even on your $300.00 budget. If you cannot get another church to donate some items we have some programs from previous years that are a great deal with some value packages that have enough in them for 50 kids.

Blessings to your program,

Donna Lucas
Publishing Director
Gospel Light

[flutist14_99]

Wow, my prayers are definetely with you!
I go to a small church with at least 75% of the church population over 50.
One wasy to stretch that budget is to ask them to donate supplies. A lot of times the senior citzens are more likely to donate things than to volunteer.

[K-J]

Having memebers of the church donate is a great idea. This is how we do our snacks every year. (I attend a small church, and some of the older members like feeling that they can help/contribute in this way.) I write out all of the snack needs on post-its and I have them on display on a table or wall a couple of weeks before VBS. I announce it and people can take the post-its of whatever items they want to buy. Some might only take 1 or 2 papers, some will take many more. I ask that all items be brought to church the Sunday that VBS begins. We have our needs met every year. This way snacks don't put a strain on the VBS budget. And church members just pick up an extra few items when they do their grocery shopping. It works great for us! You might also do this with craft supplies, especially for basics like construction paper, glue, etc.

I'll pray that all comes together for your church and that your VBS will be a wonderful outreach program that will draw families to your church.

[kidsmatter]

This DOES seem like a challenge. Have you thought of asking the youth of a neighboring church to come in and help? Or maybe there's a Bible camp nearby - some camps have a week when camper numbers are down and they could spare a few staff to come in and help run a VBS. Might be worth checking into anyway.

All the best

[yorkgracebrethren]

It sounds like you really are in a tight spot. My wife worked with Child Evangelism Fellowship up until last year (then she married me and had to move). I was reading your post to her and she suggested that your situation would be a great opportunity to bring in a summer group of teenagers to run a 5-day club. You can call it VBS or whatever you want, but it would be the same basic idea. The teens usually raise support for themselves to spend a summer running clubs and sharing the gospel with kids. So there usually isn't any kind of cost associated with it from that end. My wife said that she would gladly contact a chapter near you if you would like. We just need to know where you're located.

Ben
ben@yorkgracebrethren.com

[Josh1]

You're in a hard spot but I thank you for taking on the challenge of putting on a VBS for your church. I'll be praying for you and your church that everything would work out smoothly for your VBS.
I agree with TrinityJen on using one of Gospel Light's KidsTime curriculums and only using 5 sesions of that. The other seessions you could use to start off your Children's Sunday School at your church. Gospel Light has some different ones to choose from:
~ Treasure Seekers
~ Journey with Jesus
~ Agents in Action
~ Passport to Adventure
~ Rock-Solid Followers
Here's a link to each of these as well:
http://www.gospellight.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CategoryDisplay?catalogId=11051&storeId=10052&categoryId=21757&langId=-1&parent_category_rn=21701&top_category=21701
Just choose one that you like and there you go. Feel free to ask any other questions that you might have as they come up.