VBS follow-up ideas extend your outreach well beyond summer. So here are 9 no-fail VBS follow-up ideas you can use. These tips are from the creators of Group’s vacation Bible school!
Picture this: It’s summer, and vacation Bible school is over. You went through the rigors of selecting curriculum and recruiting and training volunteers. You coordinated all the publicity, prepared crafts and songs, and bought truckloads (it seems) of snacks. Now you’re finished for another year. Right? Wrong.
The time after VBS is most crucial to your program’s success as an outreach tool. So you need a follow-up plan to ensure that children—and their families—return to your church.
Use these ideas to make this year’s VBS your Very Best Success.
9 VBS Follow-Up Ideas for Children’s Ministry
1. VBS Adoption Kit
Make a kit with each child’s vital statistics: birthday, age, likes, interests, address, phone number, and family information. Then connect each child with a church family. Families can use the kits to get to know their “adoptees” throughout the year. Plus they can encourage them to attend church and Sunday school.
2. VBS Reunion
Invite all the VBS children to a get-together every month or quarter. Make each reunion a wildly fun event that fits your VBS theme. For example, if you had a “treasures” theme, have a treasure hunt one time. The next, hold a Treasures of the Heart auction, where teams bid on treasured character qualities.
3. VBS Follow-Up Team
Before vacation Bible school begins, form a follow-up team of volunteers. Then have them be very visible throughout VBS week as they get to know visitors. For example, they may do all the drama or lead the singing. That way, children quickly identify with them.
During the week, team members stop by each visitor’s home and deliver a Special Guest Pack. It contains a children’s Bible, homemade cookies, church information, and phone numbers to call if children need a ride to church. Add a T-shirt that says, “I’m Special to God,” with your church logo or name.
4. VBS Part 2
A few weeks after VBS, schedule a few more sessions. That way, children who’ve committed their lives to Christ during VBS can learn how to keep growing spiritually. Have teachers explain what being a Christian means and how children’s lives will be changed. Also equip children to share their newfound faith with others. Then conduct an outreach event for them to practice.