One of the best thrills as a leader is seeing the next generation take hold of responsibility and flourishing with it and that was one of the highlights of this summer’s VBS program. In a summer where over 100 children and well over 70 families were impacted through VBS it is easy to say that it was a success based on numbers alone, but I think a successful summer needs to be summed up by more than just numbers.
The biblical teaching was filmed in the months leading up to VBS, which allowed for a tight theme to run through each day’s lesson. Each day we focused on a different individual from the Bible and a characteristic that made each person unique in their personality as well as their relationship with God. The theme for VBS was “Bible Broadcast” and our byline was “I can be like ____________.” As we looked at the various individuals in the Bible we discovered what it means to pray, trust, listen and how to be courageous in your faith. As the children learned about key biblical concepts they were able to tie them all back to Jesus and His wonderful gift of grace.
Strong Bible teaching was a huge focus for us this year because we wanted the children to continue to grow spiritually and to set our summer program apart from the multitude of city camps.
A highlight for the leaders this summer was creating a mentorship model of leadership that ran from the youngest child to the oldest volunteer. Older children were given opportunities to lead games for the younger ones to show them that they had the gifts and talents to be a leader too. Our goal was that every child and volunteer would have a three people teaching him or her leadership principles and they would teach one person themselves. This was important for us to develop a mentorship model this summer so that our church family continues to establish themselves as leaders, and to have opportunities to serve in years to come. This also helps us to create a natural progression through our summer programs that starts when you are four-years-old and ends after high school. We used 2 Timothy 2:2 as our model.
“2 and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.”
Thank you for all the families that sent their children to VBS and thank you to all our volunteers that made each day possible.
The Emerging Network 