VBS – with or without guardrails

If it's July, it must be Vacation Bible School.  For those of us who were raised in the church or have been raising our kids in the church, Vacation Bible School in July is about as predictable as Christmas in December.  Except that it is becoming less and less predictable.  The The Barna Group reports that in the last decade some 38,000 churches in the U.S. have quit offering VBS.  They site lack of leaders and being too busy as primary excuses.  

One of the most important tasks church leaders face is the task of determining when a program or ministry has run its course.  Our Session will be doing some of that hard work in the coming months.  But I've got a hunch that VBS has a lot of life left to it, so long as we adults don't get too busy or too distracted to make it happen every July. Continue Reading »