The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Vacation Bible School: Why always so early?

Practices Christian Living
#1

I have a long-standing perplexity about churches’ Vacation Bible School (VBS) for children. In my entire adult life (I turn 44 tomorrow), I have never seen a VBS held in any month other than June. It’s as though the churches have a race to see who can have the earliest VBS. The children have barely gotten out of school, and WHAM! It’s time for VBS. Often a child’s last day of school was on Friday, and his first day of VBS is 3 days later on Monday.

That seems odd to me.

I remember being a child and loving the free time of summer vacation. We spent June de-compressing from 9 months of school. Sometime after July 4th, however, my friends and I would sometimes get a little listless, looking for something to do.

So why not have VBS in July? Far more children would be bored by this time, whereas with VBS held in early or mid-June, the children don’t have time to get bored yet, thus making VBS kind of “just like school, only not as bad”. How much better it would be if VBS were held in July, resulting in an attitude of “Good! Something to do!”

Further, by all the churches having their VBS in June, they overlap, making it much more difficult for friends to attend each others’ churches’ VBS. “Yeah, Mike, it would be so cool to go to each others’ VBS, but we can’t because they are being held during the same week.” If the churches’ VBS programs were sprinkled throughout the summer (instead of each and every one being crammed into the middle two weeks of June), it is a slam-dunk that more children would go to more VBS.

I know this is a very minor topic (and I’m not even sure I put it in the correct sub-forum), but it genuinely baffles me. Any insights?

#2

I think that perhaps churches schedule VBS in early June, because they reckon many families go on vacation in mid or late summer. It’s easier to have the kids present but rowdy than to have them not present at all and their parents disgruntled because the church scheduled VBS during vacation time.

I agree though-- I think kids would do loads better in VBS if it were scheduled for the middle months. Kids need some downtown, and bouncing from activity to activity isn’t actually always the most productive thing to do.

Anyway, as someone who spent the day corralling antsy grade schoolers after their last day of school (I work for my local community center’s after-school program), I definitely agree your proposition to save summertime events, like VBS, to midsummer so kids can enjoy rather than dread them as simply “School 2.0.”

#3

I’m not much in the VBS scene these days, but I know some of the churches do hold it later so there’s usually something going more or less all summer. From what I’ve heard, some of the churches decided they ought to try to serve the kids who couldn’t come early, so that’s a start anyway. Maybe they’re doing that in other places too. :slight_smile:

#4

Fortunately, and for the first time in my life, I noticed that a local church is having Vacation Bible School in July 21-24. They must have read this thread! :laughing: