Marvin McKenzie

Vacation Bible Revival: A six year plan for conducting a week long Children's Summer Program Marvin McKenzie

I did not grow up going to church and, I think, I remember attending only one Vacation Bible school. I'm not sure it could be called that. It was in a neighbor's back yard.

When I entered the ministry the group of preachers I hung around didn't like VBS or Vacation Bible School. They said kids just got out of school. They weren't looking for more classes, but they were looking for a good time. We called it Bible Time. Craft and graded Bible classes were scratched and, in their place was games, prizes, trophies, Bible Time money, and a large store where they could spend it. Bible Time money was earned by: AttendanceBringing a visitor andBible memoryWe saw children memorizing over one hundred verses over the course of five days. Every day they had to repeat all of the verses they had learned the days previous before they were permitted to move on to new verses.

As the years went by, we found it more difficult to get adult workers during the day schedule, so we decided to follow the trend and go to a shorter, night time program. When we did that, I changed the name of our program to Vacation Bible Revival. It's been a few years in the making but I've attempted to transform it from a classroom (VBS) to a carnival (Bible Time) and now to a revival type atmosphere. Our children are more than capable of learning and benefiting from the hymns of the faith, less entertainment (though we try to have some of that too) and Holy Spirit blessed, solid Bible preaching. We've gone away from all the decorations to preserving the auditorium in its church atmosphere. I want our children to think of church as church, not an entertainment center.
You will find that the six-year program we have includes a schedule, skits and snack suggestions. We do not include preaching notes because a preacher must dig a message from God's Word himself or it is no message at all.
Because the yearly programs were developed over six years or more (there were a few themes I scrapped along the way) There are some inconsistencies in format. Prayerfully this will be enough to be a help to you.