5 Reasons Why You Might Want to Kill VBS in Your Church

5 Reasons Why You Might Want to Kill VBS in Your Church August 22, 2016

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2. Our task as a church is to make disciples, not have children repeat a prayer. Yes, VBS is good at exposing children to the gospel, without a doubt. But American evangelicalism has uncomfortably reduced the gospel to a simple (not-found-in-Scripture) Sinner’s Prayer. If we can get someone to repeat that prayer with us, then our work is done, right? Not even close. VBS is geared towards getting kids to make a one-time decision, to repeat a prayer, with no thought of meaningful follow-up. That’s why for Southern Baptists at least (the kings of VBS in our minds), baptism rates are decreasing in every age group except for children under the age of 5. We don’t baptize infants (like ‘those’ denominations we look down our noses at), but we baptize toddlers. VBS fosters a culture designed to induce children to make a quick decision and repeat a prayer with little meaningful follow-up.

3. The key to discipling children is through families, not the children. Let’s say a child attends every day of your church’s VBS, 15 solid hours of gospel exposure. As good as that might be, there are still over 3000 waking hours in that child’s year. How are you making an impact during those hours? Some churches have embraced VBS because in essence they have written off the parents. They know they can’t reach the parents, so at least they will try and reach the kids. But as good as your VBS might be for those 15 hours (and let’s be honest, a lot of VBS’s are cheesy), those seeds of faith will be trampled by 3000 waking hours of negative influences if you can’t reach the entire family. More than making a decision or repeating a prayer, if you want to truly disciple children, you have to effectively reach the parents.


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