VBS: Have You Prayed About It?

If you were a part of our household long enough, you would soon hear someone ask, “Have you prayed about it?” Sometimes we answer that question defensively when in truth, our prayers amount to little more than “God! Help!”

Like any church program, VBS needs the preeminence and protection of prayer. VBS is more than just a program to keep kids busy. We are dealing with the eternal destiny of those we teach. There are so many God-touched moments that can happen at VBS; conversely, the Evil One will do whatever he can to keep those special moments from happening. You can move your VBS from just another program to a specaular, inspiring week for both students and staff by surrounding your efforts in prayer.

Here are a few ideas on how to weave prayer into your program.

1. Begin your first planning meeting with concentrated prayer. I don’t mean an opening one minute prayer by the director. I mean, have yourself an old fashioned prayer meeting. Pray for those who are planning VBS. Pray that God supply your staff needs. Pray for the children who will attend. Pray that God give you wisdom, direction, creativity, peace and courage to get out of your comfort zone and do something big for Him. Have a time of prayer at the beginning, not end of every planning and staff meeting.

2. Ask non-staff church members to seve as prayer partners, one f0r each staff person. Schedule a time the week before VBS for the staff and prayer partner to meet together to pray.

3. Have a prayer room assigned during the week of VBS. Choose a quiet place, perhaps with background music so staff can go and pray on their breaks. Some of your prayer partners might even want to come pray in the prayer room during that week.

4. Have the staff meet five minutes earlier than normally scheduled to have a devotion and pray together.

5. Have a staff praise service the week after VBS. If people are burned out on meetings, schedule a clean up and lunch date on the next Saturday after VBS, ending with the praise service. Give staff a chance to share how they saw God at work during VBS.

6. Leave a comment on this site to share with us how you saw God at work in direct answer to the prayers of His people.