VBS on the Brain

I had a meeting this week with a VBS guru.  Or I suppose she would be my VBS guru, if she will have me.  She's the children's ministry director at a not-far-from-here-but-not-exactly-nearby church that has a spectacularly well run VBS.  I know this because I have been there with my kids and experienced it first hand.  After our meeting, I felt challenged, but extremely overwhelmed.  I have a lot of ideas for changes, but she pointed out a lot more that are not "make things more effective" changes, but "serious errs in procedures" changes.  Things like not having background checks on workers, allowing teenagers to care for babies, and a lax check out procedure.  In thinking about it, I am pretty sure our church's child-care worker requirement is : breathing.  The way we do things is totally old school - and even though most of the workers are trustworthy, I am afraid it is a huge liability for our church.

She also suggested we split the worship rally into two - one for bigs and one for littles (Pre-k to Kindergarten).  This would solve some of the check out problems, but would be a huge break with tradition in our church.  There is one tradition in particular that I think splitting it up would be good for - The Happy Song.  Every year during The Happy Song the kids race around the pews and I think having 100 kids ages 4 to 12 running in a huge circle around big wooden pews is probably a liability too.  But so far I've never seen anyone hurt.

One suggestion that I have that she thought might work is alternating crafts and rec so that the kids went to only one on each night - so 2x each.  Friday night we will not do either.  She also thought I was right to axe the musical.  She pointed out something I didn't think about - although Caleb likes crafts, lots of boys do not, so if we only have crafts and no recreation, who are we catering to?  Just the girls for the most part.  And vice versa if we only have rec and no crafts.

She also said we need a nurses station - preferably manned by an actual nurse, although she said any medical background would do.

It was good to have her help me think through the problems with a dismissal from the sanctuary (which I think we have always done).  There are two alternate exits, one a fire exit with no alarm that would be an easy place for a person to sneak a kid out. She also helped me think out the two sides of what to do with the teenagers (last year they had a class, I want them to volunteer this year).  And gave me a great idea of where to move a worker I thoughtlessly replaced without having a plan for her.

So I am assuming that some of your churches have child care workers policies that are more defined.  If you know them or know a link to them, could you email me?  I know I have no real influence on the issue of background checks.  To me it's a no-brainer, but others with more clout feel differently.  I just want to do what I can where I can.