VBS Part 1: Music

This week I will be sharing each day about an aspect of Vacation Bible School that I find particularly important.  When I was in elementary school, I attended Vacation Bible School (VBS) every year and it was one of the best weeks of my summer, hands down.  Since the elementary days, I have changed churches, but my current church has a VBS that brings in between 500-600 kids on average and I help out with it.  Since I have seen how VBS functions from both a student and volunteer viewpoint and from several different churches (as I have seen/been a part of VBS programs at other churches), I have gathered a few things about VBS, so I thought I'd share them with you, one a day for several days.  I figured this was appropriate, as last week was my church's VBS week.  We did LifeWay's "Journey Off the Map" and I had a ton of fun working with a third grade class!

Music.  To me, this is one of the most essential parts of VBS.  The wonderful thing about music for VBS is that it comes with the curriculum, so I say use it to its full potential!!!  This music has been used differently at each church I have been to, but I think one of the best ways to use it is to show the provided motions videos alongside people doing the motions onstage and use this as your big, group worship time.  This format made music my favorite part of VBS when I attended because the songs were fun, we learned the words and the motions quickly (which is helpful if there were to be a "concert" for parents at the end of the week...I will discuss this later), and we got to praise Jesus while doing so!  This is an example of the video they played for the last VBS session I attended in elementary school, Avalanche Ranch by Group Publishing:

Obviously this is an older video, from like 2007, but you get the point: there are words and young people doing the motions and singing.  Couple this with people onstage doing the motions and you are set!

One final thing I will put in here is a song from a newer VBS session, Agency D3 which was LifeWay's 2014 VBS curriculum.  I volunteered with this at my church last year.  This was my favorite song:

The songs are always super fun and age appropriate for kids.  They have most definitely been my favorite part of VBS, both when I attended it as a kid and now as I volunteer it.  Just google some songs...they are EXCELLENT stuff!

*WARNING: VBS songs are 100% guaranteed to be permanently stuck in your head.  They are just that catchy.