Waynesboro Grace Church in southern Pennsylvania hosted a new kind of kids camp in lieu of a traditional Vacation Bible School (VBS) called Creative Kidz Camp. The camp was held over the course of three evenings in late June.
“As we were thinking about VBS this year we really wanted to think through the why. We want our VBS to be an outreach, we want to reach our local neighborhood for Jesus and the traditional VBS was not working,” said Kidz Ministry Director Jessica Veen. “I had the idea to try more of a hobbies type camp as a different and fresh way to draw in kids from the community.”
Similar to VBS, each gathering started in the sanctuary for songs, a Bible verse, and a Bible lesson. The kids could choose one of four hobby areas to participate in for the week: Legos, baking, art, and woodworking. A portion of the time in the hobby area was spent on a devotional that reinforced the Bible lesson for the day. The kids had about 90 minutes to practice and grow in their hobby area of interest before gathering again as a large group to wrap up the night.
Jessica said of the 50 kids who attended, about 40 of them were from the community. “We have been building a relationship with the local elementary school which provided us with an opportunity to promote our Creative Kidz Camp. In May we provided a meal for everyone who came to the elementary school’s Spring Fling, their arts and STEM night, and had many conversations and invitations to the camp.” Since the camp, two families who participated have started attending on Sunday mornings.
“The kids’ engagement and excitement was far beyond what it was when we have done regular VBS,” Jessica said. “It was a huge success — we had so many kids from the community, we shared the Gospel, they were super engaged and loved it, our volunteers did too!”