Episcopal Church Foundation Vestry Papers - for leading congregations

When something doesn’t work, we often learn more, but the lessons are harder.

I often share here the good and successful events and ministries, especially from my own congregation. But it’s important too to tell when things don’t go as planned. And what we learned from it.

Our congregation has tons of kids. More than 30 in youth choirs, and an afterschool program regularly attracts two to three dozen. But when it came time for sign-ups for Vacation Bible School this year, the well ran dry. While we had about 30 children in last year’s program, registration this year was at five, with a couple of verbal maybes.

The Christian Formation Commission met last week to figure out why—and how to proceed. A couple of factors are out of our control: 

• School is starting ten days earlier this year. That means sports practices and evening commitments are starting earlier too. Families with children of different ages already are being pulled into taxi service, and children are faced with two or three commitments. 
• Another factor is the economy. In our area of the country, the economy is picking back up, so folks are taking vacations (or more of them). We’ve noticed a lot more travel this summer, which is a great thing for families and perhaps not-so-great for VBS attendance. 

The first decision the commission made was to cancel VBS. Hosting a good VBS program requires a lot of human power, and they decided that it made more sense to redirect the people resources. The few registrants were notified personally. 

The commission also is taking a hard look at VBS for next summer. Should it be moved to earlier in the summer, taking into account a new school calendar? Would a weekly VBS work, with sessions once a week for a month? What about an all-day Saturday blow-out? Or do they need to completely reimagine VBS into something completely new? 

The commission’s not sure yet, but they will be talking with members of the congregation and doing some research of other programs. 

Sometimes things don’t work, or they stop working. What makes it a failure—or a success—is how we respond.