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Cokesbury has announced their VBS theme for 2011. It’s titled, “Cokesbury – Shake It Up Café: Where Kids Carry Out God’s Recipe.” In each of the five days, kids will explore a different Biblical festival and discover the principles for living according to God’s plan. The graphics on the website play off a cooking theme with large chef’s hats, aprons, pots & pans, and tablecloths.
Theme Impression
I’m a big fan of the food network and my own children enjoy some of their shows too. I think this could be a really fun theme. I love the originality and variety of creative directions it could take. My imagination jumped back to the 2007 Disney film Ratatouille which introduced the world of fine cooking to this generation.
Michael from Cokesbury sent me one clarification about the theme. Some have mistaken that the whole think happens in the church kitchen. The truth is that this VBS does not involved the kids being in the kitchen at all – the cafe and kitchen are just the setting (the same as kids are not really riding pandas in Group’s PandaMonium). The Shake It Up Café VBS will feature all the standard VBS fun: recreation, crafts, music, assembly time, mission.
More Information
Our website will have a full review of this Vacation Bible School curriculum sometime this winter. You can get more information from Cokesbury’s official website, Facebook page, or Twitter account. They have bible content overview and music samples.
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In response to Le’Quita Hicks from Paris, Tx. We are a small methodist church in SW Pennsylvania and we have loved the Cokesbury VBS material for the last three years that I have been coordinating. True, some years the music is better than others, but over all we love it. This years Shake It Up looks to be great fun. We only get between 15 and 18 kids (praying for more this year) and have a hard time getting helpers but it sounds like you know what that’s like. I guess we should just take it upon ourselves to pray for each others little VBS…..
I’ve been the VBS coordinator for 3 yrs at our church in Paris, TX and I must say that when I received the brochure a couple months ago *and being that it was the only one I had received* I was instantly excited about the Shake It Up Cafe VBS. We are a small african american united methodist church here in Paris so we don’t have as many children and vols, however, I feel that it’s going to be an exciting VBS this year. I can’t wait to cover the church in colored butcher paper, mixing bowl & cardboard box stoves for our decorations. *yea* The only negative I see for our church is the music. We only use Cokesbury for our VBS and the music is never really that great. Tho it’s bouncy and the message is great it’s just not what we’d perfer. Galactic Blast 2010 was an AWESOME VBS. My daughter is still talking about it to this day. I love the message that the Shake it Up Cafe vbs has and I’m going “Shake, shake, shake it up” as best I can for Jesus.
I think it’s great and something different as far as theme I think the children will enjoy Shke it up! I think decorating will be easy and fun! I love the music! Can’t wait to get started.
Elisa
how to get 2011 Cokesbury VBS: Shake It Up Café??? because i’m a new member for this site. thanks alot, GBU
Hi Bella, visit us at Cokesburyvbs.com and learn all about the program and order your starter kit. All orders before December 31 come with a special offer.
Thanks for your interest in Shake It Up Cafe.
Linda
I’m writing in response to Jody’s comments about Cokesbury’s music for 2011. I loved what I heard of the music clips on their website yesterday. In fact, I may be ready to “Shake it Up!”
I listened to the music for shake it up and I absolutely love it! I serve as Music Coordinator for my church and I assist my husband for VBS. My son does the music-My children did as well ( one is 11 and one 19) I love the original theme it will be very fun as well as inexpensive to decorate. Sometimes the themes get costly as far as decorating. I am so excited about this theme, our church will be doing it next year!
We just finished testing Shake It Up cafe with 249 children and over 400 people on site each day including Adult and Youth volunteers and we have nothing but great things to say!! My teaching volunteers loved the theme and Bible stories and they had a fabulous time decorating the church. We all agree that decorating was easy and inexpensive – not always so. The children and youth loved the music- when Youth voluntarily get up on stage and do the Shake It Up motions you know you have good tunes!! The skit was the best VBS skit in years – it got rave reviews form everyone on site. After the first morning word spread and the skit was packed with volunteers from all over the site every morning after that! The theme has great boy appeal- they loved wearing chef hats and cooking- so that’s a plus. My volunteer team has given this a big shout of approval saying it’s one of the best, freshest themes in years and they would do it again!! Don’t miss out – “Shake It Up” next year!!
We are in the stages of getting our church ready to share in the testing of Shake It Up Cafe! We generally end up with 400+ children at our vbs. We will be blogging as the week goes. So hopefully we can share how this will work in a large church setting. As for the music, I think the excitement that our music leaders have already had leads us into a good direction to begin. the week. Here is the link to the blog., ENJOY! http://hfumcvbs.posterous.com/
I am sad. This is the worst thing I have seen. I guess I will join all other LARGE CHURCHES and change to Group. This will NOT work with a large church. Good bye Cokesbury. I tried to stick with you when all my friends bailed. I stuck with you for three years but you sure blew it this year. What were you thinking????
Thanks for the spirited feedback. Can you be more specific about what you don’t like?
Totally disagree. As a large church we are fired up. We are blessed with big facilities and lots of space for the big utensils that I can already see made out of carpet rolls. Love the theology and the theme!!!
I just reviewd the Cokesbury release of “Shake it Up Cafe.” I think the theme is original and the initial content looks pretty good. However, I am quite disappointed in the music. I don’t know if it is because we are just coming off an incredible week of VBS or if it is because the music just isn’t that great. Even my tween girls who had a blast at Galactic Blast rolled up their noses. I haven’t seen anything else of interest for next year yet. I guess we will have to wait and see. I would love to hear thoughts from others on this.
Thanks for the feedback. I haven’t check out the music yet, but I think it’s on the website too.
Michael from Cokesbury sent me one clarification about the theme. Some have mistaken that the whole think happens in the church kitchen. The truth is that this VBS does not involved the kids being in the kitchen at all – the cafe and kitchen are just the setting (the same as kids are not really riding pandas in Group’s PandaMonium). The Shake It Up Café VBS will feature all the standard VBS fun: recreation, crafts, music, assembly time, mission.
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