[ad#kids-links]On June 9, LifeWay will announce their Vacation Bible School themes for 2009 VBS. Here is the sneak peak they’ve been emailing out. You can bookmark my VBS 2009 theme page to keep up to date as I track (and write reviews) of all the new 2009 themes for vacation bible school.
LifeWay Boomerang Express VBS 2009:
An Australian based curriculum theme featuring railroad elements. I’m really excited to learn more, and expect the Bible school music to be really great.
Need More Help? You can find even more practical ideas on my Vacation Bible School resource page, our VBS forum and my Vacation Bible School crafts page.
Don’t miss the excellent Lifeway VBS blog and their official Lifeway VBS Website. Share your feedback about Outrigger Island VBS on our forum.
LifeWay Club VBS: Truth Trek 2009
An treasure hunting theme in their simplified club format. This looks like another great option for smaller churches with limited resources.
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With what do you recommend to use to write on the VBS banner to be placed outside?
I agree with you Amber. The program which starts tomorrow is going to be awesome. With the help of many people we are going to have an outstanding VBS. The kids are going to love it. Lifeway needs some Customer Service skills. I AM a CSR in my real life and if I had ever lied to a customer or had treated anyone as rudely as they were, my head would have been on the chopping block. Reality check Lifeway. You have to support your program in ALL areas especially when there are problems….and there are always problems…
I was in charge of choosing the VBS theme this year and chose the Boomerang Express because I loved the music and the ABC method of salvation. We ordered 9 products and only got 4 of them, one of which was wrong. The Customer Svc department which you had to wait on hold for 1/2 hour to get a hold of was not very compassionate, basically said we have been sold out for months. When we ordered we were told everything was in stock. My Pastor is very upset and we are now scrambling to come up with our own ideas. Sorry to be so negative but our VBS is next week and the leaders are not very happy with me…:(
Similar thing happened to us. We ordered our material in April, our VBS was the first week of June. After many, many calls to LifeWay in regards to this matter, we found out that they had severely under printed,and had to reprint-thus the reason for the delay. We got our literature 1 week prior to our VBS. Our teachers were going nuts-rightly deserved. When we got our literature, some of it was missing, and we noticed that someone had written a note in red ink at the bottom of the receipt that was included with our order. It said “Sorry-the following items are out of stock” and then listed all of our babies books, our youth learner guides, and the Leading a Child to Christ brochures. We contacted LifeWay, and they said they were totally out, their only suggestion was to check stores in our area and see if we could scratch it up. We did-and luckily were able to get the items that had been left out of our order. Now-the end of last week, someone from our Associational office dropped a bag by, saying this had been dropped off for our church. Guess what it contained? The literature that had been left out of our original order-a whole month after our VBS was over. The add to it all, there were two separate receipts included, showing where they had charged this to our church account. Life we even have a use for this now. After calling them, they were not helpful in the least-and told us that we could return it to any LifeWay store , but they wouldn’t issue a refund, as their policy is that they do not issue refunds for any VBS materials. We told them, that we would instruct the treasurer to not pay this bill-only then were we able to get them to agree to credit our account. Our VBS went over great and the theme was amazing! Too bad LifeWay was very difficult to deal with.
I’m having a problem with the Tucker Bags for Boomerang Express. I can’t seem to keep the velcro dots attached to the bag. They keep coming off. I’ve tried hot glue, tacky glue and even tried sewing, but that was labor intensive for all our bags. Any suggestions would be great.
hi i was in vbs this year and i personally think that the idea of vbs is great because not only do parents and guardians get away from the kids and the kids get a away from the parents they also learn about god and have fun for a whole week then on friday they do a huge performance to show the parents what they have learned. our church raised money and went over the goal and the rules were that if we hit the goal they would shave this dudes hair off only leaving a mohawk and if we went over the goal they would shave his hair only leaving a mohawk and then dying it blue or pink or any color we would agree on. i think vbs is great and they should continue vbs for many kids so that when the students that went this year will grow up and have there kids go. GO VBS!AND REMEMBER IT ALL COMES BACK TO JESUS.
We are using Boomerang Express ( selected by church officials). Me and one other teacher have had some problems with it.
When you are teaching preschoolers who may not even know who God is, why would you start teaching with the stories about Peter and Jesus ? We have found that we had to go back and write our own introduction to lay the groundwork building up to who God is and who Jesus is. We discussed this on the first night.
We have also found that the songs on the CD are way too hard for 2-5 year olds to learn with the limited time we have. We are sticking to the old traditional preschool church songs and not using the CD. It’s good for older kids. My older daughte loves it.
The theme (outback) IS cute, but has very, very little to do with ANY of the lessons. Most of the lessons are about Peter and Jesus. I have also had to translate every verse using the KJV of the Bible because that’s all our church uses.
The traveling packs are a cute idea (adorable!), but I much preferred the little brochures that the kids got to use in the other VBS programs in the past. It gave them something to look at and draw on/put stickers on during lesson time.
One of the Bible verses is taken completely out of context– the one about Jesus said if you do what I say, you are my friend. I had to go back and read the verses before and after it in order to explain it to the kids in the appropriate way.
Last year we did Genesis and the Creation. I think that is what VBS should be all about. Get those CORE beliefs about who God is and how Earth was created, who Jesus is, etc. Many kids…that is all the education they will get about God at all. We have lots who come that don’t come to church regularly.
Also, don’t use the Boomerang Express if you don’t have the facilites to do “centers”. We don’t. It’s harder to do without using centers.
Not trying to be negative, just giving an honest opinion from a preschool teachers pov.
PreKteacher, to counter your statement on the music, I certainly understand that it is difficult for younger children to learn the tough LifeWay music every year. Jeff Slaughter has an answer to that as well, by writing songs relevant to the theme for PreSchoolers. These come in 5-pack CD’s, and this year’s had a song for the five different tracks. You can order them with the other VBS curriculum.
Hello everyone!
I just wanted to share this blessing I have had thanks to taking part in my churches VBS over the years. Praise God for my salvation! Praise God for putting me in a christian raised family and church! And praise God for the wonderful work Lifeway’s VBS has done over the years!
I have attened every VBS we have ever had since I was old enough to enroll (back in the day it was PreK) and once I was too old to attend any of the classes I began taking part in helping with various stages of VBS.
I am blessed to have lead our church’s VBS ‘Music Class’ over the past five years and even more blessed to have been able to spread Gods Word and love via the VBS music! You know it’s bad when you can still do the moves to past VBS songs! (Or is that a bad thing? :D)
I know this is long and I’m sorry for taking up so much space but I just wanted to share that with anyone reading this! If your on facebook please feel free to look me up! I did make a ‘Fans Of Jeff Slaughter’ facebook group feel free to join….teehee!
Keep up the great work Lifeway (and Jeff!) and to any and every church doing this years VBS you are in my prayers!
God Bless!
-Rebekah W
Too old? We have an adult class, complete with snacks and a craft. They LOVE it. Think about instituting it!
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