Who Made Camp Courage VBS, and How We Made the Music

Camp Courage is the first VBS we have ever published. Before you run it, we want you to know who made it.

We are a small team, not a big anonymous corporation, and we made this for you. This page is a look into our kitchen: who we are, why we made our own music, and how it went. Team photos are coming.

The team behind Camp Courage

1. Tony Kummer. I wrote and directed the program. More about me below.
2. Elijah Kummer, my oldest son, managed the whole VBS project. In the music he pushed for the upbeat sound that keeps boys engaged.
3. Chloe Kummer, my daughter, handled the look of Camp Courage, from the title art to the coloring pages. She is a theater graduate who teaches at a children’s theater camp, and she taught us what makes a song singable, not just listenable.
4. Kristin Highley writes curriculum with us and is the Director of Christian Education at her own church. She built and tested all ten crafts and all five WOW object lessons, then filmed a demo video for each one.
5. Lilet Restrivera made the lyric video for every song. She also answers our customer emails, so if you write in, you may hear from her.
6. Ariana, my teenage daughter, had strong opinions about the songs and helped pick the ones the girls will actually sing.
7. Kid Testers, I don’t want to put their names on the internet, but there was a handful of kids who helped test our songs.

The rest of our team, and what each of us does, is on our About page: Meet the team at The Sunday School Store.

A little about me

I’m Tony Kummer. I have been in kids’ ministry for twenty years. I was the children’s pastor of a small church for ten of them, and a mission leader in Haiti for several more. The whole time I have been writing and editing free Bible lessons here at Ministry-to-Children, since 2006.

In my ten years at the church I directed VBS ten times. For a while on this blog I also reviewed the major publishers’ VBS programs every year: I listened to their songs and read their director manuals. I have been learning from good and bad examples, and from my own mistakes, my whole ministry career.

We launched The Sunday School Store in 2020 to make the best curriculum we could for small churches. It is now used around the world.

Why we made our own music

1. Music is a huge part of VBS for kids. A VBS without its own songs is not the full experience.
2. We wanted songs that could stand next to anything the bigger publishers put out.
3. We did not want to raise the price to get there. Camp Courage has to stay in reach of a small church.
4. In Haiti I learned that music reaches kids across cultures, even when they do not understand every word and I am translating the lyrics on the fly. Kids remember what they sing.

How we made the songs, step by step

1. We started with our teaching goals, our theology, and the five Bible stories. Every song had to teach that day’s story or the memory verse.
2. Our team dug into the Suno music generator and learned how to get those things into musical styles kids would love. Suno was one tool in the process, not the process.
3. Chloe taught us song structure: how to make a song kids can sing along with, not just listen to. She was skeptical this could produce a good song until we got into it.
4. We tested the songs on real kids and found out what worked and what did not.
5. We went back to the drawing board and generated more. Then we did it again. There were days my eyes were strained and my head hurt from listening to so many samples.
6. Elijah pushed for the upbeat sound boys need to stay engaged. Ariana picked for the girls.
7. Lilet turned each finished song into a lyric video, with the words on screen in time with the music.
8. Every lyric went into the Music Station Manual, with suggested motions and a plan for the 20 minutes, so the leader never needs another book.

The wrong turns

1. We tried contemporary Christian song styles first. It turned into a megachurch rock concert, which was not the right vibe for a small-church VBS.
2. We tried a campfire sing-along sound. It came out like a preschool choir singing old-fashioned country.
3. Along the way we tried a lot of styles, and that is where the Day 3 bonus song, Stand Up Tall, comes from. It does not strictly meet our standard for singability, but it is a lot of fun, so we included it for any VBS that wants to try it.

What we think about the tools

We share the concern everyone has about AI slop. YouTube is full of kids’ Christian songs that were generated in an afternoon and never sung by an actual kid. That is not what this is. It is not a band you will find on Spotify, and it is not a music contractor we paid. It is our team, our theology, twenty years of watching what works with kids, and a lot of testing, with the Suno music generator as one tool.

My conclusion after the whole process: the tools are really amazing, and they can be used to empower a lot of creativity, expression, and teaching songs.

Why the songs are public

We are not trying to build a big YouTube channel. We made these songs for churches that use Camp Courage, and for any church that finds them later and thinks they fit. That is why they are public, and free to use in your ministry with no copyright restrictions.

We worked hard to make music kids will enjoy, that helps them learn the Bible stories and experience the love of Jesus as they sing with their friends, teachers, and families. We are all human, and we are doing the best we can to serve you with good resources at the best price. If you find a flaw in anything we made, tell me. Leave a comment below — I read every one.

Where to find everything

1. The Camp Courage teaching songs, as lyric videos (YouTube playlist)
2. The complete Camp Courage VBS, available October 1, 2026
3. Free bonus resources for this VBS, including the craft demos and WOW demos
4. Meet the whole team

Tony Kummer, The Sunday School Store