Last month I wrote a post on entitled "Why We Do VBS" (which you can read here). At the point of writing I thought we were well on our way. I was wrong, we were almost no where. Then, a few weeks ago, we (my VBS director and I) decided that it was time to call it off ... this year.

Here are a few lessons we learned:

1. Plan ahead. We always plan on starting in the late fall to plan for next year's VBS. We still haven't got to that point. This is completely on me, and I'm having to own that. As we look towards next year, that's is the plan. The difference this time is that now I'm being held more accountable.

2. Recruit key leaders. Had we planned ahead, we would've had leaders for key positions. We would've had a worship leader, a crafts leader, several small group leaders, a snacks leaders in place that would have been responsible for their various leaders that we could have been checking in on and helping if them if need be.

3. Block off schedules. If we would have been planning this last fall, the week would have been chosen last fall. That's important because then our leaders would have been able to plan for it. By waiting, we lost out on potential leaders and helpers to vacations and other summer activities.

4. Pick Curriculum. We couldn't come to a decision on what would work best for our church and its people. We had it narrowed down, but not picked out.

Moving forward:

1.  If we are going to do VBS, or any other activity, we want to do it well. Instead of throwing it together and doing it "for the sake of doing it", our desire was to do it well. We don't want to be running around at the last minute just throwing it together. That doesn't bring glory to God (although God can and often does bless it despite of us).

2. Most importantly, pray over it. Which means we were trying to do it in our own strength for our own glory. God isn't honored in that either.

Again, as the pastor, this is on me. This is my fault. I'm taking responsibility for that and vowing to do better. I could make all the excuses in the world, but at the end of the day, I allowed this to slip through the cracks. I allowed both personal and professional things get in the way and lost sight of it. The only thing I can do now is learn and grow from this. In the end though I believe this was the wisest course of action.