4 Ways to Partner with Other Churches for VBS
A fellow kids pastor on the left helping prep VBS decorations for our respective VBSs
My last post, Making Your VBS Stand Out, struck a chord. I got a lot of readers and comments on social media, and a recurring theme in the responses was partnering with other churches. I get it. We're not in competition with the churches around us. We're all working toward the same goal: reaching people in our communities for Jesus. Making your VBS stand out can seem antithetical to that ethos.
But I don't see it that way. We want to run excellent events, and excellence is what makes them stand out. That doesn't mean we can't also cheer on what other churches are doing and work alongside them.
The Gospel is for everyone, but your church isn't. We can be as welcoming and inclusive as possible, but we live in a consumeristic culture. People choose churches based on size, location, kids' ministry, preaching style, and a dozen other factors. Preaching the Good News is just one item on that list, and it’s pretty far down. We can acknowledge that reality and still work together across church lines to reach our cities.
Here are four ways to do exactly that, ranging from a simple phone call to hosting a city-wide event together.
1. Share Salvation Information
Among the three groups of kids who attend your VBS, there's a group I call VBS Hoppers. These are kids who have a home church but come to your event anyway, whether because they want the free child-care, they have a friend, or they just like your church. Bottom line is their home church is not yours.
If one of those kids makes a decision for Jesus at your VBS, call their pastor and let them know. Salvation is one of the most significant milestones in a person's life. The people who disciple that child week in and week out deserve to celebrate that moment with them.
That one phone call can also open doors you didn't expect. A lot of churches never partner together simply because they never talk to each other. The competitive spirit gets in the way without anyone even realizing it. Fight that instinct, pick up the phone, and introduce yourself. You may have far more in common than you think.
2. Share Décor
This is my favorite way to partner with other churches.
VBS decorations take real time and money to create. But once your event is over, the last thing you want is a storage room full of foam board and cardboard props you may or may not use again. Themes are cyclical, sure, but do you really want to hold onto something for seven years on the off chance it comes back around?
When I clean out my storage space, I ask one question: if I got rid of this, how much would it cost to replace it if I needed it again? Most VBS decorations aren't expensive. The cost to store them often outweighs the cost to simply remake them later. So instead of throwing them away, invest them in the kingdom. Pass them along to another church so a different group of kids can enjoy them.
The best piece I ever made was for a video game-themed VBS: a four-by-eight-foot NES controller that served as the centerpiece of our stage. It was hard to let go of, but that summer our decorations, including that controller, made it to four different churches before July was over. That's what kingdom partnership is supposed to look like.
3. Share Planning and Resources
While I was in Sarasota, I built a friendship with a fellow kids' pastor in my area and denomination. After two summers of swapping décor, she suggested we take it further. Instead of connecting in June after everything was already done, we started meeting in February. We chose the same curriculum, bought decoration materials together, and divided the work according to our strengths. She had a strong design team. I was better at marketing. We each made the other's VBS better.
This kind of partnership takes more time to develop, but it's worth it. You already shouldn't be doing this alone within your own church. Bringing in a trusted partner from outside adds even more perspective and strength to your planning.
Hosting your events on different weeks and sharing resources is a practical way to extend what both of you can do. And when you stop seeing the church down the street as competition, it becomes a lot easier to ask for help and offer it in return.
4. Share Your Event
I'll be honest: I've never done this for VBS specifically, though I have seen it work well for events like Convoy of Hope. But hear me out.
Instead of every church in your town running a separate VBS on different weeks throughout the summer, what if you pooled your resources and hosted one large community VBS together? Rather than meeting at the bigger church's building, find a neutral location. A public park, the local YMCA, or a school gym. Somewhere centrally located and accessible to everyone involved.
At that point, you're not just sharing decorations. You're sharing volunteers, teaching responsibilities, and resources. You may feel a little resistance to this idea, a quiet worry about losing kids or volunteers to the other church. I felt it just writing that sentence. But if we're genuinely kingdom-minded and trying to reach every lost kid in our city, then a city-wide VBS isn't a threat. It's an opportunity.
It will take more work, more coordination, and more humility than going it alone. But the potential impact is worth it.
You can partner with other churches and still run an excellent, standout event. Those two things aren't in conflict. What makes partnership hard isn't logistics. It's ego. But Jesus prayed in John 17 that we would work together in unity. Competing with the church down the street was never part of the plan. Reaching the lost together always is.
