By Ann Hammond McCamy
In the seventeenth century, when the Puritans began settling our Eastern shore, Sunday was a cherished day of rest from hard work. These early Americans looked forward to spending an entire day in church, sitting on rough, backless benches in poorly heated meeting rooms. People today have much more than just work and church clamoring for their attention. Clubs, music lessons, sports, and an endless stream of media entertainment push more important matters into the background. How can the church get people’s attention when everyone is so busy? A simple answer is to go where they are! Here are some ideas for promoting your Vacation Bible School and other church events in the community.
Does your town hold a Memorial Day parade or other parade in spring or early summer? If so, organize a group from your congregation to march. Wear your Lambert Walking in SON Light T-shirts, and carry a placard or banner announcing the name and location of your congregation. Consider singing as you march (try to be placed far from any marching bands in the line-up). Have a few members of your group toss wrapped candy to spectators. See if you can obtain permission to hand out Lambert postcards or door hangers announcing your VBS along the parade route. If not, perhaps you can have a few non-marching members wearing matching t-shirts work the crowd as politicians do. Your presence at the parade will raise awareness of your presence in the community.
If your community has a festival, street fair, or community day event, rent a booth or table and be part of it! Attract people to your booth with an inexpensive festival freebie: cotton candy, snow cones, bottled water, popcorn, Lambert Bible trading cards, or face-painting. If you can invest a bit more, also print your message on flying disks, ball and paddle toys, ball-point pens, or other appealing gifts. While people are visiting your booth, share your VBS schedule and be sure to mention any other upcoming events your congregation has planned. One congregation has a drawing for a free Bible each year at its community day booth. The Bible give-away spreads God’s Word, sometimes with amazing results. A teen Bible winner and her entire family were baptized!
Finally, don’t overlook the old-fashioned, low-tech ways of bringing people in. Go door-to-door with a short and simple invitation to attend your VBS. Lambert door hangers are perfect for this. Hand them to those who answer the door, and hang them on the doorknob if no one is home. For a twist on the tradition of Christmas caroling, go serenading on an early summer evening. Sing traditional hymns and give out door hangers to anyone who comes out to listen. Mail out postcards to anyone who has attended your VBS in the past. Let your kids call their friends and fill your car or van to its capacity.
The Director Planning Guide that comes with your Lambert VBS kit has more exciting ideas for promoting your VBS. Hundreds of today’s church members first heard the gospel message at a Vacation Bible School. Start now to be sure your congregation is noticed in the community!
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Promoting Your Vacation Bible School: Working with the Local Press
By Ann Hammond McCamy
If you want to use your VBS to reach out to your community, there will have to be lots of promotion to ensure that visitors come to hear God’s message. There are two ways to get your message out through the media: publicity and advertising. What’s the difference? Publicity is free. Advertising costs money. Both are effective, but since publicity is free, it’s a good place to start.
To get publicity, you will need to send press releases to your local paper. Look at community notices they already publish to get a sense of the length and tone they usually accept. In a small community paper, there may be only one or two editors. To work with a large city paper where there are dozens of employees, you may need to cultivate a working relationship with someone in the newsroom, and send your releases directly to that person.
In the Director Planning Guide of your Lambert VBS kit, there is a sample press release you can edit to suit your needs. Add a contact number for your publicity person so if newspaper personnel have questions, they can reach you. Also add a phone number for the church building or for your VBS director in the body of the article so potential visitors can call if they have questions. If your congregation has prepared something especially newsworthy for VBS, be sure to include that in your release, also. A press release is journalism, not creative writing, so stick to items usually covered in journalistic articles: who, what, when, and where. The shorter and simpler your article, the greater the chance it will be published exactly as you submit it. If you are working with a small community newspaper, consider submitting a high-quality photo with your press release. Have several of your congregation’s children pose as they preview the materials and activities, and snap photos that show everyone’s face clearly. Include a caption that includes each child’s name. Hometown editors know that photos of kids sell papers, as parents buy extra copies!
If there are no small community newspapers in your area, getting publicity may be a little harder. You probably will not get a “hit” in the Boston Globe or the New York Times. But there is a little trick that may help you obtain publicity in slightly smaller newspapers. Contact an advertising salesperson and purchase an advertisement or a series of ads. Once you have established a relationship with an ad person, send a copy of every press release to that person as well as to the newsroom.
To get radio and television announcements, edit your press release down to the minimum information: congregation name and location, date and time. This shortened form is called a public service announcement, or PSA. Be sure your PSA includes a phone number to call for more information.
Keep in mind a few final tips: Assign one or two people to handle your press contacts, and be sure they coordinate their efforts to avoid duplications. Send your press releases out via mail or email about two weeks before you want them to appear. Send notices to all community papers and radio and TV stations in your area. Remember that the local press is not obligated to run your announcements. If you want to guarantee your material gets printed, purchase an advertisement. Finally, try to find out how visitors heard about your VBS. If they saw it in the local media, you will know your efforts were worthwhile!
If you want to use your VBS to reach out to your community, there will have to be lots of promotion to ensure that visitors come to hear God’s message. There are two ways to get your message out through the media: publicity and advertising. What’s the difference? Publicity is free. Advertising costs money. Both are effective, but since publicity is free, it’s a good place to start.
To get publicity, you will need to send press releases to your local paper. Look at community notices they already publish to get a sense of the length and tone they usually accept. In a small community paper, there may be only one or two editors. To work with a large city paper where there are dozens of employees, you may need to cultivate a working relationship with someone in the newsroom, and send your releases directly to that person.
In the Director Planning Guide of your Lambert VBS kit, there is a sample press release you can edit to suit your needs. Add a contact number for your publicity person so if newspaper personnel have questions, they can reach you. Also add a phone number for the church building or for your VBS director in the body of the article so potential visitors can call if they have questions. If your congregation has prepared something especially newsworthy for VBS, be sure to include that in your release, also. A press release is journalism, not creative writing, so stick to items usually covered in journalistic articles: who, what, when, and where. The shorter and simpler your article, the greater the chance it will be published exactly as you submit it. If you are working with a small community newspaper, consider submitting a high-quality photo with your press release. Have several of your congregation’s children pose as they preview the materials and activities, and snap photos that show everyone’s face clearly. Include a caption that includes each child’s name. Hometown editors know that photos of kids sell papers, as parents buy extra copies!
If there are no small community newspapers in your area, getting publicity may be a little harder. You probably will not get a “hit” in the Boston Globe or the New York Times. But there is a little trick that may help you obtain publicity in slightly smaller newspapers. Contact an advertising salesperson and purchase an advertisement or a series of ads. Once you have established a relationship with an ad person, send a copy of every press release to that person as well as to the newsroom.
To get radio and television announcements, edit your press release down to the minimum information: congregation name and location, date and time. This shortened form is called a public service announcement, or PSA. Be sure your PSA includes a phone number to call for more information.
Keep in mind a few final tips: Assign one or two people to handle your press contacts, and be sure they coordinate their efforts to avoid duplications. Send your press releases out via mail or email about two weeks before you want them to appear. Send notices to all community papers and radio and TV stations in your area. Remember that the local press is not obligated to run your announcements. If you want to guarantee your material gets printed, purchase an advertisement. Finally, try to find out how visitors heard about your VBS. If they saw it in the local media, you will know your efforts were worthwhile!
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
WHAT MAKES A GOOD TEACHER?
By Teddy Copeland
A little boy came home from school one day and announced to his parents that his Sunday school teacher was the grandmother of Jesus. "What makes you think that?" his dad asked. "Because," the young fellow replied, "she talks about Him all the time!"
A love for Jesus – and enthusiasm when talking about Him – definitely is a key ingredient for success in the classroom. Another essential is to use good basic material that you can trust to be faithful to God's Word. (With Lambert products, that's a given.) But there are three other essentials as well, all found in a passage in the Old Testament.
In Ezra 7:10 we read: "For Ezra prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord, and to do it, and to teach in Israel statues and judgments." Ezra would have made a good employee for Campbell's Soup because he was great at condensing things. In this passage he condenses the principal components of a good teacher.
First of all, we see that a good teacher studies the law of the Lord. A good illustration of this comes from the physical world in the way our bodies draw in and release air. Our exhaling is in proportion to our inhaling. So it is with Bible study. We must fill up our reservoir with God's truth before we can release it to others. Our need for and dependence upon God's Word should be like that of an infant, constantly requiring and demanding nourishment (1 Peter 2:2). A converted Indian once described the battle between good and evil that goes on within us. "I have two dogs living in me," he said, "a good dog and a mean dog. They are always fighting. The mean dog wants me to do bad things and the good dog wants me to do good things. Do you know which dog wins? The one I feed the most!" Teachers should "feed their good dogs" with a regular study of God's Word.
Secondly, a teacher not only studies the Word of God, but does it. Before we teach it is so important that our students can see us living God's Word in our lives. It's not a coincidence that in one of our children's favorite activities at school – Show and Tell – the showing comes first. Children learn much more by being shown something than by merely being told! A missionary once spoke to a group of Hindu women. Right in the middle of his message, one of the women got up and walked out of the building. Soon, however, she returned and listened even more intently than before. "Why did you leave?" the missionary asked her at the end of the service. "I was so interested in the wonderful things that you were saying that I went to ask the woman who washes clothes at your house if you live like you teach. She said you do, so I came back to hear more!"
Thirdly, after studying God's Word and putting it into action, one is ready to teach. Ezra himself followed this formula and, as a result of his teaching, there was a great reformation in the lives of the Israelites. One of the great factors in Ezra's teaching, I believe, was the love he had for his people. 1 Corinthians 13 tells us that without love, nothing worthwhile can be accomplished. Here is a version of that famous chapter, adapted for teachers.
If I have read all the books that men have written about teaching, but have not a love for teaching, I am only making a loud sound. And if I have a magna jector and understand the use of all visual aids and if I have all energy as to make a new poster every week, but have not a love for teaching, I am not a teacher.
If I use all that I have and give all my time to decorating my classroom, but have not a love for teaching, my students have profited nothing. When I was a child, I spoke and understood and thought like a child. When I became a teacher, I put away childish things, but I did not forget what it was like to be a child. And now abideth the teacher's knowledge, the teacher's aids, and the teacher's love; the greatest of these is the teacher's love.
A little boy came home from school one day and announced to his parents that his Sunday school teacher was the grandmother of Jesus. "What makes you think that?" his dad asked. "Because," the young fellow replied, "she talks about Him all the time!"
A love for Jesus – and enthusiasm when talking about Him – definitely is a key ingredient for success in the classroom. Another essential is to use good basic material that you can trust to be faithful to God's Word. (With Lambert products, that's a given.) But there are three other essentials as well, all found in a passage in the Old Testament.
In Ezra 7:10 we read: "For Ezra prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord, and to do it, and to teach in Israel statues and judgments." Ezra would have made a good employee for Campbell's Soup because he was great at condensing things. In this passage he condenses the principal components of a good teacher.
First of all, we see that a good teacher studies the law of the Lord. A good illustration of this comes from the physical world in the way our bodies draw in and release air. Our exhaling is in proportion to our inhaling. So it is with Bible study. We must fill up our reservoir with God's truth before we can release it to others. Our need for and dependence upon God's Word should be like that of an infant, constantly requiring and demanding nourishment (1 Peter 2:2). A converted Indian once described the battle between good and evil that goes on within us. "I have two dogs living in me," he said, "a good dog and a mean dog. They are always fighting. The mean dog wants me to do bad things and the good dog wants me to do good things. Do you know which dog wins? The one I feed the most!" Teachers should "feed their good dogs" with a regular study of God's Word.
Secondly, a teacher not only studies the Word of God, but does it. Before we teach it is so important that our students can see us living God's Word in our lives. It's not a coincidence that in one of our children's favorite activities at school – Show and Tell – the showing comes first. Children learn much more by being shown something than by merely being told! A missionary once spoke to a group of Hindu women. Right in the middle of his message, one of the women got up and walked out of the building. Soon, however, she returned and listened even more intently than before. "Why did you leave?" the missionary asked her at the end of the service. "I was so interested in the wonderful things that you were saying that I went to ask the woman who washes clothes at your house if you live like you teach. She said you do, so I came back to hear more!"
Thirdly, after studying God's Word and putting it into action, one is ready to teach. Ezra himself followed this formula and, as a result of his teaching, there was a great reformation in the lives of the Israelites. One of the great factors in Ezra's teaching, I believe, was the love he had for his people. 1 Corinthians 13 tells us that without love, nothing worthwhile can be accomplished. Here is a version of that famous chapter, adapted for teachers.
If I have read all the books that men have written about teaching, but have not a love for teaching, I am only making a loud sound. And if I have a magna jector and understand the use of all visual aids and if I have all energy as to make a new poster every week, but have not a love for teaching, I am not a teacher.
If I use all that I have and give all my time to decorating my classroom, but have not a love for teaching, my students have profited nothing. When I was a child, I spoke and understood and thought like a child. When I became a teacher, I put away childish things, but I did not forget what it was like to be a child. And now abideth the teacher's knowledge, the teacher's aids, and the teacher's love; the greatest of these is the teacher's love.
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