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VBS

Community Spotlight: An Illustrated Compassion VBS at St. John in the Wilderness Episcopal Church

Alissa Ellett 1 Comment

St John VBS Illustrated Compassion

We have put together a concise summary of St. John in the Wilderness Episcopal Church’s experience using An Illustrated Compassion for their Vacation Bible School. If you are looking for something that would be easy to print out and take to a staff or committee meeting, you can download the free PDF here.

Summertime is the season for VBS, and we are so excited to share with you how St. John in the Wilderness Episcopal Church used An Illustrated Compassion curriculum for their VBS program! We recently caught up with Rona Pasch, Director of Children’s Ministry at St. John’s, and she gave us the skinny on how it all went.

The Search for VBS Curriculum

Rona, before we get into Illustrated Compassion specifically, have you typically come up with your VBS program?
I am relatively new to children’s ministry (my background is in elementary and early childhood education). So, this will be the second VBS I have planned. I used a free curriculum last year as a base and molded it to fit the abilities and personality of our church.

What are your thoughts on the standard VBS curricula out there in the children’s ministry marketplace?
I think all models of VBS can be good. It all depends on the size of the church and what the demographics are. We are a medium sized church, so I probably have more creative wiggle room than I would otherwise. It means I have many options and don’t necessarily have to use a boxed VBS.

Choosing An Illustrated Compassion

Illustrated-Compassion-VBSWhat made you think about using ICM’s Illustrated Compassion curriculum?
First, I loved the broad theme of compassion. Like it says in the ICM description, no matter where you are on the theological or political spectrum, it’s clear our world needs more compassion. I was also drawn to the creative side to the curriculum. We have used the coloring posters in the past, and they work for all age groups. Additionally, this curriculum allows for a lot of flexibility. I could tweak it to fit our church’s personality, which I’m a big fan of. I also love that it includes the music, which was a major selling point for our music director. We even sang both of the songs during our worship service and hung up the coloring posters the Sunday after VBS.

St John VBS Illustrated Compassion

Making It Their Own

How did you use ICM’s curriculum?
We used An Illustrated Compassion’s Module 3 to create a 4-day VBS, using each day as a different Bible story/verse. What I found most adaptable was the Compassion in Action portion. I used local resources whenever possible for those activities.

For example, I’d already discussed doing blessing bags with our priest. So, when I saw the idea for Compassion Packs in the curriculum, it was perfect! We got donations from the congregation, and the kids packed the bags during VBS. Then, they handed them out the following Sunday. We also have a garden of veggies we grow to donate to the local food shelf. So, we spent time weeding and picking produce. I worked with another local organization to write “welcome home” letters to people transitioning out of homelessness.


What did you add or change to make ICM’s curriculum usable as your VBS program?
First off, I added a creative arts portion that included painting, recreating stories using Lego, etc. This was also a time used for coloring the posters. Also, we colored kindness cards that lined the walkway up to our church and were sent home with the children to hand out or sneak into library books. Additionally, there’s a great selection of picture books about showing compassion. So, I created a small reading area with those books available during down times. Lastly, I added a time for a physical activity. Since the theme was compassion, we did team building games. There weren’t specific winners; instead, team members encourage each other along the way.

Hopes for the VBS Curriculum

What did you hope your church community would get out of An Illustrated Compassion curriculum?
I hoped to educate the kids and adult volunteers about what the Bible teaches about showing compassion to one another. In addition to that, I hoped we’d discover how easy it is to do so. And by tying in local resources and organizations, I dreamed that this would inspire our church and families to support our local community and to build on what we’re already doing.

Takeaways from the Experience

St John VBS Illustrated Compassion
Why do you think it works well?
Well, first, it has a great layout and includes fabulous ideas for telling the stories. It also has follow-up questions and ideas for activities and projects, which are great. I know many other colleagues are already using resources and products from Illustrated Ministry in their churches, and it lines up with our theology very well. I could feel confident that the kids will not only be learning specific Bible stories and verses, but also how to use those in their everyday lives to show compassion to others.

Would you recommend ICM curriculum for VBS to your friends and colleagues?
Yes, absolutely! I would definitely encourage other churches to use this curriculum.


We loved hearing Rona’s story about how they used An Illustrated Compassion for their Vacation Bible School program. If you are thinking of using it for your VBS program, or you want to think of other ways your church could use it, I’d recommend downloading our free summary page of this blog post. Our free summary highlights what Rona’s church appreciated about An Illustrated Compassion, and how they were able to customize it to their ministry context. You can download that PDF here.

Use Illustrated Earth Posters with Cokesbury’s Surf Shack VBS

Adam Walker Cleaveland Leave a Comment

Cokesbury’s Surf Shack VBS is most likely one of the most popular VBS curriculums available for the summer of 2016. Cokesbury's Surf Shack VBSIn addition to Cokesbury’s Surf Shack VBS, Group’s VBS options are also viewed as the a standard VBS curriculum that churches across the theological spectrum use.

I’ve worked at churches that have used these types of VBS curriculums before, and I am aware of what the appeal can be about programs like Cokesbury’s Surf Shack VBS. You get everything you need to run the program for the week. They often come with videos, shirts, all the appropriate marketing materials you’ll need, original music (often including videos of kids dancing and teaching the music)…they can be quite appealing.

Depending on the size of your church and the number of children you’re used to having come to your summer VBS program, Cokesbury’s Surf Shack VBS might be more than you need. But if you are planning on using Cokesbury’s Surf Shack VBS, we have made a very interesting discovery here at Illustrated Ministry. Actually, someone told us about it at a conference we were at last week, and I’m excited to share that with you.

As you know, An Illustrated Earth: Celebrating God’s Creation, is our summer product that we created primarily for summer Sunday School classes, but as I’ve said before, I think An Illustrated Earth could also be adapted to fit into a VBS program your church may be trying to develop. You won’t get a box with everything you need to run a VBS program, like you might with a Group VBS or Cokesbury’s Surf Shack VBS. But it will provide you with some themes, stories, a lesson and a giant coloring poster.

An Illustrated Earth is broken up into three modules, and Module 1 is Water Stories. Last week someone told us that Cokesbury’s theme for this summer was Surf Shack: Catch the Wave of God’s Amazing Love. I thought it sounded like a fun theme – and then I looked at the five Bible stories they’ll be using that week for Cokesbury’s Surf Shack VBS.

Bible Stories from Cokesbury’s Surf Shack VBS

These are the stories they are covering during the week:

  • Session 1: Genesis 1: Creation Story
  • Session 2: Exodus 2: Miriam Cares for Moses
  • Session 3: Matthew 3: Baptism of Jesus
  • Session 4: Luke 8: Jesus Calms the Storm
  • Session 5: John 21: Breakfast on the Beach

Now, take a look at the stories that we had chosen for Module 1: Water Stories, before we had heard anything at all about Cokesbury’s Surf Shack VBS:

  • Week 1: Genesis 1: Creation Story
  • Week 2: Exodus 14: Parting of the Red Sea (not the same story, but still a Moses story)
  • Week 3: Matthew 3: Baptism of Jesus
  • Week 4: Mark 4: Jesus Calms the Storm

As you can see, 3 out of the 5 stories from Cokesbury’s Surf Shack VBS are the same stories we are covering in our water module. So if you are doing Surf Shack this summer, and are looking for an additional activity to have as part of your program for the week, our large coloring posters would be a great option.

Below you can see the poster designs for the three stories that Surf Shack is also covering in their curriculum:

Cokesbury's Surf Shack VBS
Separation of the Water
Cokesbury's Surf Shack VBS
Baptism of Jesus
Cokesbury's Surf Shack VBS
Jesus Calms the Storm

Order Your Posters Today

If you think these posters would work with how you’re using Cokesbury’s Surf Shack VBS, you can get the posters for Module 1: Water Stories in two different formats here.

Illustrated Ministry Unveils Groundbreaking New Summer Curriculum: An Illustrated Leviticus

Adam Walker Cleaveland 6 Comments

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We weren’t sure that we were going to announce our summer curriculum yet – but after talking with our team at Illustrated Ministry the past couple days – we just couldn’t contain our excitement about it any longer. We have spent the past couple months preparing, designing and creating what we think is probably going to be one of the most groundbreaking children’s ministry curriculum to date: An Illustrated Leviticus.

Now…before you leave, just wait. I know what probably all of you are thinking: no one could find enough material in the book of Leviticus for a children’s ministry curriculum. But that’s where you’re wrong. Once we really got into the book of Leviticus – it was…amazing. It was like we couldn’t get through one chapter, one paragraph even, without seeing some of the amazing ways in which God could use this curriculum in the life of a young child.

Nadab and Abihu

My son Caleb is 4 years old. And I like to think he’s a pretty smart kid. You should have seen the way his eyes lit up last night when I read to him about burnt offerings and grain offerings. And when we got to the story of Nadab and Abihu – it was amazing. The story is short, and can be found in Leviticus 10:1-2:

1 Now Nadab and Abihu, two of Aaron’s sons, each took an incense pan. They put fire and incense on them and offered unauthorized fire before the Lord, which he had not commanded them. 2 Then fire flew out from before the Lord and devoured them, and they died before the Lord.

You should have seen his face after I read these two verses…JUST TWO VERSES. I didn’t even have to explain anything to him. He was speechless. He didn’t know what to say. He just sat there. I think I may have even seen a small tear form in his eye. It was clearly a meaningful story for him.

But I didn’t stop there. These stories found in Leviticus are just SCREAMING to be illustrated. It’s like the writer knew that one day, Illustrated Ministry would create a curriculum based on the book. So, after I read the story to Caleb, I sat down and drew an illustration of the story. I know you want to see it – but it’s going to be included as one of the Illustrated Children’s Moments in the Church Edition…and this is a spoiler free blog post. But again…he was so absolutely dumbfounded by the way in which I was able to convey such convicting biblical truths on paper with just a pen and some watercolors.

It was a very profound spiritual experience for me to be able to share with Caleb and I can’t wait for you to be able to have similar experiences with your children – both in the faith communities that you serve and with the children that you are raising.

Learn More

If you want to learn more – just watch the video below to see what An Illustrated Leviticus is all about.

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