Pathway Family,
Over the summer, the Leadership Team and Next Gen staff have been reevaluating every one of our programs that exist outside of weekend services and asking if they are still achieving the intended purpose.
After months of evaluating and prayer, Leadership and Next Gen staff have decided to discontinue the traditional 5-day VBS programming and leverage our time and resources into creating that VBS experience during our weekend programming, especially in the summer.
VBS has always been intended as an outreach program so we could reach unchurched families in hopes to connect them to the weekend experience. We found that over the past three years we were failing to do this. Only a very low percentage of Pathway VBS registrants are unchurched. We believe we can maximize our reach to families in Early Childhood by pouring into our weekend programming, which is where we have the biggest opportunity to reach first time guests. We have always known that our best avenue for discipling our current preschoolers into their own relationship with Jesus has been through our weekend programming. Therefore, it was clear that putting energy and resources into making weekend services even better would be the best way to meet the needs of both first time guests and our regularly attending preschoolers.
We are so deeply grateful for the service and sacrifices many have made to give VBS their best in order to make it a great experience for all. VBS has been instrumental in many beautiful things at Pathway Church and the time, resources, and space provided for the VBS program has in no way been wasted. We wholeheartedly believe that God has great things in store as we transition to new things. Children’s ministry at Pathway has never looked more exciting and we know God has great things in store for us.
Please do not hesitate to contact your local campus Next Gen staff if you would like to talk in person. We value your ideas and input.
Next Generation Staff
Pathway Church