[atlas]

Guys,


What do you all think about the Bus Ministry?



Atlas

[MC1171611]

I'd say it's a good tool, but when the church starts revolving around a bunch of snot-nosed kids that the parents kick out of the house for a couple hours on Sunday, there's a problem.

Just my opinion.

[Josh]

I think the bus ministry is great! My Pastor was a bus kid. I wish we would get back to the bus ministries of the 70s and 80s. My Pastor tells stories of First Baptist running over 300 buses on Sunday!

[kittn1]

I'm on the fence on this one.

I think it has its place; I also know of people who were saved after being a bus kid and they've gone on to serve the Lord faithfully today.

I've also seen snot-nosed kids in the church who did nothing but disrupt the Sunday School because it gave the parents opportunity to kick the kids out for a couple hours Sunday morning.

Ideally, obviously, the parents should bring their kids to church!

I think it's a matter of serious prayer and seeking the Lord's direction for the church that's thinking of starting one.

I'm the product of a bus ministry.

In the 70's, a bus ministry worker knocked on the door of a friend of mine and the next Sunday morning she rode the bus. She told her friends and they told theirs. Over the course of a year we became known as *The Tillmans Corner Gang" -- a group of preteens and teenagers that traveled 15 miles one-way to church every Sunday. We in turn became bus workers. Eventually, parents of some of those *snot nosed kids* became church members and bus ministry workers as well. Some of us even went on to Tennessee Temple University after graduating from high school.

It's a terrific ministry and outreach which is near and dear to my heart. When I consider where my life was headed at the time and how I was searching for a place to *belong*, any place at all, I thank God that He sent that big white church bus into my friend's neighborhood way back when.

[atlas]

Rightful Thinking and Josh,

I also love the bus ministry. I worked buses for years. I know men today who got saved as bus kids who are preachers.

Man 300 buses this is wonderful. I recall stories of our pastor buying buses with his own money and giving them to the church! I have heard all of the stories and seen just about everything. There is not one thing in the world better than the bus ministry. It also works very well, but it takes money, time and hard work, something less and less Baptist are willing to do in today's world.


Atlas

[Brother Tim]

I have been in Children's ministry since the beginning of the 70's. At our height we were running 8 buses averaging 300+ in a church with about 40-50 adults. It was great! I would be afraid to bring that many in from our area today. Instead, we go into the housing areas and have Bible clubs. We work with another church in an Awana/bus-kids ministry. Times have changed, and the lack of freedom to discipline in the home and school has produced an average non-church family kid that can be dangerous in a larger group. We have to work on a much smaller scale.

I agree with an earlier poster that it would be nice to go back to that era, but such is not possible. Therefore, we must redeem the time and reach those we can, however we can.

[atlas]

Tim,


I understand our point well. That being said with kids being meaner today than in the past about all you can do is have children's church. This seems to work out ok. It also gives the preachers boys a place to preach on Sunday morning.



Atlas

[Brother Tim]

I take a little different view. Let the preacher boys preach to the adults. These kids need those who have experience with getting the message across well, because there is so little time to be with them and there is no time to waste.

[pbiwolski]

The bus ministry (in order to be effective) takes alot of work. It takes faithful bus captains who desire to see souls saved. When it becomes a hassle and a job, it falls apart. Sat. morning visitation, eventful campaigns, prizes and rewards are mandatory to the ministry's "success."

The bus ministry nowadays seems to be more of a struggle than it ever has been. There's too much going on and kids have too much - riding the church bus does not have the "lure" that it once possessed.

I grew up in a church with an active bus ministry, and now I find myself heading up all areas of our outreach. The numbers have dropped over the decades, workers have come and gone, but the effects of the ministy will carry on throughout eternity.

My pastor would never give up the bus ministry - his heart is in it. Just the other week a first-time substitute driver gave a testimony of how his heart broken when he saw kids coming out of their homes with a piece of bread in their hand for their breakfast. He said that spending one week on the bus route has changed his previous view of the ministry. He recommended to the church that each member ride the bus some Sunday morning to make sure that they don't lose touch of the reason that we reach these kids.

I was able to use his gripping testimony and shift the emphasis from helping their poverty to reaching their hopeless soul. Tears were in the eyes and many renewed their desire to reach the lost in our community via the bus routes!