Bus Ministry: Is it racist or prejudice?

Bus ministries are a great way to share the gospel with unchurched youth, but if you don't integrate them into the church, they'll never really feel welcome (or trusting, either).

BTW, I'm assuming this is a youth ministry, but it applies to all sectors of the church.

 

We have a growing bus ministry at our church! We pick up adults and children and they are very much a part of our church. I don't see the point of keeping them separate. The only time our riders are separated from the main church group is when they are in their Sunday School classes and for Children's Church. They absolutely love it and I have never seen a more faithful bunch of bus riders!!!

BTW- God just gave (that's right....GAVE) our church two more buses! So that will allow us to reach at least 100 more people to the glory of God!!!

 

We also have about 7 buses for our bus ministry and it is a wonderful tool but for those kids to feel ownership in the churh they need to be intergrated with their peers. So if you segegrate all kids (bus with all others) then keep them segegrated but if you only keep the bus kids with other bus kids then this is wrong IMO. And the ministry will be hurt because while kids will continue to come for candy or contest or the novelty of it as they get older they won't come and if they get saved they won't be discipled the right away.

I'm curious as to why the segegration? I remember that FBC (Hammond In) ran a couple of Children's Churche and that was because of the numbers and because of the distance travelled the kids from Chicago couldn't get there in time to participate during the regular childrn's church time. If you have somehting like this then obviusly the segragation is not out of a dislike or attitude of not wanting the Bus Kids but out of neccesity though I would encourage more church families to be involved and coming during the extended program. But if this segegration is because the bus kids are seen as "hoodlums" and the bus ministry is with an attitude of 'we'll support but we won't like it' that is so sad and you might as well quit having bus routes.

 

I work in the bus ministry at our church, and I'll tell a little about it. Were a small church, with usually somewhere around 70 in attendence I think, and a lot of those don't come up to my belt. We have one bus, and we usually have about 20 - 25 kids on a given Saturday. Yea, Saturday. We used to pick up the bus kids after the first service on Sunday to come for the afternoon. They would stay in the congregation through the praise and worship and then they would go to a class when the preaching started (unless they were older and wanted to stay to hear the sermon) and then we would take them home after the service was over. This made for a busy Sunday.

Before I was a part of the ministry, I think they used to try to bring them in the morning to be a part of the regular sunday school classes with the church kids and then for the sermon I guess. They stopped doing this for a few reasons, but mainly it was because of the difference in understanding between the bus kids and the church kids. The church kids of course are being raised in church families, they have a firm grasp on much of what is being taught and they need to be challenged or they just get bored and don't really get anything out of the class if it has to be geared toward the bus kids. I love the bus kids, but they are not on the same level as most of the kids in the church, so I can see why they decided to have separate classes.

We have a lot of fun with the bus kids, and we are able to teach them on their own level with out having to go over their heads to keep the church kids interested. From there, it wasn't a leap to move the bus to Saturday, just so Sundays wouldn't be such a rush to get everything done in time for the service and then the bus teachers would miss a good sermon too. Ideally we would like to see the bus kids parents come on Sunday and bring the kids with them. That doesn't happen a lot.

 

One church and one body of Christ in a fallen world ?
Now, there's a dream.

 

One church and one body of Christ in a fallen world ?
Now, there's a dream.

 

If your keeping the bus people seperated from everyone else then theres a problem. The cburch seems to be saying, lets minister to these people, lets just not associate with them, who wants to be next to poor people, or people of another color, people not dressed 'right', and maybe even haven't bathed today.
Is that love?

 

If it's logistically convenient to keep a certainn group together in church, then fine. Our youth sits together in church. We have an elderly group that sits together in church. Etc, etc etc. It's only racist/prejudicial if that group is getting treated differently for their ethnicity. Other than that, I submit that someone is probably being a little hypersensitive on the issue.