Bus ministries are an outreach method that involves people who live next to the Mount Zion Fundamentalist Baptist church being ferried across town to go to the Fundamentalist Baptist Church of Mount Zion. It all comes out even, though. The FBCMZ is most likely picking up kids from the MZFB neighborhood as well.
The job of a bus captain and his cohorts is not an easy one. There are countless hours of canvasing neighborhoods to root out likely riders. Then the bus crew are up and out at the crack of dawn stopping at houses and collecting all of the kids and trying to keep them safe, quiet, and occupied on the trip. After church is over, all of the bus kids must be returned home again. Week after week. Month after month. And woe be unto him who turns back from the plough — it’s almost impossible to leave a ministry once you’ve started in it.
With all the rigors of the bus ministry at least there aren’t further annoyances for the workers like needing to go through background checks…
Oh my gosh, I love the slogan on that bus! Hilarious!
My grandfather drove the little church bus for Grace Conservative Baptist Church in Nanuet for VBS every summer for years. I used to stay with my grandparents for VBS week and I loved riding the bus and was so proud that my Pop-pop was the driver. 🙂
Hey Darrel, did I ever tell you that I was a bus kid? True story. Definitely a MUST HAVE for IFB churches. One of the things they’ve done right… or at least it could be done right.
My mom was a bus kid too. 🙂
While in the military, I attended a fundy baptist church of the Tennessee Temple sort in the Washington D.C. area. Wally Beebe’s daughter, Melissa, was married to the assistant pastor. His job was the bus ministry; My “job” was to help. We traveled all over the Suitland, MD area picking up these little crumb-crunchers. It was a tough job to be sure, but enjoyable. The fine church folk put the kabosh on the bus ministry because of the overtaking of the darker-skinned kiddos from the projects. True story.
B.R.O.