I would like to examine the typical bus ministry in a local church. My desire is to get a “biblical” philosophy on how to use a bus in a local church and to attack some unbiblical things that I see greatly abusing God’s work in relationship to this. What we want to do is to develop a general ministry philosophy on how to do a bus ministry. In my defense, I will say that I have never had my own bus ministry, but I was placed in charge of one that had about 200 children coming in, and I oversaw what was already set up.
Clarification: I do not believe it is a sin to use a bus, van, or individual cars to pick up people and bring them to church. This is not the issue here. Many churches have buses that run to pick up whole families, and individual adults (elderly, or poor) and in these, children are brought in with these adults. I see absolutely nothing wrong with that kind of thing. I think it is the healthy, wholesome kind of ministry that any church that can do it, and needs to do it, should do it. That ministry is not what I am directing this article against. I think that kind of bus use is tremendous, and I would encourage churches to take that option if they feel lead of the Lord to do so.