Years ago when I was a young pastor I had great insights into how the church should function and how certain “ministries” were shallow and pointless. It was at the end of the heyday of evangelism through bus ministry. I began to serve in a church that had a bus and a lady who was pouring her life into making it happen. She was a saint. She had a great attitude and she never allowed my youthful arrogance to dim her shine. She considered the bus to be the answer. I looked at it as a problem.
My reasons were logical. She was bringing in a boat load of kids. The church was full of elderly who struggled to teach the classes. In all the years of picking up kids, I could see no fruit. We were spending our resources repairing and maintaining a bus. The tail was wagging the dog.
I was wrong. The bus ministry did serve a function. It was laying the groundwork for future culture. It may not have been building our local church but the kids it was touching were having seeds planted in their hearts that would influence their thinking for the rest of their lives.
Look at our culture. Integrity has disappeared. Monogamy is on the way out. Perversion is becoming the expected norm. Discipline is for chumps. Obviously there are many reasons but I think one of them is that churches have withdrawn from Sunday School outreach as a major arm of the church.
Evangelism is ultimately the work of the Holy Spirit. We cannot win anyone by our clever arguments or education. Witnessing is the work of the saints. We need to get back into the neighborhood. One way is through Sunday School.
Who knows, maybe a bus would be in order.
homo unius libri
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