Do you seperate Bus kids from others?

What I have to say is, if this is how the church feels about the bus ministry, then they need to stop it.

If they are not willing to put the time and energy and people into the education, training, and loving of the program and children then it needs to not be a part of the church.

 

I would not want to pass judgement on a local church, but I personally cannot see separating bus kids and church kids for any reason.

 

You are right Roger.

I was unduly harsh. My apologies.

 

We moved our bus ministry to Saturday, and the kids get us all to themselves.

 

Now, that's a great plan!

 

I believe it was Gen. Robert E. Lee who was asked why he knelt at a church altar next to a slave and Gen. Lee replied, "The ground is level at the foot of the cross."

If the bus kids are causing problems, it's up to the church to staff enough workers to control them. Anyone can bus in huge numbers of kids, but you have to have enough helpers to work with them. Otherwise, things get out of control. Treating the kids like lepers won't encourage their parents to attend. Maybe the church would be better off mentoring the kids' parents one-on-one and forming real relationships with them instead of just providing a babysitting service.

Please don't blast me for saying this. I can count on one hand the number of "bus kids" I've known who have actually grow up and continued a true Christian walk after their teen years. Most have fallen by the wayside because Christianity wasn't enforced at home.

 

I'll assume that those few who did stick by the stuff are sure grateful today, huh? On that basis, wasn't it worth it?

 

Of course, Jim. My mother was one of those!

All I'm saying is I think we'd catch more fish and be even more effective if we focused better on reaching the parents.

 

I am so glad God uses bus minitries!! I was a bus kid, and who would have ever dreamed I would be where I am today. I love the bus ministry, and our church has one, but there probably will always be those who see them as "bus kids".

I know that for all the kids we have bused in over the years, very few do take root and stay in church, but I pray they will eventually find their way back. Too often, home environment wins. But we have to plant the seeds just in case!!

 

Shame on that church. (the opening post)

The last 2 churchs I was a part of that had bus ministries dealt with the bus kids in the biblical way. Those kids were welcomed with open arms into the regular worship services and regular teaching classes. And you know what? Without a whole lot of prompting those kids started behaving better and using better language. Some of them were born again.

If some folks in a church are "offended" by the bus kids, then in my opinion its those folks who need to be dealt with, not the kids.

Mike

 

I agree with you, although my current church does segregate them. But they also put on functions just FOR them to make them feel extra special. They don't get much of that at home.
We used to include them in everything but stopped doing this as our ministry (in all areas) got larger and larger. It just became impractical I am told. In addition, there seemed at that time to be not a few who were rotten eggs and purposefully disrupted services. Yet, instead of kick 'em out completely, we segregated them and have seen lots of lasting fruit. Whole families getting saved and attending faithfully on their own.

So, I guess there are good points on both sides of this issue. If the bus ministry is small then by all means include them. It is an easy task to corner the trouble makers when the group is small. But when your group of bus kids start numbering a couple hundred or so like ours is, you gotta think differently.

 

I have driven the van for years for children whose parents will not take them, and older members. The very idea of seperating them is an outrage. So the rest of the congregation will not see them???
You have to be patient and give the kids a break. The love and guidance they get at church probably far exceeds what they get at home all week. Any leader who practices such a policy should be fired. If you cannot handle the kids, stay out of the ministry.

 

Nothing directed at you av1611jim, but as the "Church Lady" would say, "Isn't that special!"

But I guess we can justify anything, when we want, if we look hard enough. I do wonder, however, how this stacks up with James' idea about "respect of persons"?

Need to keep down some potential disruptions? Recruit some adults and/or responsible later teens and strategically place them in the crowd. In fact, I knew of one well-sized teen, who was prone to get himself involved in minor disturbances of services, once. An adult 'recruited' him to help keep things down. Not only did it work with the rest of them, he took it seriously, and quickly became a good 'enforcer' merely because of his imposing physical presence, and a calming, no longer disruptive, force there.

Ed

 

We have a small bus ministry with one bus, and it takes almost an hour to pick up the kids. It was not working well with our Sunday schedule. And we didn't have the bus kids in our regular church service anyway, they would go to their own class after we had praise and worship. Most of the church kids can hardly sit through an hour sermon, you can imagine how hard it would be for the bus kids. So we moved it so Sundays would be more relaxed for the bus ministry folks and the kids seem to like coming on Saturdays just fine.

 

As I pointed out;
keeping the kids within the congregation may work just fine when you are talking about a SMALL ministry.

We have three 44 passenger school busses. Each bus makes TWO trips each Sunday morning. And each bus is FULL! Do the math. It is just not practical to attempt to 'ride herd' on that many kids (either unchurched OR churched) and still keep the decorum of the service in any kind of order. Our sanctuary seats 1200. Put over 250 unsaved and unruly kids among that crowd and you have lost all sense of order.

For our own kids we have "kids church" just like many of you folks do. We also have "kids church" for the bus kids. We are NOT talking about kids who are perfect little angels. Also, as was pointed out by my brother; even the "church kids" have trouble sitting through an hour long sermon. Most of these bus kids come from broken homes and have many discipline problems. The Lord has blessed this arrangement very well.

Treat them in a "biblical" way? FYI: it was common practice in early times to SEPERATE the children from the adults. So don't give me any pious holier-than-thou platitudes about being 'biblical'.

Paul said to let all things be done decently and in order. All means ALL. When the order is disrupted, then something must be done to restore order. Frankly, as I said, it has worked quite well for us for we have seen much lasting fruit. WHOLE FAMILIES coming to Christ and being FAITHFUL to church on their OWN!!!

One may "dis" us for our practice but you may not "dis" the results. God IS blessing the ministry. We are looking at the possibility of getting ANOTHER bus and adding ANOTHER route.

Go figure...huh?

 

av1611jim,

I said...

And you said...

"

I dont have a problem with seperating kids from adults for bible study, etc, after everyone is together for the worship service. But in the original post it was posted that the "bus" kids were completly seperated from the "regular" services, and even arrived after everyone else was inside, and left before everyone came out. In light of the scriptues that I posted from James, I see that as being exceedingly distasteful to me, and the way we did it...welcoming the "bus" kids with open arms as if they were the most important people there...as being the more biblical way.

I had no "pious holier than thou" intentions whatsoever as I posted what I posted. Just my view of it.

Why not WAIT for order to be disrupted..and deal with it then...rather than isolate the "unwashed" from the services (or even from sight) before giving them a chance. In our services the kids did just fine.

Praise God!

Praise the Lord!

One thing I dont understand. The original post that I responded to was posted by IFBReformer. Why are you taking it so personally? I wasnt responding to a post of yours, but rather that other one. And they seemed to agree with me, as it was posted the the posters wife was "infuriated" by the action of that church.

Mike