Bus Kids

My husband's uncle is a pastor, and their church has a bus ministry. Their way of fixing the problem of the children not behaving is to match up each child (or related children) with a family in the church. The children sit with the same family each week, and the family is in charge of helping the child learn to sit in church, listen to the preacher, sing, etc.

 

My church has a "junior church" after Sunday School which goes on during the service. The teacher brings candy and they take prayer requests, sing songs and learn interesting Bible stories. Sometimes we can hear them yelling during the service because they are loud, but we love it! It really works out well...perhaps your church can consider something like this?

Hope this helps!

Kathy
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NewBeliever,
My husband and I drove the 'bus' for three years, and I was a children's sunday school teacher for about six years.
We had a lot of those kinds of kids, they from the projects(multi-housing), and they are very hard to deal with, they have almost no discipline at home, nothing steady to lean on. They need structure, like a sunday school class for one. The adult should just teach the lesson as it is from the book, and the children will learn who Jesus is, if they need special time to talk about it, that should be arranged. They need to experience church worship service, as they learn who and what we are, and how we act in worship, they can't l;earn that if their sent home. It will take years on some of these kids. One thing our church did, was buddies, the bus kids don't have an adult to sit with, get volunteers from your older people to'adopt' a bus child for a sunday. They sit together, then you have an adult watching them,them and they have someone to learn from. All the children should be told every sunday as they leav dsunday school to go to the bathroom if they are going to want to go. Of course if a child needs to go during the service you can't really stop them, what if they really need it. Soon your'bus' kids will have bneen trained without even knowing whats happened. Most of all thede kids need love, many of them do get it at home, they need attention, many are attention starved. They need to feel important. Sending them home early, drawing a line between them and all the other children won't accomplish this. We are to love them, teach them about Jesus, I believe according to scripture, we are not to choose anyone to be more or less important, these kids have needs, and God has entrusted them to your church to give them love, to show them what He's like.

As you can see I am very passionate about 'bus' kids'. My own once were bus kids, we were asked at the front dooe if we wanted to send them to sunday school,and we gave in and let them go, they were always excited about it, they loved it, one day we decided to go and see what it was all about with the kid loving it so much, and we have been ther ever since. I was saved about two months after that and my husband a month later, both my children are now saved. Thats been ten 1/2 years ago, all because someone cared about my children learning about Jesus.For my family the bus minisry was very successful. It can change lives, and families.
The kinds of kids who show up on the bus, are usually the ones from families with no hope, nothing much too loook forward to in their lives, many will continue on with the same life style as their parents. A life on hope. But we have the hope, we know where hope comes from, we know who He is.

And most of all, they are the very least Jesus was talking about. Mostly poor families, with many needs, always seen by society as the least. But not to God and not supose to be to us. Sending them home on purpose just to get rid of them so no has to oput up with them in service, is continuing to treat them as the least.

Your church needs to make it a special point of praying about these children and what roll God would have you play in their lives. Who knows who God will raise up out of those children in the furture.

 

One church I was at actually set up a separate Sunday School program and church service for the Bus kids. It needs requires more workers, but it did help. The bus kids got used to going to church. We even had a special section devoted to Bus teens. (Which is where I helped out.) We regularly had around 30 teens in the Bus teen class.

 

Sounds like you've gotten some good advice. Your pastor's problem was starting something without being prepared.

We've talked about starting a bus or van ministry at my church, and I emphasized that the Sunday school director has to have intervention methods already in place before we bus a load of undisciplined youth into church.

 

Something I'm concerned about is it will be very difficult to teach the same lessons to the age range of 4-12, ick thats a bit of a jump and not very good at all.

What we do is simple this, we have all the kids meet in the kids sanctuary for praise time and stuff like that, then its off to separate classes, this is so needed because each age level needs to be taught on their level. Its like trying to stick 4th grade kids in with junior high students and expecting them in regular school to grasp what they are learning NOT.

Anyway, the bathroom breaks should definately not be cut out. First of all if a kid has a physical problem you can't not let them go to the restroom during service. We usually have an adult escort the kid/s to the restroom and back that way eliminating them taking off all thru the church building and causing chaos.

Wow..sure hope things work out there and I'm sure in time it will all pan out.

Blessings,
Sue

 

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by NewBeliever:
This influx of kids has placed a burden on the Sunday School teachers. Classes have gotten bigger, the kids don't always have the background to know as much as others. My wife told me that she faced a situation yesterday in that one of the kids didn't even know who Jesus was. She had never faced that before.
.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

This is the reason churches exist. . . to share with those who don't know about who Jesus is... You miss this, you miss the point of having Sunday School. Please please please do not miss this.

 

To reach the children, to teach the children, stay away from the nay sayers and find people seriously interested in teaching and helping to reach children.

1.) too big of an age span. You will cause more problems than you want. Break it down.

2.) Don't exclude the children. What are you trying to teach them? That if they can't act right, they can't come?? That isn't what Jesus said... about children.. .

3.) Strive to reach the parents and bring them in by block party events or other events at church. Enlist them to help in some capacity that isn't teaching. Some things you can use them for that doesn't "require" church membership or Christianity... .such as passing out refreshments. Eventually, they will turn to Christ.


4.) Make sure you go in to visit and witness to parents...

 

* Host events that "require" parental participation.. . .

* I dont' think separating bus kids from other kids is what you really are wanting either...

* I agree that children need to be sitting with adults in the service. . . . unless for a time you had a separate worship time to teach... even still, there is a lot to be said for modeling.

 

Maybe you should have more classes in Sunday School to break it down more.

 

NewBeliever,

There is more than one way to skin a cat. Why not give the Pastor (the one who will give an account for his ministry) support and help his plan work. If it don’t work make your suggestions.

I for one like the way your church is reaching children better than the way it wasn’t.

PS: whenever I hear the term “preacher boy” I get a little concerned that this may be a church that promotes Easy-Believeism. Please don’t be offended by my question, but what dose the “preacher boy” tell the kids to do to be saved?

 

As Saggywoman stated ... separating the bus children from everyone else is a mistake. These children already feel different due to their curcumstances at home. The only way they are going to learn is to have them with children of their own ages doing things the way it should be done.
Of course it is difficult at first to control, but given some time and guidence(sp)
they will do much better.
A church I went to once had a similar problem. During the service the children were split up with other families. They eventually calmed down enough where this didnt have to be done all the time,and these particular children really needed to be in church. To my knowledge, their mother never visited a service.

Sorry, I rambled..

-Wilma

 

Larry,

Not to be difficult here, I just want to mention something. The reason its dangerous to place all those age groups in the same teaching range is because not all of them will get it. We had the same problem, when I was 12 the pastor gave us a different teacher and we were mostly all pre teen or teens and the teacher was having us sing songs like Dare to be a Daniel and teaching us little kid lessons because there were little kids with us but we weren't being fed at all and in fact we lost a few kids due to the fact they were bored.

I finally complained about being bored and they knew if I was complaining that something needed changed cause I was the only faithful kid there.

I agree kids also need to learn to sit and listen but I don't agree with having them sit in the adult service because that is a really long time to expect them to be silent and well behaved without bathroom breaks or being able to move at all. At least if they are in their own setting then maybe they can have the chance to get up and stretch a little after a certain amount of time.

Sue

 

We've had some of the same problems at our church. The youth and college group had a three day "Day Camp" for the kids in the neighborhood behind our church. We started something that we weren't ready for. The kids now come, even if we are having a ladies fellowship and are disruptive and rude. We have had to tell them to go home, but they can come on Sunday. (Our ladies felloships are always on Thursday) It is really sad to see the kids having to crawl under a fence to come to church. We finally voted to put a gate in the fence. Some people don't like the fence, but we have had several problems with people breaking into cars and the church. That doesn't happen anymore. Now, we have more people who really want these kids to be able to come and who take care of them and help them to behave.

 

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by NewBeliever:
Larry I'm ROFL thinking that our church promotes Easy-Believeism.

Bill<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

That’s great. It sounds like you have a very good pastor, one who is not farad to stand against the majority, tradition et, all and do what he feels lead to do.


It was a little before my time but I'm told that the one room schoolhouse concept worked well. Another thing to consider is that the twelve-year-olds and six-year-olds are in the same place, spiritually, (lost) and the same gospel will save you if you're six or sixty.


I have a lot of experience with HUD kids and I have found that they have a very short attention span. When I teach a group of them, I take the ball and run with it ASAP because I know that I have about fifteen minuets till I begin to loose them. From that point on, it is a battle. My best advice for the workers is to plan out every minute or at least give the impression that you have. If the kid's sense that you are not in complete control they will exploit that weakens and you will have anarchy.

I can see why your Pastor has decided to start the kids out this way. Either the kids will be miserable setting threw an hour of church or the will make everyone else miserable. Nothing says that this has to be the end all plan of plans. It's just a starting point. So call the man up and tell him how much you appreciate having him and that you support him in this.

BTW, I cant imagine anyone taking the kids home when they wanted to stay but, lets face it a lot of professing Christians have a hard time setting threw church.