'Sorry, we're full up. You'll have to try again next break.'
Ian Fry, Christian school's worker in Kingston, often has to say this to pupils queuing up in the playground to get onto the Surrey Good News Bus.
Being able to sit on a double-decker bus in the playground with a cup of hot chocolate at break time or for an RE lesson certainly adds excitement and interest to the school day as Ian and his team have found; and more importantly it provides a friendly and non-threatening environment in which to share the gospel. These Christian Union Awareness weeks with the Good News Bus reinforce the work Ian does in visiting the schools throughout the year to take RE lessons and assemblies. 'It is an excellent opportunity for reaching unchurched youngsters with the gospel' said Ian, who has been encouraged by seeing some pupils become very interested in spiritual matters, taking Christian literature and attending follow up meetings.
Rolling church
The vision of taking the church to the people on wheels began in 1988 at Hook Evangelical Church, Surrey, by their then full time evangelist Peter Woodcock and in 1990 a bus was purchased, conversion work undertaken and the first Good News Bus commissioned to enable the ministry to get underway. The bus is equipped with coffee lounge, video and displays explaining the Christian message. Being mobile the vision was that the bus could be driven into town and village centres, schools, markets, fairs, festivals ...wherever people gather and parking permission could be obtained!
It quickly became apparent that the ministry would expand beyond that of a church-based project and in 1991 Associated Bus Ministries Trust was established. The Trust has assisted a further five groups to set up their own word based Good News Bus ministry so that today there are six buses operating in different locations in the country, each with their own management committee but coming under the overall direction of the central Trust.
It's late evening in Kingston town centre on a Friday night, the pubs and clubs are closing and teenagers and young adults are spilling out onto the streets, some drunk or feeling the effect of drugs. Where can they go next? Some know that they will get a friendly reception by the team from Hook Evangelical Church on the Good News Bus parked, with the permission of the local council, at a prominent town centre location into the early hours of Saturday morning. What has also been encouraging is that a few of the young people contacted have also come along to church.
Evening in Falkirk
Increasingly, the Good News Buses are being used for evening youth outreach, parking where the local youngsters are 'hanging out', often bored, fearful of the future, feeling misunderstood, but putting on a bravado in front of their friends, drinking, sometimes drug taking. For example the Scottish bus purchased in 1993, and managed by a committee from a number of evangelical churches in Falkirk, has undertaken a regular weekly outreach to young people in the town centre. In particular three 15 year-old girls, who they have been in regular contact with for over two years, have shown real spiritual interest and an Alpha Course has been started to follow this up. This is why the ministry works through its member churches so that once the bus has gone, the church can continue to reach out to those contacted.
But it's not only young people who are contacted through the ministry. Alongside the youth work Falkirk Baptist ladies group give out rolls and soup to homeless people and the Scottish bus has been used at a number of missions and local fete days.
Local fetes and shows are a good place to use a Good News Bus as people are more relaxed and have time on their hands to look around, whether it is in a little village in Sussex or the annual Suffolk Show attracting over 50,000 people or the Liverpool Show which attracts up to 150,000 people. The latter is one of the large shows on the Wirral where the Liverpool bus has visited, to reach out to the thousands of people milling around.
Sharing with Jack
At the Liverpool Show in 1996 their first visitor was a man called 'Jack', a stall holder, who did not realise that the bus was associated with Christians but came aboard to look at the set up of the bus as he was thinking of getting a bus for the many shows he and his wife attended. They asked Jack what kind of display he had. 'The wife reads the tarot cards and is a bit of a medium' was his answer! At this point they shared with Jack that they were Christians and Jack told the most extraordinary story of how his son had become a Christian while in Strangeways Prison for armed robbery and was now the pastor of a church in Essex. Jack also explained that he kept coming into contact with Christians at his 'meetings' and how at one meeting they started talking to the audience about the Lord Jesus. Jack made his way towards them with the intention of giving them a 'good thumping' but when he got to them he was unable to lift his arms. Jack was willing to have the gospel shared with him on the bus and to take away literature and he came back the next day to talk further.
The bus team then saw Jack again a little later at the Wirral Show where he told them that he realised he needed to make a decision concerning the Christian faith. Although the Liverpool team may never know the end of Jack's story, as to date they have not seen him again, it was evident that God's hand was upon Jack and that the bus ministry was a part of this.
However, sometimes the ministry is encouraged by hearing the 'rest of the story' and how it has been a link in the chain of someone coming to know Christ. One of the students at the FIEC's Prepared for Service course, which is based at Carey Centre, Reading, was informed about the work of the Good News Buses and their potential use for evangelism. He explained that he had previously come across the Reading Good News Bus, managed by Carey Baptist Church, Reading, a few years previously but in a very different setting. He was attending Reading Rock Festival and although he had been brought up in church and made a profession of faith at 15, he soon rebelled, leaving home with heavy rock music, smoking, drugs, and all night parties becoming his life.
However, he started to question the way he and his friends were living and eventually broke away from his circle of friends. He was then given a piece of paper from someone on the Good News Bus at Reading Rock Festival with details of the bus and some Bible verses on it. Not long afterwards he bought himself a Bible and eventually started attending the church he had been brought up in and became a Christian. His testimony of the Lord's working in his life is that 'He turned me around'.
Come on board
A rather unique form of outreach has opened up through taking the Good News Buses to Bus Rallies. Here people need no invitation to come on board the bus to look round and have a chat. They are given an information sheet detailing the history of the bus and the conversion work necessary to get it to its current layout.
It would not be honest to say that it is always easy. Recently, one church, encouraged that the previous day they had had some good conversations, including one with a man just out of prison, took the bus to a fairly affluent town centre and found a complete apathy and disinterest with only one person coming on board all day.
The ministry continues to grow as two new buses have come into operation just this year. Earlier in the year the Association of Grace Baptist Churches East Anglia set up their own bus ministry after using another bus for summer missions for several years previously. And in Pembrokeshire, Emmanuel Christian Centre was given a vision in 1996 to go back to its mobile roots of its founder who had gone around the rural communities in the county with a caravan in the 1960s. However, they felt that a double-decker bus would be more relevant in the 1990's - but did not know how to get this vision off the ground practically. It was then that they learned about the ministry of ABM who had long wanted to have a bus in Wales but were not sure where. The Pembrokeshire bus will be up and running by the end of the year.
New Age car boot sale?
The original vision has been fulfilled in ways the founders of the Trust could not have imagined. The buses have been to so many different venues, such as a New Age travellers' site where the local church involved did get permission to park, a car boot sale, outside Anfield Park Stadium during Euro '96 or for a children's holiday Bible club, with thousands of people coming on board and hearing the gospel, for example over 3,000 primary school children have visited the Liverpool bus in just one year.
Through all this Christians have been able to take the message of the Christian gospel to people where they are, rather than expecting people to walk through the doors of their church buildings.
If you are excited by the potential of a Good News Bus as a tool for your evangelism then why not phone the ABM office on 01276 856285 and ask for an introductory brochure to the ministry.
Rachel Phillips
