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Fancy doing a bit of mission? Well, get on your bus! No, not your bike – your BUS! Well it worked for the URC folk of Haverhill in Suffolk, says minister Karen Knight
Eight years ago the congregation of the Old Independent Church, a Victorian edifice near the town centre seating about 600 people, was – like many churches – a small number of mainly elderly people and a junior church of two sisters. Many years and lots of money had been spent on maintaining and improving the building, now people wanted to share their faith.
We didn’t know exactly what to do, we did know that we wanted to reach out to people. Our objective was not even to make new members, it was to bring people to Christ. We also knew what the first step was to be – prayer. A small number of people met regularly and prayed specifically for a way forward. It took time but God answered. Haverhill is a town of three parts, the old market town, the London overspill town and finally new ‘executive housing’ being built within the by-pass. We felt called to reach out to the new housing but this brought up a problem, the new estates had many houses, plenty of people – but absolutely no public buildings. How were we to reach people? Back to prayer.
Next came the answer – catch a bus! Now I see a lot of cars for sale but I have never seen a bus. I had no idea how much a bus would cost or how to go about converting one, so I decided to visit the local coach company. I explained what we were doing to the managing director, the only thing I was certain of was it had to be red because the local buses were all blue. He smiled at me. ‘Come and see what I’ve got at the back of the garage,’ he said.
There stood a bright red National Leyland, complete with kitchen area and toilet and loads of space. One draw back, we didn’t have the money, so back to prayer and the church agreed to buy the bus. That was at 9pm on a Thursday evening, at 9am Friday morning I had a phone call from a solicitor in Kent saying we had been left some money. It was exactly the amount we needed to buy the bus, not a penny more, not a penny less. We had our bus.
Another member and myself learnt how to drive, a small planning group was formed, the bus was filled with wine (hence our slogan ‘new wine on wheels’) and snacks and we were off. From 7-9pm we parked on the new estate and knocked on doors inviting people to come and have a drink. We attracted the children and we started activities for them. It was a mixed response, but we learnt a vital lesson – as we were leaving at 9 o’clock people were just coming home from work.
So the decision was taken instead of trying to get people to come to us, we would go to where they went and we are very lucky in Haverhill that there are a number of events held in the town. The children were intrigued by the bus and a happy time was passed in drawing, model making and generally getting messy (especially the minister!).
Frequent comments heard were, ‘How good it is to see the church out’ and ‘Aren’t you normal!’ Our most successful event was the late night Christmas shopping when we stocked up on mince pies and mulled wine. It helped to be the warmest place on the Market Square.
We had one rule, everything was free, the activities, the food and drink. This was not to be seen as the church yet again needing money. People began to look out for us and we were stopped in the street and asked when the bus would be out again. People were drawn to the church because they wanted to be involved with the project.
Since the bus, our congregation has grown and changed. The Boys Brigade and Girls Brigade has grown, our junior church has expanded. We now have a crèche area and the average age of the congregation has fallen dramatically. Perhaps the most telling comment came from our church secretary who said that, whatever the future brings, the bus has given the church confidence to go out and share the Good News.
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