Out on the road

For six weeks, the bus spent every Friday, Saturday and Sunday evening in the east end of Glasgow as we partnered with three local churches to run a 10:10 project. Each night, young people dashed to the bus to play on the games consoles, scale the climbing wall and hang out with their friends. As they did, they got to know our team as well as members of the local church.

No bus night runs without a gospel talk where everyone there gets to hear the good news of Jesus. On the last night of each 10:10 project, the local church ran a Youth Alpha session on the bus before inviting each young person to the rest of the course they’d start running in the churches the very next week.

The bus then headed north to Aberdeen to be part of a mission week being run by King’s Church Aberdeen. ‘Being part of Love Aberdeen and partnering with what the church is doing was special,’ said Phil, one of the Scotland bus team. ‘The excitement of young people as the bus pulls into their community is brilliant. They’re desperate for us to open the doors and see what’s inside. As we run the activities, it’s amazing how God opens up opportunities for us to chat about him and the hope he offers. One of the things I love the most is when you see the face of a young person light up as they realise how much Jesus loves them. The fact that we run each bus mission in partnership with a local church means that straight away we can connect each person to somewhere they can find out more about faith and be discipled. There really is nothing better.’

And it’s great to see this in practice. A couple of weeks after the bus was in Aberdeen, the church got in touch with us saying that off the back of the bus mission, 20 young people started coming along to youth group and six of them have been engaging so much and are desperate to find out more about Jesus – how amazing!