Waynesburg—Pleasant View Baptist Church in Waynesburg baptized 16 children, one adult and a teenager on Dec. 11. The majority of these came by way of the church’s children’s/bus ministry, GLOW.

Each Wednesday, Pleasant View runs two vans and a bus, making multiple trips, to bring in around 70 children and teenagers. There, they are fed a meal and taught the gospel.

“Our church is in a rural context in a poor area of our county, and on Wednesday nights, bus ministry is something that still really works,” Kyle Page, pastor of Pleasant View, shared.

“These children, a lot of them, only have a Christian atmosphere one hour a week, and that’s on Wednesday night. They’re coming, getting filled with the gospel and the Holy Spirit, going back home to their parents and being missionaries in their own community,” Chuck Jacobs, a bus driver for the ministry, said.

“It’s a major opportunity for our church not only to reach out to these kids and youth, but also through them to their parents,” Page added.

Jacobs shared how he and another worker had the opportunity to share the gospel with and see a little girl accept Christ in her driveway one evening while being dropped off. “It is good for us and good for them also,” he said.

“It’s not that we’ve done anything necessarily different here lately, it’s just that God has blessed. His Spirit moved. In the midst of this, our church in general has seen a lot of spiritual growth,” Page said.

In November, Pleasant View hosted an “Awakening Weekend” through One Cry, “a movement of believers who are urgently crying out to God to revive the church and transform the culture. It’s a movement of like-minded people, churches, and organizations who agree that our nation needs a dramatic turnaround,” according to their website.

As a result, the church not only was “spiritually renewed and reinvigorated,” said Page, but they began to focus “on training people and encouraging people to have personal quiet times with God.”

Page said that the children’s ministry has also been focused on teaching the children how to have a quiet time. Additionally, they have concentrated efforts on small groups.

He explained, “These salvations came in the context of their small groups. They all have small group leaders and the younger ones who can’t read have leaders who sit down with them and help them learn how to have a quiet time with God. The gospel was shared in that context.

“Our Wednesday night has really become more of an outreach night for our whole church,” Page said, explaining the church’s vision to reach their poverty-stricken community.

Page believes the bus ministry is “that open door that we have to reach out to these kids and these youth.” (WR)