January 3, 1996

Dear Pastor,

Happy New Year to all of you in the name of the Creator of time.

Once again I hope to communicate regularly with you through monthly missives during 1996. And I trust you will feel free to communicate back with me if you have any thoughts on these letters. Some of you, in fact, have, and I appreciate your comments.

One of the things I have been emphasizing over the past few months is that the Woodland Drive-In Church does not hold membership papers, so that my congregation, strictly speaking, numbers zero. Yet we have been having up to fifty cars lately attending our Sunday services. The people sitting in these vehicles either hold church membership in some other church or they have no church membership at all.

It is the latter category that you may wonder about: What happens when people come to us after attending our services for a few months and ask about joining a church? What do we do? Simply tell them, “Good luck; hope your find a good one”? Absolutely not!

Over the years many people have come to a saving knowledge of Christ through our ministry or have made a recommitment to the Christian faith. They want to join officially a church fellowship. If they have no church background that they want to go back to and ask us to recommend a church, we direct them to Fifth Reformed Church, our sponsoring body. Over the years, Fifth has had a good number of people join their membership through the Drive-In; some of them have continued on at the Drive-In as their selected place of worship, while others have become active in Fifth. In all cases, we say, “Praise the Lord.”

May the Lord bless each one of you in your respective areas of ministry during the coming year.

Sincerely,
Verlyn D. Verbrugge