March 5, 1996

Dear Pastor,

I greet you in the Lenten season. Let us reflect together during this time of the liturgical year on the suffering and death of our Lord on our behalf. He is indeed the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

Those of you who have been reading the monthly letters may wonder what sort of preaching goes on at the Woodland Drive-In Church. I know when I first heard of this ministry, before I became its pastor, I figured the preaching must be some sort of generic “God’s love you” message, strong in “feel good theology” and weak in “sound teaching” (to use a phrase from
the Pastorals).

Nothing could be further from the truth! Every Sunday my message is based on a passage from the Scriptures, God’s holy Word. I have discovered that for the most part, the people who come there are hungering for a message from the Lord, not from pop psychology. They want to know what God might be saying to them in the particular situation they are facing at that moment in their lives.

The real challenge in preaching at the Drive-In Church comes from the realization that almost every Sunday we have both those who are visiting for the first time and those who have been attending for as long as twenty-five years. In other words, I have to assume each Sunday that someone may be there who is not a believer. My goal as preacher, therefore, is to help those
who come regularly to grow in their faith as well as to invite that person who may have never attended a church service to become a Christian. That is why, even if I do series preaching, somewhere in every message I work in a call to accept Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. In sum, my call as preacher is to grow the church—both intensively and extensively.

As I close this letter, I want to repeat the statement I stress every month: The Woodland Drive-In Church is a service church. We do not hold membership papers, and we never intend to. We see ourselves as ministering to a group of people who, for whatever reason, might not otherwise attend a worship service. We see ourselves as Christ’s servants, and yours (see 2 Corinthians 4:5).

Sincerely,
Verlyn D. Verbrugge