One of the keynote speakers at my conference last week, Reverend Susan Sparks, had a great point that I can’t help but share with you! It really spoke to the room full of church administrators and was pretty convicting. So here it is:
Churches should learn to operate more like food trucks.
People love food trucks! They are all the rage these days! We flock to them! We get excited when we see them! We tell our friends about them! We want more from them!
Susan gave us two ways that the church should be like food trucks, and I’m going to throw one more at the end of my own.
- “Churches should go to their customers.” Food trucks go to their customers. They are mobile. They go where the people are! They meet them where they are! Woah! What if we viewed church as a place/people who physically and spiritually went where the people are already? That met them there. Engaged with them there. Not forcing them to always come to us, in our buildings, on our terms.
- “Churches should share the bread of God in a relevant and intimate way. ” Food trucks have found a way to be relevant to our culture. We love them! And churches should constantly be looking for ways to be relevant to our culture in our current time. Old ways can be good and meaningful, but often times, things need to change to be relevant, up-to-date and in line with the ways that people currently living, interacting, learning, etc.
- Churches should work to be relevant and meaningful to all types of people. All ages. All walks of life. I realize there are different types of food trucks, but they attract a wide variety of people. Look at a food truck line, and you will probably not see a group of people who look all alike. (Age, gender, race, etc.) Too often churches look alike. If you’re different, you don’t really fit in. This doesn’t happen everywhere, but the church should work to be inclusive of everyone and do what it takes to reach people of all walks of life.
So, how do you feel about this food truck analogy? What are other ways that churches should work toward being more like food trucks?
Stephanie Carroll 
I like the analogy in general but my question is how? Where should we be going? What does relevant look like that we aren’t currently doing?
Maria, I don’t know the answer to that, but I love thinking and dreaming about things like this. It convicts me to think of more ways that I need to get beyond myself and think of what others who are different from me need. We are all so different.
I loved the conversations it created amongst people at the conference.