It’s early Sunday morning, and Pastor Gary Myer is starting up a 21-passenger bus. He will spend over two hours on his route this morning, picking up kids to take them to his church for breakfast and Sunday school, and then taking them back home afterward.

Pastor Gary Myer, of Lawrence Baptist Temple, 3201 W. 31st. St., walks a group of children across the street to the church bus Sunday, May 31. Myer picks up children and adults each Sunday to take them to his church for services, Sunday school and a hot breakfast.

Myer has been doing the bus route for almost 40 years. This morning, Myer, 72, makes his way up an uneven front sidewalk to knock on the door of the first house on his route. The morning is unseasonably cool, and when a 9-year-old girl comes to the door in a sleeveless dress, he sends her back inside for her jacket.

Myer said the idea for the bus route came from the instruction given by Jesus to go out to the streets and the lanes of the city and bring people in.

“He must have had the bus ministry in mind,” Myer said. “He didn’t say ask them to come in, he said bring them in.”

Stop by stop, the seats of the bus fill with children. Most sit quietly, and when one child mentions being hungry, several others agree. One says, “I’m used to it.”

The church started providing breakfast a few years ago after Myer said he asked one of the children what she’d eaten that morning and she responded that she hadn’t eaten anything.

Myer, who graduated from Baptist Bible College in Springfield, Mo., 1965, marked 50 years as a minister on Sunday. After work in a few other churches, he founded the Lawrence Baptist Temple, 3201 West 31st St., in 1976 and began his bus ministry the following year. Myer said that at the time, he didn’t know anything about starting a church.

“I just knew how to knock on doors and invite people to come,” he said.

The doors Myer knocks on are many and varied. The bus ministry includes two buses, which head off in opposite directions each Sunday morning.

“We almost circle the city with these two buses,” Myer said.

The buses also make stops at the Lawrence Community Shelter and First Step at Lakeview, an addiction treatment center for women, if someone indicates an interest in attending. Myer said such inclusion is just following the example of Jesus.

“If Jesus would welcome them, we’ll welcome them,” he said. “We don’t turn anyone away.”

To plan his Sunday route, Myer does a pre-route on Saturdays, stopping by his regulars’ houses to see if they’d like to be picked up the next day and also knocking on new doors, inviting adults to service and their kids to Sunday school. Myer said that between both buses, they usually pick up about 20 kids, who sometimes bring along their parents or friends.

“It’s almost like having one match to start a fire,” he said.

This morning, Myer’s bus is almost full. About an hour into his morning route, he drops off 12 children and one adult at the church and then heads back out to make a few more stops.

But even on mornings when he only picks up a few people, Myer said he doesn’t let it discourage him.

“They’ll know that I stopped by,” he said, “And then at least they can’t say, ‘Pastor Myer didn’t come by.'”

After exiting the bus, the children enter the church, heavy with the smell of syrup. They sit down at long tables where plates and cups are passed. Jerry Conway, parishioner and church trustee, said that Myer’s dedication to bringing boys and girls into the church makes him stand out.

“It’s been an inspiration to me as well as other people in the church,” he said.

Another characteristic of Myer’s that Conway said is important is that he sticks to the Bible and the message of Jesus.

“He doesn’t preach politics or tell anybody how good they are,” he said.

Parishioner Janet Hoover said that Myer’s sermons have messages that speak to the common individual and what people deal with on an everyday basis.

“Pastor Myer is an everyday people man,” she said.

Hoover said that even when Myer was going through his own personal struggles, he was still there for the people of the church. Myer’s wife of 51 years, Shirley, passed away in March after being ill for several years. Hoover said that despite that, Myer was supportive during that time.

“We all knew all we had to do was pick up the phone, day or night,” she said.

Reflecting back on the many years he has spent as a minister, Myer said he hopes he has several more to come, “maybe even another decade.” The time, he said, has passed quickly.

“It sounds like a lot, but when I look back over those 50 years, it’s just an instant.”