Alabama churches use car shows for outreach, service, missions funding

Alabama churches use car shows for outreach, service, missions funding

By Martha Simmons
Correspondent, The Alabama Baptist

Churches throughout Alabama have found an effective way to rev up their community outreach: car shows.
Shiny automobiles — whether speedy and new or sedate and classic — enjoy an enthusiastic following, and many Baptist churches have found a way to get mileage out of them for their missions.

“We are in our eighth year of the Shirley Looney Memorial Car Show,” said Jeremy Montgomery, student pastor at Dauphin Way Baptist Church, Mobile. “The way it got started was that Gene and Shirley Looney wanted a way to provide scholarships to youth missions trips and camp scholarships for people who didn’t have the means.”

As car show aficionados, the Looneys had the connections and knowledge to put on a show. “They came to my office with the idea and we prayed over it. They were actively involved in car shows around the area and thought this was a way for them to raise money for church missions,” Montgomery said.

Dauphin Way holds the car show in its parking area every fourth Saturday in October and it has grown to feature approximately 170 cars. Through entry fees and sponsorships, the show raises $7,000 to $8,000 each year for church missions. Organizers aren’t sure how many people attend, Montgomery said, because there is no admission charged.

“We do guesstimate though,” Montgomery said. “One year, we counted 650 people on a rainy, cold day, not counting the car owners.”

For Dauphin Way, however, the event is about much more than admiring shiny wheels and raising money.

“We knew that the Lord was leading us to do this show to be a fundraiser but what we didn’t know was how God was going to use this to help us reach our community.

Be intentional

“We are very intentional about sharing the gospel during the car show,” Montgomery said. “Eight to 10 teams of pastors, lay leaders and youth go to every car, meet with the owners, ask how we can pray for them and share the gospel with them.”

Those encounters lead to personal connections that eventually bring new members to the church, Sunday School and other programs. “Now the church as a whole embraces this as a community outreach,” Montgomery said.

That’s a good thing, since organizing and executing the car show is nearly a year-round effort and requires more than 50 volunteers.

Shirley Looney passed away after the first car show but her husband has remained faithful to the project. “Gene Looney is a wonderful lay leader who pours himself into it year-round,” Montgomery said. “He’s helped several other churches in the area start their own car shows.”

Sharing Christ

Montgomery said Dauphin Way Baptist encourages other churches to start their own car shows because of the benefits it brings to church missions.

“It has been a blessing to our church as it is such a draw from the community and the way our church plugs into it,” he said. “The whole thing is a way to share Christ.”

At Gardendale First Baptist Church, the car show that takes place in the church parking lot is part of the annual community-wide Gardendale Magnolia Festival and the church’s outreach strategy.

“We just allow the city to use our parking lot for the car show,” said Phil Cronin, minister of new members and outreach. “We don’t oversee it.

“Our outreach actually takes place at the same festival but in a different area with huge inflatable slides, a shooting gallery, a remote-control car track and games that families can play for free,” he said. “We also provide multiple golf carts to help folks get to and from the festival from various parking lots surrounding the area.

“We try to use these types of events to help our people find the blessing of serving and helping the people and our communities,” Cronin said. “It also helps the community to get to know the Church in a neutral area.”

Outreach activities such as these, Cronin added, “are bridges that help people relate to the Church, as well as it helps others to find their purpose in serving Christ.”

Wall Highway Baptist Church, Madison, is in its second year of hosting a car show, said Pastor Greg Lee.

“The first year we had 44 entries and this year we had over 70,” Lee said. “The car show draws all ages. We see a significant number of families with small children, as well as couples and individuals. Our show is spread out over five hours and there are people coming and going the whole time.

“I can tell you that it takes about 50 church members to put on this event. We cook barbecue, hamburgers and hot dogs and sell them, so we have to have church members working the grills and the cash registers. Also we have church members directing traffic, operating the registration table and so on.”

Wall Highway’s car shows generate funding for missions and for outreach to the community, with the bulk of the proceeds to help fund the church’s annual missions trip to Nepal.

“We also use the event as outreach,” Lee said. “Many of those who come onto our campus for the show are unchurched. We do our best to meet, greet, establish some working relationship and extend invitations to join us for worship. We have a team of church members who oversee the car show and we also have a team of hosts who meet and greet.

“We begin planning months in advance,” Lee said. “We advertise through every means available to us but the best advertisement is passing out flyers at other car shows.

“Each year has been a lot of a lot of work but a lot of fun,” he added. “We did the first one not knowing what to expect and not sure if we would do it again, and it went so well, we couldn’t wait to do the next one.”