Southern Baptists, searching for new ways to get people to listen to the Gospel, are tempting bikers with a vice, a shiny new Harley Davidson.

The Sioux City Journal published an interesting read about how evangelists taking advantage of large biker rallies, by raffling off brand new bikes. If someone agrees to listen to a few minutes of sermon, they receive a free raffle ticket.

You can read the full article here...
http://www.siouxcityjournal.com/..../caeb88625734900130b3f.txt

As far as the Southern Baptists are concerned it's working...

This year at the Sturgis event, which attracts close to half a million people, about 4,500 people listened to the sermon and 870 of those made a profession of faith.

"There were many people who said to us they thought people weren't interested in hearing about God at a motorcycle rally," Hamilton said. "We would have considered 50 or so a success. We were blown away by that many people responding."

Labels: Religion, Sturgis Motorcycle Rally

Earlier this month, on August 6, Pastor John Rusk from Grace North Church in Phoenix, AZ, set out on a cross-country motorcycle tour to visit all 48 state capitols in the continential USA.

He's doing it on a Kawasaki KLR650 and expects to cover 15,000 miles when it's all said and done.

His goal is to raise money, raise awareness, and raise the Holy Spirit, to fund a future mission into Africa, South Asia and South America, to do the Lord's work.

You can follow his journey on his blog, "Maniac for Missions"...
http://maniac4missions.blogspot.com/2007/08/today-ride-begins.html

You can also check out his progress on a Google map...
http://maniac4missions.blogspot.com/2007/08/heres-latest-map.html

As of this writing, it appears he's already visited all the state capitols in the western half, and is now heading into the eastern half.

Of course, I am certainly envious of his cross-country ride. I'd like to just spend a couple of months riding all over the country and narrowing my life down to just my motorcycle and the road.

Here's wishing him a safe return.

Labels: Long Distance Riding, Religion

Famed motorcycle daredevil Evel Knieval recently accepted Jesus Christ into his heart and became a born-again Christian at the Crystal Cathedral in Orange County, CA.

The 68-year old Knieval travelled there and was baptized at the church's famous "Hour of Power" service, and then spoke to the congregation...

Knievel spoke for about 20 minutes to more than 4,000 people who gathered inside the Crystal Cathedral for services, telling them how he'd been a sinner all his life and now things had changed.

Schuller said Knievel had called him a couple of weeks earlier, telling him, "Dr. Schuller, I've accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior."

Labels: Evel Knieval, Religion

"We are concerned about the safety of our soldiers and civilians," McCullar said. Capt. Michael Albano, the squadron's chaplain, asked God's blessing on the motorcycles and encouraged the riders to keep their safety rules in mind even after the blessing.

After the ceremony, everyone walks out to their bike to see if there's actually water on it. You can always hear people say, "Yea! My bike is blessed!". Other people will say, "Shit, and I just washed my bike too!"

Do these blessings really work? Well, I've had it done to my Yamaha Road Star at this BFE Ride, and a couple years later I had an accident on it. Perhaps, it didn't work. Although, I did come out of that accident pretty much scott-free, with nothing more than road rash on my right forearm. Interestingly, after I fell off the bike, the damn thing kept rolling! In fact, it rolled right through an intersection that's normally quite busy. Except, no cars hit it. Maybe the blessing worked.

I dunno. I think these bike blessings are going to become more commonplace as the media reports more heavily on each and every motorcycle accident.

Labels: Bike Blessing, Religion, Safe Riding

I read through a lot of motorcycle and biker related news stories, but every once in awhile, I come across a story that reminds me what blogging is for.

Pastor Ron Baptiste, a biker and ex-con, stands behind his pulpit fashioned out of a motorcycle front-end, and reaches out to those people who need reachin' out to.

The parishioners are ex-cons and former prostitutes, recovering drug addicts and alcoholics - some devoted bikers and some not. They gather here for an alternative to the traditional churches where they don't feel wanted, says Pastor Ron Baptiste, himself a biker and ex-con whose scarred and twisted chin is but one remnant of his own violent past.

Labels: Motorcycle Ministries, Religion, Ron Baptiste