WTW: Motorcycle Church
March 2nd, 2005 at 6:55 am by Preston Taylor Holmes
Motorcycle church provides an alternative to those in need.
This is a motorcycle church, where the born-to-be-wild come to be blessed. Here, the dress is blue jeans and black leather. The music is Southern rock. The lighting is disco with smoke. The pulpit is made from the front-end of a Harley. And rather than a traditional cross, the church’s logo — a biker and cross framed by red and yellow flames — rises up behind the stage.
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.
It’s probably unfair to include these folks in White Trash Wednesday. Due to their reformation, they would be a better fit for an Artists Formerly Known As White Trash Wednesday motif. But you have to admit that this church sounds pretty damn interesting.
Baptiste starts each service by revving the Harley on stage. A band performs Southern rock songs — ”Hit me with your best shot. Why don’t you go ahead and test my God,” they sing in a revised rendition of the Pat Benatar hit — and Baptiste ends with a sermon.
On one recent Sunday, Baptiste preached on the biblical story of Jesus’ prayer in the garden just before his death on the cross, saying people too often ask God to make their problems go away, not realizing their problems are usually of their own making.
The Pat Benatar thing is enough for me to make a trip to Springfield for a visit. If I do, I’ll pack heat.
On a side note, this motorcycle church is not to be confused with the Country Church recording quartet:
Your White Trash Wednesday bloggers….
March 2nd, 2005 at 9:46 am
HAY!!! THAT THARE COUNTRY CHURCH IS MINE OWN CHURCH!!! ALL THO I WOUD FER SHORE GO TO THAT THARE BIKER CHURCH AND ALL WITH THEM THARE FINE ASS BIKER MEN AND ALL!!!!!!!!!
March 2nd, 2005 at 10:12 am
WTW 7 – CHURCHIN’
WELL HAY AGIN YALL!!!!!!
SEE i done tole u Id be back and all!!! WELL it seams ole Preston done let evry won in on my churchin place!!! the country church!! but so now im goin to start goin to that other won he done found with them thair bike…
March 2nd, 2005 at 12:14 pm
Bless you, PTH. You’re doing the Lord’s work.
March 2nd, 2005 at 7:25 pm
That’s It Fer Waht Trash Wednusday!
I gots this here special posts for Merrah, Beulah, Hecter, Prestuhn, Dan, Roosty, and that Gordito feller: Visit dem an my other kin over thar on the right left yer other left, dammit. If’n y’d get yer hand off’n yer
March 3rd, 2005 at 12:22 pm
I see nothing wrong with this church, I think Jesus Himself would approve of it. Too many people fail to come to Christ because they don’t feel welcome.
March 3rd, 2005 at 1:23 pm
I agree, Nixon. I really wasn’t passing judgment on the church itself, it was just that the whole motorcycle-rock & roll church seemed to fit the WTW theme. And I’m certainly not calling these church-goers white trash, so I hope I qualified that enough.