Biker Church

So I'm in Sioux Falls, South Dakota this week staffing a PowerPlant Project for the North American Mission Board. It is a small project but it has been really amazing so far. The students are working with three different church planters, one of which is a church for bikers, truckers, and ex-cons.

We joined them for their weekly church service, called Set Free, and let me tell you, friends, we had CHURCH.

First of all, the songs were rock songs with Christian words plugged in. Such as "Celebrate the Lord, COME ON!" and "We're Not Going to Take It!" but it was about not taking anything from Satan.

From the moment I walked in, I was instantly greeted by a hug from a burly biker which is something that two days ago would have made me nervous. But after worshiping with them and seeing the sincerity of their heart, I just felt like the biggest hypocrite in the room. If that same hugging biker man had walked into Big Church Sunday morning, I honestly don't know what my reaction would be. Likewise, during praise and worship, a girl my age had a seizure-like attack which the pastor later explained was due to her recovering from a longtime addiction to Meth. My first thought was, "that would never happen at my church!" But why doesn't it? Isn't church where a Meth addict should be? I'm still trying to sort through all the emotions I felt through the service and figure out where to go from here.

Oh- when they took up the offering, the servant (men are called servants and the girl bikers are "sisters" so they are a church of servants and sisters) on the mic said:

Servant: "Do you put in RENT money?"
Bikers: "NO!"
Servant: "Do you put in FOOD money?"
Bikers: "NO!"
Servant: "Do you put in bill money?"
Bikers: "NO!"
Servant: "We put in our dope money, alcohol money, porn money and all other money that gets us into trouble."

I'll continue to update everyone on how the week goes. All the youth are really great and are eager to learn about this "church planting thing." I kind of want to move to Sioux Falls and just go to Biker Church from now on. They are so unabashed and unashamed about their Savior because he has pulled them out of addictions beyond our wildest beliefs. Most of them don't have much but they have Jesus and they are so thankful.