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Bikers find highway to God in Manvel
Published July 6, 2009
MANVEL — Wearing a leather vest adorned with biker patches, Frank Scott stepped up to the podium to start his music service.
After a biker in the congregation joked about his appearance, Scott looked out at the audience with a smile.
“Amen, I’m going to have to cut you,” he said, laughing. “This group is talking ugly about me.”
Scott and his wife, Judy, have traveled all over the world and sang church music for many different congregations for more than 40 years. But the group he plays for now at Biker Church in Manvel look more like an audience waiting to hear blaring electric guitars at a rock concert than those about to start singing Christian hymns.
Instead of shirts, ties and Sunday dresses, Biker Church members wear vests, leather pants and sport tattoos. And instead of coming to church in the family car, most participants roll into the Jordan Center, where the church services are performed, on motorcycles and line them up in front of the door.
“If you walked into our church with a suit and tie, people would look at you funny,” said the church’s pastor, David Wright.
Robert “Tree” Perot said he started attending Biker Church after a member saw him on the side of a highway praying by his motorcycle. The man handed him a necklace with a cross fashioned from nails and asked him to come to Biker Church.
Though the church is different from traditional churches, it has the same goal of bringing people close to God, Perot said.
“We use motorcycles as a tool,” he said. “I don’t know why, but God led me to this.”
Most people see the name “Biker Church” and assume it is tailored to bikers, Wright said. While most who attend fit that category, visitors are surprised to learn its services are the same as those of most churches, he said.
“We’re a whole lot more like anyone else’s church than everyone thinks,” Wright said.
LET US PRAY
The service starts with a music service that includes traditional hymns and Christian songs. After the music, Wright stands up to deliver a sermon based on passages in the Bible.
Wright spoke last Sunday on the power and importance of forgiveness. Wright also spoke about how he used to preach to bikers before he became the Biker Church pastor.
“I don’t know how many people I’ve talked to on the streets who’ve said they can’t go to church because they’re sinners,” he said. “Then I say, ‘You better go to church then.’”
Frank Scott came to the church attracted to the biker theme. While he and his wife are music ministers, they also are motorcycle enthusiasts and felt it was an unusual way to bring people to God.
Biker Church is different because it is more relaxed, and that attracts members who might otherwise be put off by a formal setting, Scott said.
“We liked the atmosphere,” Scott said. “You can’t go into any (traditional) church and cut up like we do. We feel like you should be comfortable in church. God’s people should be happy.”
TAKING OFF
The church is growing from the handful of members who started it more than four years ago. Services originally were performed in Pearland before they were moved to a Manvel barbecue restaurant, Wright said.
The church then opened its doors two years ago at the Jordan Center in Manvel, and it has more than 60 members now, he said. Though the church is a member of the Gulf Coast Baptist Association, Wright said Biker Church is non-denominational.
Biker Church began has started performing baptisms, weddings and services for other churches. Wright said he is considering the idea of starting a similar ministry in the Brazoria area soon.
Carlos and Shirley Riggs live in Manvel and started attending Biker Church after finding Wright preaching in the restaurant. “We’ve been coming in ever since,” Carlos Riggs said.
While Carlos Riggs has ridden motorcycles since he was a teen, Shirley Riggs said she was wary about attending a church full of bikers.
But that fear melted away after she attended the services.
“There are new friends and relationships,” she said. “I’m just glad we have found a place we can agree on.”
After last Sunday’s service ended, a man with tattoos down his arm strolled inside and asked Wright about Biker Church. Wright spoke to him about the services and told him they start at 9:30 a.m. every Sunday.
The man told Wright he could expect to see him the following Sunday.
“That’s what we do right there,” Wright said.
“That’s why we’re here.”
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