HAMPDEN, Maine — For Jeanne Coyle, spending time with members of the Christian Motorcyclists Association is “like seeing the family I’m going to heaven with.”
“I’ve felt more at home with them than my own church family,” Coyle of Charleston said at the June 11 meeting of the Bangor-area chapter at Turtle Head Marina.
Coyle began attending gatherings of the Riders for Christ chapter last year at the urging of her husband, Mark Coyle, she said.
Although each chapter has six officers, the group does not think of itself as a club.
“We’re a ministry, not a club,” President Rick Alpert of Levant said. “It’s all about being a servant.”
The association’s ministry is one primarily of fellowship and outreach to other motorcycle enthusiasts, he said. He and other members often attend large rallies such as the one held last week in Laconia, N.H. Alpert said he has cleaned toilets and campgrounds, prayed with strangers, witnessed to fellow bikers, handed out Bibles and enjoyed the open road with believers and doubters.
“Other bikers really respect the patch,” Alpert said of the Christian Motorcyclists Association patch that members trained in outreach wear and display on their bikes.
Alpert said he became a Christian after the death of his parents about 10 years ago. A short time later, he discovered the Christian Motorcyclists Association.
“I went to a rally in Massachusetts and I was hooked,” Alpert said. “This is the best of both worlds.”
Members, however, don’t just minister at rallies or meeting.
Sandra Allen of Old Town was stuck in an airport earlier this year in a delay that seemed as if it would never end, she said. She had her “Biker’s Bible,” which includes the New Testament, Psalms and Proverbs and is given out at rallies, with her.
“This woman I had been talking to was just getting more and more stressed out,” Allen said. “From the conversation we’d had, I knew she was a Christian. So just as she was about to blow, I pulled out my Biker’s Bible and opened it. The passage I opened it to was the very one her pastor had preached on the previous Sunday. That just calmed her right down.”
The Riders for Christ chapter is one of five Christian Motorcyclists Association chapters in Maine. Others are based in Rockland, South Portland, Oxford and Anson.
The association was founded 35 years ago by the Rev. Herb Shreve of Hatfield, Ark., where its headquarters still is located. Shreve and his then-teenage son purchased their first motorcycles in 1972, according to information on the association’s website. Two years later, Shreve saw the need for a ministry to motorcyclists when he attended his first rally.
“[There he] saw a massive crowd of motorcyclists who did not know Jesus Christ as their personal savior,” the history section of the website states. “In fact, many had never heard the Gospel message.”
The Christian Motorcyclists Association was chartered as a nonprofit in 1975. The ministry describes itself as an interdenominational organization “dedicated to reaching people for Christ in the highways and byways through motorcycling.”
Rallies sponsored by the Christian Motorcyclists Association include praise and worship services, live Christian music, fellowship, guided tours and group rides.
The association has welcomed 136,000 members and chartered 1,000 chapters in the United States over the past 35 years, according to the group’s website. There also are chapters in 27 other countries, including Canada, Australia, Nepal, the United Arab Emirates, Latvia, Mexico and Poland.
A rally of chapters in the New England states will be held July 9 to 11 in Southwick, Mass. Alpert and others from Maine chapters are planning to attend.
For more information on the Christian Motorcyclists Association, call Rick Alpert at 884-8813 or visit www.cmausa.org.