“REV
IT FOR CHRIST they shall walk and not faint.” Others wear leather jackets with a large patch that reads “Sabbath Keepers, Seventh-day Adventist, Revelation 14,” accompanied by the verse “Jesus is also Lord of the sabbath. Mark 2:28.” They are among the 80 Christian bikers gathered here for Ohio Conference’s first “Rev it up Revival” camp meeting. They came from Ohio, Maryland, as far west as California and as far south as Florida to enjoy four days of evangelism training, games, rides in the countryside, devotionals, Sabbath worship and testimonies from speakers who openly share their journey to Christ and their love for Him.
ENTERING WEDGE Tom Hughes (above) is one of them. Standing 6 feet 4 inches tall, Hughes, pastor of the Newark (Ohio) church and coordinator of this camp meeting, strums his guitar as he leads song service. He can identify with some of those who have lived the outlaw biker lifestyle. Before he became an Adventist, Hughes always thought he was too bad to be saved. “I had a lot of shame, hatred, self-anger …” he says. “I thought, If God knows anything about me, He wouldn’t want anything to do with me.” Now through his Bible Biker Ministries, Hughes has witnessed to bikers in all 50 states. “As a biker I
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used to keep that side private,” he explains. “I didn’t want to be criticized.” Now he sees witnessing to all people, even at unsavory biker gatherings, not as an option but as a mandate. “To say that we shouldn’t go to places like that because they are sinful ... there’s a really twisted logic there,” he says, shaking his head sadly. “I say the whole world is a cesspool and, yet, Jesus came here to witness to us. Isn’t ground level the foot of the cross?” Monte Sahlin, Ohio Conference’s director of Research and Special Projects, is always on the lookout for unique ways to minister to underserved groups. With 400,000 bikers in the state of Ohio, he needed an entering wedge to reach them, but realized that “many bikers are not interested in conventional church.” That’s where Hughes’ long history of ministering to bikers became helpful. With support from the Columbia Union Conference and Ohio Conference, the pair designed this revival as a way to reach unchurched bikers. “We have several goals for this weekend,” Sahlin notes. “One is evangelism. We are hoping that several people come who are unchurched. [Secondly], about a third of the speakers are Christians but not August 2011 V IS ITOR | 7