Highway to heaven for holy bikers

The Christian Motorcyclists Association (CMA) is celebrating 25 years of taking the good news of Jesus Christ to motorcyclists. Ken Hardy, Norfolk branch secretary and editor of the CMA magazine Chainlink, reports.
The CMA was founded some 25 years ago by Christian motorcyclists who felt God's call to work together to bring the good news of Jesus Christ to fellow motorcyclists.
It has grown from simple beginnings in 1979 to around 400 members in the British Isles in 2004. Over the years, CMA has built up links with European Christian motorcycling groups and other organisations worldwide.

Pictured are members of CMA from around East Anglia gathered at Norwich Cathedral for a 150-mile charity Run for the Son event.
Pictures by Kevin Gotts

CMA is known at motorcycle rallies for its 'Holy Joe's Café', which serves hot and cold drinks throughout the night, provides a place to sit and relax at rallies and an ear for anyone who wants to chat and chew over the joys and troubles of life.
Members invest time enjoying biking with motorcyclists of all kinds, building up relationships and friendships. It's slow steady work where a consistent, personal Christian lifestyle is vital to establish credibility and respect. On the basis of this 'lifestyle evangelism' we seek to provide a solid Christian witness and create a platform for speaking into the lives of others - at their invitation.
We are not a church, we are outreach to the biking world, we concentrate on the people who are furthest away from God but we talk to every one else on the way as equal. We are all committed Christians, attending our own local churches and many serve in some way to that end.
Recognising the need to provide easy-to-read scriptures to follow up our evangelistic activities, CMA worked with the Bible Society in 1997 to produce the Manual for Life - a new testament in Today's English Version, with motorcycles on the cover and helps and testimonies on the inside. The first run of 5,000 copies was funded jointly by the Bible Society and CMA and it is about to be reprinted.
Members of CMA are easy to recognise - there will be a large white cross on the back of their motorcycle jackets. What simpler declaration of our faith can there be? However, we have no monopoly on the cross, and other Christian motorcyclists in the UK have taken up the idea. We are encouraging our European counterparts to follow suit.

Other Christian activities are supported through CMA. A number of charity runs are supported across the UK by individual branches and members have gone on from CMA into full-time ministry or to work for other Christian organisations such as YWAM, Mission Aviation Fellowship, and relief work into Eastern Europe. The Run for the Son is CMA's annual national charity run, which first took place in 2000. Taking place in June, the Run involved two runs of around 500 miles. Both started in Cheshire and ended in South Yorkshire - one via Glasgow and Edinburgh, the other via the Severn Bridge and the Dartford Crossing. It raised money for the Lighthouse Foundation, YWAM and Tear Fund.
To celebrate 25 years of CMA there was a 25th Anniversary rally in North Yorkshire in July, which was combined with the annual European Motorcyclists for Christ rally.
As motorcyclists we enjoy the freedom of riding a motorcycle; as Christians we enjoy the freedom of knowing Jesus Christ.
The Norfolk branch of the CMA is looking for like-minded people to join them and build the branch. We ride to many events where motorbikes are involved from rallies, to bike shows at the NEC, bike meets at pubs and also the Ally Pally show in north London. We also help out at other branch venues when we can and have ride outs, meeting many different people.
To get in contact ring Ken Hardy on 01603 495277 or text 07796 164031 or look up www.bike.org.uk

Christian motor cyclists on road for God

CMA members at Holy Joe's Cafe at the Durham event

The stalwart members of the Christian Motorcycle Association hit the tarmac most summer weekends scorching God's danger trail to touch the secret, murky world behind the bike rally scene. Sandie Ridgley joined them on the road.
The numb, shaking hands reach for the steaming cup of tea but she really wanted a 'fix'. Behind this leather-clad, tiny frame the sunken, cold eyes tell a haunting story of despair. But here, in this twilight zone of drugs, drink and all night heavy music there is hope.

Through prayer, love and commitment the very breath of God is released. Here is the 24-hour call of a faithful few. A call that brings the New Testament into the heartland of the 21st century biking scene through the members of the CMA. It is a mission to those often warped by society's ills. Bikers tormented by sickness, loneliness, divorce and death. Suffering has cut deep, breaking hearts and hardening spirits.
It is a challenging mission that energises the CMA. They opt for the cold comfort of a groundsheet under canvas and a few hours sleep to minister to lost and aching souls through their 24-hour teetotal refreshment tent named "Holy Joe's". They travel the length and breadth of the UK, come rain or shine, to heed that call.
Seven thousand bikers, some from Europe and Scandinavia, flood the highways and byways to Durham, in search of one of the biggest summer playgrounds on the UK biking rally calendar. The small team of Christians might go unnoticed until you see the white cross emblazoned on their backs that signifies their gospel walk. Beneath every jacket is a heart that God enthuses for this often rejected, secular minority. A fluid society that often brandishes a heavy line in piercing, tattoos and all night drinking.
The man who helps summon and encourage members is an ordained minister. Alan Lowther cuts through the traditional Christian protocol of a man of the cloth

but his leather jerkin, goaty beard and neck devoid of any starchy white collar, brings him closer to those he accepts as his own. "These are my children and I love them," says the man who has followed the hand of God that has taken him to breaking point and making point again. The man chiselled and refined through the rivers of adversity, sees the potential in every biker, including the one who tried to axe him.
He once addressed thousands of tough, notorious bikers with a message of hope after one of their members died from an unexpected heart attack. He has taken bikers' funerals and officiated at weddings between CMA members. He notches up endless miles to lead 400 UK members and helps forge a unified path with CMA across Europe.
At Durham's Stormin' the Castle he prays for a couple who have become engaged. With a dramatically shaved head and black Mohican haircut, the future groom and his red headed girlfriend are eager for God's touch. It is a poignant moment. Fellow CMA members gather around as the couple are prayed for and learn a lesson in love from 1 Corinthians 13 as Alan, with moist eyes of compassion, seeks to bless their union.
Here, behind the façade of silver machines and black leather suits, the secular bike scene is witnessing an undoubted move of God.

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