BOYERTOWN, PA - “We only have to revisit the first Christmas to understand God’s ways are higher than ours. A donkey, a baby, a manger, and a little town in the middle of nowhere called Bethlehem.”
One of the holiest Christian holidays is just around the corner and these believers are kicking their praise into high gear.
"There’s a freedom here where you don’t have to act like you’re at church and I don’t mean that in an unruly way," explains Churchgoer Ted Meade, "But I mean that it’s a church that’s built not on any pretense whatsoever. It’s come as you are, it’s we love you no matter who you are and we love you no matter what stage of life you’re in. You can be a total pagan, you can be the most religious person in the world and you will still be loved when you walk in the door."
Here at The Biker Church in Boyertown, Pennsylvania, new visitors are always welcomed...but warned; service here isn’t typical. When Jackie Ruosstells people she’s a Biker Churchgoer, the reaction is the same...
"Oh you’re one of them? I’ve gotten called a holy roller because I go to church. But we’re different here. We’re a great breed of people here," Ruoss tells PBS39 News Tonight Reporter, K.C. Lopez, "We’re screwed up and different (laughs). No, we’re all the same, everybody is the same it’s just we feel more at home here I think."
For Chaplain Richard Grill, his church is about staring your truth in the eye and seeking higher help in your circumstance, any circumstance that might be...
"At 15 already I was known as the class drunk and then I didn’t have many friends, I just liked hurting people," Grill explains, "I got hooked up with my wife when she was in 11th grade, I was in the 11th grade, we just got along well because she didn’t fit in neither. For three months I put her through hell, because I was a drunk and I just didn’t believe that someone could change like that. Then I told her I was going with her to church and I did and the pastor ripped the sermon up, threw it on the floor and he talked about love and I never experienced the love he was talking about. I can even cry now because it’s still real. It’s so real to me. And that changed my whole life."
...but never losing your true self.
"I didn’t fit in an established church because I didn’t like getting dressed up, I didn’t have a suit, didn’t wear a tie," Grill tells Lopez, "I wore jeans, t-shirts and that was me. It started with the Reading Motorcycle Club, really. They had 13 hundred members and they found out that I could marry them and bury them so then some of them got saved and then it plugged them into churches up in Oley and it never lasted and they said you need to start your own church and that’s how it started."
When Rich and his wife, Pastor Linda Grill, opened the doors to this house of the Lord 17 years ago, it came with the idea that it would be for everyone.
"I never had a male figure in my life so I was always looking for my father, and that got me into a lot of trouble," says Pastor Linda Grill, "And you just don’t fit. And for some reasons, bikers seem to have trouble fitting in. Well not just bikers, a lot of people after they go through their teenage years and stuff they don’t really fit into a church. We had a stigma of who kind we were and so we know what it’s like to be looked down upon or not accepted into a certain group or category or whatever and so we never want someone that had a rough past or someone who had inward turmoil or trouble--we wanted them to know that they are still worth something. God still loves them and God has a life for them and that there is help."
A Pew Research Center survey found 65 percent of American adults described themselves as Christians; down from 77 percent who did a decade ago. And here in Pennsylvania, PennDOT has nearly 850 thousand licensed motorcyclists in the state alone. Taking those two things into consideration, this unconventional congregation, has found a new way to connect with the unchurched and the unsaved, bikers and non-bikers alike...
"There’s a bit of a mystique that goes along with riding a motorcycle," explains Meade, "You have some people that are very afraid that they would never get on one and yet they want to know what it’s like. There are others that--again the mystique of the bad boy image, or the bad girl image. I think they try to find the truth; is it real, are they really bad? Is everyone bad? Yeah so there’s a definite interest and I think that’s what opens the doors."
And as Christmas draws near, these congregants say they’ll be pulling one another closer...
"Everybody thinks biker, they think of tough and nasty and they’re not, they’re not," says Virginia Christ, "There may be some out there, but here they’re very friendly, caring, thoughtful and just normal, normal people."
Lopez asked Meade, "I saw a lot of vulnerability from, especially from women and men who seem super tough, right? And you saw that barrier come down, you saw people crying. Why do you think this place, both of the pastors are able to pull the vulnerability out of what seems like really tough people?"
"It’s because of the love," he replied, "It’s the love that Christ has put in them for the people and they’re trusted."
And when the holiday is over, they’ll continue to gather. But instead of worshiping on the weekends, they meet on Thursday evenings, because Sundays? Those were made for riding.
Got a news tip? Email K.C. at KCLopez@WLVT.org