Holy rollers
ROD WALTON
World Staff Writer
04/28/2001
"Fast"
Frank Devane shows off his colors at the Quicksilver Motorcycle Rally in Tahlequah.
The rally is bringing together Christian-touting motorcyclists from across
the country.
Below: With religious tattoos adorning his body, biker Michael Moses of Tulsa
poses during the Quicksilver Motorcycle Rally in Tahlequah, sponsored by the
New Life Worship Center. The rally is bringing together Christian bikers from
across the nation.
DAVID CRENSHAW / Tulsa World
Christian bikers to hold
Tahlequah rally
TAHLEQUAH
-- From born to be wild to born again.
What a long,
strange trip it's been for a group of easy riding men who have organized what
may be Oklahoma's first-ever completely Christian bikers gathering.
The
Quicksilver Motorcycle Rally will be Saturday and Sunday at the rodeo arena on
U.S. 62 just south of Tahlequah.
The rally is
free and open to the public.
Quicksilver
will feature biker games, biker barrel racing, a rodeo and music. Typical
bikers rally, except that the curses will be replaced by crosses and the
partying by prayer.
"We want
to get hard-core bikers delivered and saved," said Frank Haven, a longtime
rider and associate pastor at nearby New Life Worship Center, the rally's
co-sponsor.
The name of
the event borrows from the precious metal used to pay Judas Iscariot after he
betrayed Jesus to the Romans. It also trades on the last name of Kenneth
Silver, another New Life co-pastor and street minister who just happens to be a
converted former Hell's Angel.
Silver came to
Tahlequah from Louisiana about a year ago. He found a soft place in his soul
for the area's outcasts, from the poor to the alienated who have found their
heart's contentment hitting the road atop a Harley.
And that ride is like a highway to heaven, they
say.
"To me,
the freedom you feel on a motorcycle is the same freedom you feel when the
weight of the world is off of you," Haven said.
Quicksilver
organizers expect as many as 1,500 bikers to come to Tahlequah over the
weekend. Christian riding clubs will include the Tribe of Judah from Texas and
the Un-Chained Gang from Indiana.
The image of
rough-and-tumble outlaws is offensive to some bikers, who perceive it as a
tired stereotype. Yet even longtime riders like Silver, Haven and
"Fast" Frank Devane, a minister from Woodstock, Ga., who will preach
at the rally, acknowledged that true hard-core bikers are often Vietnam
veterans with an angry sense of isolation from their fellow Americans and
especially organized religion.
"The main
issue is that most of them felt betrayed by their own country," said
Haven, who served in the Marines. "They don't trust any kind of
establishment."
Men like
Devane and Silver shared that mistrust for many years. They lived lives full of
substance abuse and brawling, all the while looking for a spiritual leader of
the pack.
It so happened
that Jesus Christ was the true wild one.
"What
we're trying to show the world is that God can change everyone," Devane
said. "If he can change an old outlaw biker, then no one has an
excuse."
Another
Quicksilver biker quit looking for excuses many miles ago. Michael Moses, a
Tulsan who is tattooed nearly from forehead to toe -- the Bible is basically
played out in ink on his chest -- came to Tahlequah to continue a ministry that
began when he picked himself out of gang culture, a ministry that reached
beyond prison walls and biker enclaves.
Moses'
black-and-white 1980 "Shovelhead" declares "Jesus" on its
gas tank and has a metallic claw for a kickstand.
This rally, he
said, gets to the heart of the matter.
"The
biker culture is just now opening up," Moses said. "People's eyes
need to be opened to the simplicity of the truth."
The
Quicksilver Motorcycle Rally is not just for bikers, New Life pastor Garland
Thomas said. He and his fellow "saved" riders hope that anyone who is
interested will come to see the unique bikes, check out the vendor booths and
get comfortable with people from a way of life they once may have feared.
"As hard
as they tried to be mean, they'll be that dedicated to be good," Thomas
said.
The rally also
is an outreach tool of the New Life Worship Center, a young church of about 100
members that boasts three bikers among its pastoral staff and has the
"POW/MIA" flag waving above the sanctuary.
The
congregation had always reached out to the poor and homeless, but Silver's
arrival opened a whole new pathway. He tries to help people who are much like
he was growing up -- mean and motorized.
He and Devane
were converted during a Kenneth Copeland sermon at a Texas rally. The
experience slowed Fast Frank down and turned Silver's heart to gold.
"I never
had no religion," Devane said. "And nobody in Georgia had more bad
habits than me."
Now Devane's
vest boasts stickers saying, "I'm a Born Again Heathen," while a
Silver button states that "Real Men Love Jesus."
And so it
seemed Friday as the rally began. Bandana-clad men who looked like the type not
to be run into in alleys took quiet moments to hug and pray together beneath
the rodeo bleachers.
Shouts of
"Praise God" and "God bless" filled the air with more power
than a Steppenwolf chorus.
Born to be
wild no more.
Rod Walton,
World staff writer, can be reached at 581-8457 or via e-mail at rod.walton@tulsaworld.com.