by Keith Collier, posted Tuesday, August 18, 2009 (15 years ago)
STURGIS, S.D. (BP)--As motorcycle engines roared, more than 4,200 leather-clad motorcyclists and their friends at the 69th annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally heard a three-
Photo by Randy Hughes
minute testimony of how Christ could radically change their lives. Just for listening, they also were given a chance to win a brand new, black Harley-Davidson motorcycle.
For the fourth year in a row, the Sturgis Motorcycle Giveaway sponsored by the Dakota Baptist Convention and North American Mission Board used volunteers from across the nation to give personal testimonies Aug. 3-8 about how they met Christ and to invite rally-goers to invite Him into their lives. By the end of the week, 835 people made professions of faith in Jesus Christ.
Photo by Keith Collier
For one week in August each year, the small, quiet towns of the South Dakota Black Hills transform as approximately 500,000 motorcyclists and wannabes descend on the region for the bike rally. The atmosphere promotes raucous parties and sinful living, but it is into such darkness that God calls Christians to shine the light of Christ.
In 2006, the DBC decided to do something about the sea of lostness.
"We talked about wanting to put together some kind of intentional evangelism event at Sturgis," Garvon Golden, the convention's associate executive director, said. "We felt that if our two states are drawing such a large crowd of people from all over the world, we have the responsibility to try to share Christ with these folks and have some type of evangelistic presence." Read More
