XII Legions: Sabbath Keeper Motorcycle Ministry

I was looking for something unrelated to COG things on Google the other day and an article I posted in 2015 popped up about a COG member in New Jersey who was starting up a Christian ministry for motorcycle riders.  It referenced an article in The Journal about a new ministry starting up.

A new Christian motorcycle-riding group, XII Legions Christian Motorcycle Ministry, has started up in New Jersey with the intent to develop chapters in other areas of the country.

The bikers are “looking for other bikers who have an interest in motorcycles, riding and the Word of God, including God’s holy Sabbath day,” Mr. Paparella said. The group is nondenominational and open to all regardless of church affiliation and “wants to promote the gospel of the Kingdom of God on two wheels,” he said. The founders are longtime Church of God members, with past and current fellowships with the former Worldwide Church of God, United Church of God, Church of God (Seventh Day), Beth Israel Messianic Congregation and Church of God Flemington (an affiliate of Church of God Ministries International), as well as several private-residence-based church groups.

I decided to look them up to see if they were still in existance.  They are, and have now taken on a more Sacred Names bent in their ministry.

Centurion Ministries

I still can still picture hoards of Sabbatarian hog riders storming into Wadsworth, Charlotte and Edmond, proclaiming the gospel of the Herbert Armstrong or riding through peaceful neighborhoods on Sunday mornings, revving their bikes in order to disturb the heathen Sunday worshipers.

Just imagine the scene at some future Feast of Tabernacles site as the Charlotte Spankers, Wadsworth Narcissists, Edmond Idolaters, Double Blessed Africans or the Malmite Law Bastardizers clash over which one is the one true Sabbatarian biker group.

I highly doubt any of them will put John 3:16 or Colossians 2:14 on their jackets. Can't have any of that Jesus stuff, just the law.

Like everything else in the Church of God, this is nothing new. There have been Adventist Sabbath Keeper motorcycle groups for many years that attend all the motorcycle gatherings around the country. One of those events is here in California in Hollister.  

The Sabbath Keepers Motorcycle Ministry

and their Facebook Page

The SKMM seems to be doing an actual ministry witnessing for Jesus, unlike any of the COG groups around today. While COG groups wince at mentioning Jesus or even emulating his actions, they much prefer prostrating themselves at the highly revered altar of the law.

Here is what the SKMM do:

Lambert said SKMM is the oldest and largest Adventist motorcycle ministry in the world. The Hollister, Calif., based ministry currently has 19 chapters and nearly 300 members, but the original SKMM members didn’t even own a motorcycle. Their first motorcycle was donated by National Sunday Law author Jan Marcussen.

SKMM members focus on the major biker events that attract hundreds of thousands of bikers annually. They’re all about bringing Jesus to the motorcycle community, using literature, prayer and testimony.

“We pass out a lot of literature during these events,” said Lambert.

The biker events have a combined annual attendance of over 1,000,000, which is more than 300 SKMM members can reach, but they keep at it, and not without results.

While at biker event Reno Street Vibrations, Kevin and Kellye Simpson stopped by SKMM’s booth. Kevin had left the Adventist Church in high school and Kellye had never been Adventist, but her grandmother had taught her Saturday was the Sabbath. Intrigued by the group, the couple took some literature. Later they were baptized into the Ceres Seventh-day Adventist Church, Calif., where they soon began a new SKMM chapter. SKMM’s influence has gone well beyond ex-Adventists, even touching the upper echelons of the Hells Angels and Mongols. 

About six years ago during a biker event in Los Angeles, a biker gang member killed a member of a rival gang while wearing the cut (leather vest) of another gang. In an effort to find the killer, the Hells Angels and Mongols began a shake down of each club in the surrounding area. However, the word was out the SKMM and Christian Motorcycle Association were not to be touched. God was looking out for them.

Can you imagine a COG motorcycle group associating with Hells Angels members, Mongols, or other biker gangs? I can see them now going to Sturges or Hollister and isolating themselves in their own cordoned-off area waiting for their god to send them prospective members, instead of getting off their privileged white asses and hitting the streets and proclaiming the good news they CLAIM to have.

We all know that would never happen.  Church of God organizations cannot even get along with each other so how can a witness of a peaceful kingdom ever be shared?

A Reminder for New COG Lurkers

Anonymous said...

I don't care whether people love me or not. I do not believe that that's the problem in HWAs church splinters. All I care about is people not harming me by respecting my rights. What's in peoples hearts is between them and God, but if people respect my right to life, liberty, my property rights, my right to freedom of expression, my right to choose my own beliefs, my right to be free from abuse, my right to privacy, my right to be left alone etc, I' m satisfied.

Not surprising, rights are taboo in these splinters.

Church Member Bill of Rights

The following are basic human, religious and spiritual rights any person has as a member of any and all religious organizations or church congregations.

You have the right to expect the church to keep your personal contributions private and should be able to expect that any who deal with such things for accounting purposes will do the same.

You have the right to expect that your membership in any church or congregation is not contingent on how much you give or do not give. You should also expect that jobs, positions, opportunities or offices are not given based on the amount anyone gives to the church.

You have the right to say I can only give this even if it is not a tithe of your income gross or net.

You have the right not to be spiritually judged or have your loyalty or sincerity questioned based on what you are able or unable to give financially to the church.

You have the right to ask a Pastor if he checks tithes and offerings for any of the above reasons before giving to a church.

You have the right to say "I'm tired and won't be there, " to any and all activities, plays, fundraisers, studies, seminars, prayer groups, rehearsals, practices and sermons.

You have the right to say "I don't care about that."

You have the right to question the advice, counsel or sermon of any minister, elder, deacon or any other person in authority. 

You have the right to question authority and to still expect to be allowed to attend your church. 

You have the right to question a minister who declares himself one or both of the Two Witnesses of Revelation, a Prophet, the Supreme Watcher of Mankind for God, The Only True Apostle in this Age and any other title or position he can come up with to impress you as to why you need to support him.

You have the right to suggest a pastor get spiritual or psychological help should the need arise. You have the right tell him that the congregation is noticing a trend here.

You have the right to ask why the church believes what it does when the Bible might say otherwise, or why the Bible says something that the church practices that seems scary, weird, inappropriate for this time, out of date or controlling. 

You have the right to notice that ministers often quote scriptures out of context or fail to enforce or address the rest of the story that does not agree with the point they are trying to make.

You have the right to ask all the "how can that be," "how could that happen," "why does it say this here and that there," questions you can come up and expect an intelligent answer. If you are told that you are using human reasoning, ask the pastor what kind of reasoning he uses. If he says "God's," find another church.

You have the right to not want elders, deacons or your friends accompanying the minister on visits to your home to talk to you.

You have the right to discuss or not discuss your life with the minister as you see fit.

You have the right to expect absolute confidentiality and for your story not to show up in the sermon next week, even though "I won't say the name."

You have a right to be called ahead of time when the pastor wants to ask about stopping over.

You have the right, when he calls to say, "I'm tired," "I'm busy," "No, but I appreciate the call," without repercussions.

You have the right to keep a dirty home, grass not mowed perfectly, an older car, red in color and kids that don't say "yes sir, nice to see you sir," in just the right way.

You have the right to watch and read what you wish even if the pastor just got done bashing that particular program, movie or book from the pulpit in his sermon on "Demons in Your Home--Six Ways to Assure Your Eternal Death."

You have the right to ask the pastor not to call on you at work, even if you own the business.

You have the right to say, "I can't afford to take you to lunch." "I can't afford to give you free wood or brick." "I can't afford to fix your house up free," "I can't fix all your teeth," to your pastor should he expect professional courtesies, even if he offers to do your funeral free.

You have a right to expect free use of your church for weddings and funerals.

You have the right to expect these usages are not dependent on you, your parents or children living a sinless life six months prior to the date of the event.

You have the right not to answer questions your pastor may ask you or your children about your sexual practices. If he insists, then insist that you all share together.

You have the right to not let the pastor inform you as to who you can and cannot date or marry.

You have the right to enjoy your sexuality free of church or pastoral approval. Something that is wrong for the pastor is not necessarily wrong for you in how you express yourself to your partner. There is no Bible prohibition against....well you know. And if there were, you'd have the right to disagree with that too.

You have the right to not share which or if you are taking medications of any sort with the pastor.

You have the right to take such medication and not be judged as having a lack of faith or trust in God to heal you.

You have the right to seek professional help without informing your Pastor of the nature of the help and you have the right to not be helped solely by the pastor under threat of repercussions.

You have the right to insist the pastor get professional help should the need arise and the man is causing more harm than good. 

You have the right to remind him that God does not directly speak to him nor express His will only through the mind of the pastor and that makes you uncomfortable if he thinks that is so.

You have the right to be wrong about a many things.

You have the right to believe you are correct about many things without repercussions.

You have the right not to care about everything that others think you must care about to be a good Christian.

You have the right to tell the pastor he is wrong, mistaken or exaggerating.

You have the right to dress as you wish, wear the jewelry you wish and make up you wish or not wish without being labeled a whore or a goody goody.

You have the right to feel that dressing as if it was still 1957 and only watching Disney Movies or How the West Was Won as proof of your pureness is baloney

. You have the right to not be told that the best times for entertainment, movies and TV was when the Pastor was a boy. You have the right to like the food he does not like and to not like the foods he does. 

You have the right to like the schools he doesn't and not like the ones he does.

You have the right not to bear your soul to the ministers wife.

You have the right to like or not like, agree or not agree with the ministers wife.

You have the right to not view the world through the pastor's eyes morally or politically. You have the right to hate the war while he believes the war in Iraq is God's will and thinks it's all in the Bible.

You have the right to expect him to speak clearly where he thinks the Bible speaks for us today and to walk slowly and drink cool water where it doesn't.

You have the right to tell the pastor that that is his opinion and not necessarily the only true opinion on earth.

You have the right for you, your children, your partner and your friends to be themselves.

You have the right to read whatever you wish to read

And too...Since two wrongs don't  make a right, you are allowed to point out one or more than three times where you feel the pastor's sermon or booklet was a bit off the track.  

These are but a few of the rights any member of any Church, congregation or religious organization has. In short, you have the right to not be required to check your brains, your insights, your perspectives and your free will at the door to be welcome and a member of any church.

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Wes White: There Is a Lack of Love Within Too Many COGs

     

                                    

There Is a Lack of Love Within Too Many COGs

By Wes White

Suppose you lived during the founding of Jamestown in 1607 and you suffered from hypertension (high blood pressure).  You were basically screwed because back then the medical professionals had no cure for this disease.  In fact, they didn’t know this disease existed.

            The invention of the sphygmomanometer (blood pressure cuff) by Scipione Riva-Rocci in 1896 was perhaps the greatest breakthrough in diagnosis of this disease.  The development of oral diuretics in the 1950s was perhaps the biggest breakthrough in the treatment of this disease.  

            In medicine, accurate diagnosis and correct treatment are both required in order to cure a disease.  One without the other will not allow for beating the illness.  

            It’s the same in religion.  If a church suffers from a sin and doesn’t know it, then all the cures listed in the Bible are not going to enable these Christians to overcome that sin.  That group must first understand they are suffering from the illness.  

The malignant disorder of mistreating people is still rampant among many Armstrong COGs. This contagion is still as epidemic today as it was at any time since the creation of Armstrongism in 1933.

And this religious pathology is not going to go away as long as the leaders and the brethren refuse to recognize there is a problem.  Like any medical disease, it is only after recognition of a sin that removal of the sin can begin.  Again, you’ve got to have both diagnosis and treatment. 

            The Bible can help Christians who need to do better in their treatment of others.  The Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5, 6, and 7) is the perfect antidote for the spiritual malady of lacking proper love for others.  But this cure is no good if the afflicted church doesn’t understand that it has an illness.  

Your bathroom medicine cabinet can be filled with the wonderful drug Lisinopril.  But it does your hypertension no good if you don’t know that you need this medicine.   After all, how can you know to pop one of these pills into your mouth every morning if you have not been properly diagnosed?

            This is the problem in so many of the Armstrong COGs today.  The very Bibles that sit on their laps during church services every Sabbath have the perfect cure for what ails them, but they have no idea they are infected. 

            And infected they are!

            In addition to the typical maladies that bedevil Armstrongite churches (headline theology, setting or implying dates of Jesus’ return, racist beliefs against interracial marriage & interracial dating, 2nd & 3rd tithes, church eras, judging another’s heart, love of revenge, authoritarian church government, end-time apostleship, humiliation thru marking & disfellowshipping, harsh D&R administration, one true church, condemnation of non-Sabbath keeping Christians, banning members from voting, anti-doctor/anti-medicine/anti-science teachings), many COG people also suffer from either possessing insufficient love for others or a total lack of love for others.  

We see this particular Armstrong illness demonstrated in the following ways:

n  Inability or unwillingness to resolve conflict;

n  Showing interest and loyalty only to those who are in their own organization;

n  Imputing motives;

n  Falsely accusing others;

n  Name-calling of those they disagree with;

n  Unwillingness to tolerate even the most minor of doctrines differences;

n  Refusal to acknowledge the sins or errors of their leaders;

n  Undo loyalty to fellow elders within a ministerial brotherhood;

n  Denial of any responsibility to help those in need in their communities.

            

And it gets worse.

Alongside of their inability to recognize their lack-of-love illness, many of these folks work from the faulty premise that, the more biblical knowledge of certain doctrines you have, the more morality you possess.  They then assume the converse must be true which is that, the less biblical knowledge of certain doctrines you have, the more immorality you possess.  These Christians don’t understand that atheists and agnostics can indeed possess honesty, kindness -- AND LOVE!  Further, these misguided Christians don’t understand that people who are irreligious can actually live their lives being more in line with the loving precepts of the Sermon on the Mount than many Christians! 

History has shown us that understanding truths like the Sabbath and unclean meats is no antidote to the affliction of lacking love.  The hard-headed Pharisees were the perfect example of this principle.  Like the Pharisees, love-lacking Armstrongites seem to have this problem within their very DNA.  

A COG leader once confessed to me that his church needed more of Matthew 5, 6, and 7. At the time, he was trying to place emphasis on these Gospel chapters in his sermons.  That was several years ago.  Today, I am convinced he has not succeeded in that mission.  And I fear he has given up on the whole idea.  Lack of love may very well be too deeply embedded within the DNA of that congregation.  

            For those of us with faith, it becomes more and more incumbent on us that we pray daily for those who claim the name of Jesus, but fail to have love for their fellow man.   Those of us who follow Jesus and embrace God’s Law have a responsibility to reach out to the spiritually ill – even those with the very disease that inspired them to run us off or write us off.  

            As one who has had to overcome the disease of lacking love, I can speak about it candidly in the same way that a recovering alcoholic can speak of the disease of being addicted to liquor.  I don’t bring up the subject to condemn others. I am discussing it only because I want my brothers and sisters in Christ to know that they can overcome it.  But you can’t overcome it until you have admitted you have a problem. 

            And just because your church organization refuses to overcome this sin, it doesn’t mean you as an individual can’t.  If a Christian has this problem, his first step is to admit that there needs to be more love within himself and the COGs. Only then can he truly follow the admonition, “Come out of her my people,” and have healing.  And it is only then that Jesus will be able to truly say, “By this will all know that you are mine.  That you have love for one another.”

            Make yourself a committee of one which has been tasked with the job of promoting Christian love for all other people. 

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            Wes White is president of the Ronald L. Dart Evangelistic Association (RLDEA.com), a Sabbath-keeping Christian ministry which preaches the Gospel of Jesus thru the works of the late Ron Dart.