A new church is rumbling into Peterborough, Ont., with heavy rock music and a leather-clad pastor.
By bikers, for bikers, the Kawartha Bikers Church is holding its first weekly outreach Monday night, said pastor Dave Neals.
"To get a biker into church is very hard," Neals said. "Most of the time they're not invited into church. I was asked once to park my bike at the back of the church."
Kawartha Bikers Church is based on the Capital City Biker's Church in Ottawa, where the atmosphere is more like a clubhouse than a sanctuary, Neals said.
The Ottawa church states in a pamphlet that it "is best described as a cross between a pool hall and a diner. The main room includes a pool table, couches, a coffee counter, televisions and a number of tables."
While the Kawartha Bikers Church hopes to eventually get its own church, the weekly Monday night meetings will feature "heavy rock music, blues music" as well as pool and "lots of fellowship," Neals said.
The Kawartha Bikers Church is an extension of the Eternal Riders Motorcycle Ministry, also run by Neals and his wife Karen, which "focuses on ministry to hard-core bikers and social misfits," Neals said.
Bikers have a special kinship with one another, Neals said.
"A Christian biker is accepted in the biker community the way outlaw bikers are," Neals said. "If they were broken down on the side of the road, they'd stop to help and if they were broke down, we'd stop to help. That wouldn't happen in a car."