Biking in the Bible Belt

From BikePortland.ORG

Posted by Jonathan Maus (Editor) on March 12th, 2008 at 2:33 pm

(Photo sent in by a reader.)

According to an article published last Sunday by the Associated Press, a group of Southern Baptist leaders have signed a declaration stating that, “current evidence of global warming is “substantial,” and that the threat is too grave to wait for perfect knowledge about whether, or how much, people contribute to the trend.”

The group represents 16.3 million members and is the largest Protestant group in the U.S. That’s a pretty big constituency — imagine if just a fraction of them started riding a bike to church…

Here in Portland, Hinson Baptist Church (not affiliated with any other Baptist group) is doing their part to encourage bike use.

The marquee at Hinson Baptist
Church on SE Salmon and 20th.
(Photo: Elly Blue)

Community Outreach coordinator Jim Evernden recently put, “Ride your bike to church” on their marquee and he says, “It’s just part of trying to get people thinking about how they get to church. It’s something we’re working on.”

Evernden says a lot of Christians used to not take climate very seriously, but now, “they’re realizing it’s part of our world, and we’ve got to do something about it.”

Hinson has partnered up with the Bicycle Transportation Alliance (BTA) and the Community Cycling Center (CCC) for a series of events this spring. The BTA will hold a bike safety workshop at the church in May and the CCC will show up in April to help with a free bike tune-up day.

When they held the free bike tune-up day last year, Evernden says over 100 people showed up. He adds that the events are open to anyone in the community, not just church-goers.

Evernden also says he’d like to partner with the BTA to hold a friendly competition with other churches to see who has the highest number of bike commuters in the congregation. Maybe the BTA’s Bike Commute Challenge should add a “Church” category to their contest next year!