Looks can be deceiving. And Michele Newsome’s got a story to prove it.
Michele, a grandmother, motorcycle rider, Southern Baptist chaplain, and one of the founders of F.A.I.T.H. Riders Motorcycle Ministry, had just pulled up to a Southern Baptist annual convention meeting on her Harley Davidson Road King. She ran to the ladies room to freshen up, “and I’m standing there washing my hands at the sink, with my spiky hair and all dressed up in leather,” she says, “and another lady comes in wearing a pretty dress with her hose and her heels, and she sees me and actually moves two sinks down to wash her hands.”
Michele Newsome, a leather-clad reminder to never, ever judge a book by its cover, is now, by the grace of God, so much more than any casual passerby might be tempted to think.
“I love Psalm 71:18,” she says, “where it says, ‘Even while I am old and gray’—and yes, I’m old but I cover up my gray—‘God, do not abandon me while I proclaim your power to another generation, your strength to all who are to come.’”
“When I think about my story, and then I read that verse, I think, ‘How perfect is that?’”
Where It All Started
Like most everything else about Michele Newsome, her path to becoming a motorcycle rider, then a Christian, then a Southern Baptist chaplain, was highly unconventional. “It all started more than 20 years ago when my late husband and I were having marital trouble,” she says. “We were separated, and not Christians at the time. But after we started counseling, we got back together, and a friend invited us to what was then First Baptist Church in Lakeland, Florida.”
Michele will never forget the Sunday she now describes as “the best day of my life.”
“The pastor got up and started preaching, and it felt like he knew my exact situation and was speaking just to me. I heard the plan of salvation, I responded, and from that day forward, I’ve never looked back.”
Michele discovered motorcycles, Jesus, and chaplaincy at about the same time. “Back then, my husband and I had just bought a motorcycle, and when we started riding with a group in the community and seeing all the fun they were having, we went back to our church and said, ‘We should start something here.’ That’s how in 2002 we ended up starting F.A.I.T.H. Riders Motorcycle Ministry. F.A.I.T.H. represents that forgiveness is available, but it’s impossible unless you turn from sin and trust Jesus as your Lord and Savior to reach heaven. And it was out of that ministry that we came to learn all about Southern Baptist chaplains.”
Why Chaplaincy?
Her surprise introduction to chaplaincy began when word got out about what Michele, her husband, and their friends at First Baptist Lakeland were doing. People from all over started reaching out, asking how they could start a F.A.I.T.H. Riders chapter in their church.
“We’d been traveling to big motorcycle events like the bike weeks in Daytona and Sturgis to do ministry, and we saw how important it was to have somebody who was really equipped to go deep with people,” she says. “So, when we started drawing up the guidelines for what every F.A.I.T.H. Riders chapter should have, chaplaincy just seemed like a good fit.”
Now, there are more than 100 F.A.I.T.H. Riders chapters in churches across the U.S., and many of them have an endorsed Southern Baptist chaplain like Michele. Her church, Lakes Church in Lakeland, Florida, helped her get endorsed, and now helps provide her prayer and financial support, and everything else she needs to serve as a Southern Baptist chaplain.
“The Southern Baptist chaplaincy program was just what we needed,” Michele says. “Now, F.A.I.T.H. Riders has chaplains like me that are vetted and endorsed through the North American Mission Board, and that not only gives us credibility everywhere we go, but we know there’s always somebody we can go to if we need help, somebody who’s going to encourage us, pray for us, and help us do our job better.”
Community Services
The “job” Michele refers to is the prayed-for evangelism she sets out to do every time she climbs on her bike. “We like to say, ‘We ride with a purpose,’” she says, “because every time we go out, we have this motorcycle that opens up gospel conversations. People might not have a motorcycle, they may not even like them, but everybody wants to talk to you about your bike. It’s really just a tool—that’s what I tell people all the time—it’s a tool, and it doesn’t have to be a motorcycle. It could be anything you’re passionate about. Just combine it with Jesus.”
That’s the kind of work community services chaplains like Michele do. They provide care and support for people in places like food pantries, public schools, pregnancy centers, homeless shelters—and now, bike rallies, parks, gas stations, and anywhere else bikers might congregate.
“Chaplains like me, we meet people where they are,” Michele says, “and that fits me perfectly because I just love motorcycles and the people who ride them.”
Open Doors
Michele and her friends have no trouble finding like-minded biker people. Every month, she and her church set up a tent at Lakeland, Florida’s “First Friday” event. “The city blocks off the streets and there’s more than 5,000 people there for us to share the gospel with,” she says. “The church helps provide funding for that, and then they also help fund and house volunteers when we do ministry for Daytona Bike Week. 500,000 people show up for that, and we’re sharing the gospel with people all day long. We end up praying with these big, burly men who sometimes won’t even take their sunglasses off, but you can see the tears coming down their face.”
What Michele has learned in those encounters is that there’s really not much of a gap between the “big, burly men” who attend motorcycle rallies and the Southern Baptist grandma who also attends those same events.
Or at least, there’s not a gap so big that God can’t use a chaplain to bridge it.
“There are almost 9 million bikers in the U.S., and they’re really an unreached people group that nobody is focusing on. And I’m so thankful for the doors chaplaincy opens up and how it helps me meet those people, because they’re the ones I’m most passionate about sharing Christ with.”
Learn more about F.A.I.T.H. Riders.
Learn more about how you can become an SBC-endorsed chaplain.