Every Ride Is a Mission

It was an unusually cold and snowy day in Belgrade, Serbia. Yet that did not stop a group of friendly bikers from meeting to share the story of their motorcycle club, which combines their passion for Jesus, their love for the road, and their penchant for sharing the gospel in creative ways.

In 2016, the Trans-European Division (TED) mission board allocated funds to support creative and innovative evangelistic initiatives such as this. When Dejan Lukic got involved and founded Three Angels, the first Serbian Adventist motorcycle club, he did not know any other Adventist bikers or that similar clubs existed around the world. “But a friend told me about Adventist Motorcycle Ministry (AMM), and I realized I was not alone; we are a much bigger family,” Lukic said. 

In time, Lukic recruited 12 other bikers and joined AMM, becoming the president of the Serbian chapter.

Their mission is beautifully simple: to share the gospel while doing something they love — riding bikes. They organize rides, invite their non-Christian friends, and allow conversations to flow naturally in the context of a loving, accepting community. “People who never prayed in their lives before are willing to pray with us. We go to church with them, we ride together, we eat together. We do just that, nothing else. But the Holy Spirit works, and we have wonderful experiences,” Lukic said. Their first baptism will take place in Macedonia this summer, in collaboration with AMM Macedonia.

According to Lukic, one of the most beautiful aspects of this experience was discovering that God would use something he was passionate about to reach others, that he didn’t need to fit a mold. “God showed to us through this ministry that rather than napping on a Saturday afternoon, we can do much more: we go with our friends for a ride. It has deepened my relationship with God.”

Lukic feels that AMM is also helping destroy prejudices against bikers. “They are very open to talk about God. We must go to them, to the motorcycle world, rather than expecting them to come to us.” Above all, Lukic emphasizes the privilege of seeing God “working through us and in us. It is something I don’t have words to describe. We don’t do something extraordinary, just ordinary stuff, but God provides the miracles.”

If You Save Me, I Will Serve You

In his early 20s, Lukic found himself in a life-or-death situation. He had borrowed money from a loan shark and could not repay the debt. He also owed money to the electricity company and repossessors were chasing him. His only asset was a car, which he had received as payment for an ongoing job as a builder. When his employer suddenly canceled the contract and demanded that he return the car, Lukic knew he was at the end of his rope. So he prayed for the first time, “If You are up there, God, if You exist, please help me! If You save me, I will serve you.”

The following day Lukic heard a knock at his door. To his surprise, it was not the loan shark but a family offering to buy his car. He sold it and immediately paid the loan shark. “Then I waited for the other people to come and collect their debts. A day went by, and then a week, and then a month, and then a year. Seven years I waited, and nobody ever came,” Lukic shared.

Sometime after that, while Lukic was reading his Bible, he came across a proverb, “When a man’s ways please the Lord, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him” (Prov. 16:7, NKJV). “I could not think of anyone who was my enemy,” Lukic said, “except for the employer who gave me the car.” As Providence would have it, his phone rang while Lukic was thinking about this. It was his former employer, who assured him he had not forgotten the incident. Lukic offered to meet up with him and told him his side of the story. “Nobody did for me as much as you have,” Lukic said to him, “I would have never met God if it wasn’t for you!” The meeting ended with reconciliation and a renewed friendship that lasts to this day.

Lukic was looking for answers about the seventh-day Sabbath as a day of rest, which led him to study the Bible and discover the Seventh-day Adventist Church. A year after his desperate first prayer, he became an Adventist member.

The original version of this story was posted on the Trans-European Division news site.