Bringing the Gospel to America's "Off-Roading" Community

Bryan Cribb/Teresa Neumann Reporting : Jul 29, 2005
BP News

Guy Fredrick's idea of fun may seem strange to some, admits Bryan Cribb of BPNews. Fredrick enjoys "breaking" his truck on rocks, spinning his tires in several feet of sludge, and slipping, sliding and smashing on deserted, impassable trails. For Fredrick, his weekend off-roading jaunts are not only his hobby, they have become a means of reaching an unreached people group -- the unconventional "off-roading" community of America.

"It's just exciting for me to have an opportunity to reach out to an unreached people group," said Fredrick, a Wisconsin native and master of divinity student at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY. "For me, as a church planter, as a cultural anthropologist, as a missionary, one of my goals is to find people no one else can reach...

"Just because of my natural bent -- my abilities as a mechanic and my love for a sport -- I've found a lot of people that no one is reaching. On the weekends, they're off in the woods; they're out camping and doing things with their trucks and their bikes and their ATVs."

Fredrick's most effective tool for spreading the gospel has been a forum on an ATV website. "I would start engaging in some online debates -- full-on apologetic [discussions] with some very bright individuals that happened to just like trucks," he said. "But for the most part, [they were] people very secular and atheistic in their outlook." As a result, Fredrick was dubbed the "Pastornator" when his Christian apologetics became "devastating" to atheists.

"What I'm presenting for them is some serious apologetic arguments for God," Fredrick said. "Apologetics don't lead to salvation directly. But what they do is move people to a place where salvation is possible."

According to the BPNews report, nearly 100 people have told Fredrick that some of the things said have caused them to stop in their tracks and come back to God. "They are Christians, but they just kind of let it slide, because it was more fun to play with their trucks than it was to worship God," Fredrick said. "And they didn't realize the two things could go together."

Also, more than 100 readers have sent private messages thanking Fredrick for his words on the family, morality or apologetics. Based on this positive response, Fredrick started looking around for other Christian off-roading enthusiasts online and found some scattered around the country. He decided to try to get a central gathering point for the believers involved in the various off-roading clubs. >From that, United Christian Off-Road Alliance (UCORA) was born. He founded the organization with six other men and their wives. Currently, they have 135 registered members after only a few months of existence.

Members of UCORA helped organize the first West Coast Christian Off-Road Jamboree, with 75 trucks and 150 people in attendance. "They got together to drive their trucks over almost impossible terrain in the desert of California and, at night, to worship God," said Fredrick, who was unable to attend due to earlier obligations.

Over the Memorial Day weekend, they held the East Coast Jamboree in Kentucky. "We...take our trucks and break them on the rocks all day and at night...talk about the Living Rock," he said.