In this episode, I’m thrilled to welcome my good friend and long-time CCV member, Denny Smith. We've shared countless motorcycle rides over the years, and today, we're diving into the incredible work of Black Sheep Harley-Davidsons For Christ Motorcycle Ministry.
Denny and I will discuss how this ministry uses motorcycles to connect with people and share the Gospel. It’s a powerful testament to how God can work through our passions to reach others. If you want to learn more about Black Sheep, be sure to check out Season 1, Episode 49, where I had the chance to speak with Lou Steele, who has an amazing story to share.
Denny is also the owner of a Farmers Insurance agency here in town.
Join us for this inspiring conversation about faith, friendship, and outreach!
Black Sheep: https://www.blacksheephdfc.org/
Farmers Insurance: https://www.farmers.com/
Email: denny@onefarmers.com
Christ’s Church of the Valley: https://ccv.church/
CCV Missions: www.ccv.church/missions
Pastor Larrie Fraley: linkedin.com/in/larrie-fraley-53445032
Email: missions@ccv.church
Denny: [00:00:01] You don't have to know the Bible inside and out, but you have to be willing to talk. If you then feel like you are a person that would like to be a member of Black Sheep, that application is filled out. There's a background check, and then we start what is called our mentorship and our mentorship program. There are 13 lessons. Take approximately 5 to 6 months to go through. We meet once a week. We pray. We talk about what's in the lesson, how we hold ourselves. We don't drink. We ride sober. We're absolutely, positively kind to everyone. Men, women, children. We go out of our way to be helpful. We are a motorcycle ministry. Our mission is inside of each dealership. Our missionary purpose is to make sure that we are available to help anyone through a crisis or a personal situation, through the love of Jesus Christ.
Larrie: [00:00:58] Welcome to the Let's Go 360 podcast. I'm Larrie Fraley, your host, and I'll be bringing you conversations with outstanding mission minded leaders with the aim of helping you develop your own spiritual life by understanding what God is doing through our guests lives, as we learn about their ministries and what God has called them to do. Well greetings everyone. I'm Larrie Fraley, your Let's Go 360 podcast host. First of all, thank you for supporting Let's Go 360 with your positive ratings, kind comments and and referrals to your friends. Let's Go 360 as part of Christ's Church of the Valley here in the greater Phoenix, Arizona area throughout the valley, CCV has 15 campuses where children may enjoy interactive activities that strengthen their faith, where students can learn how to be Christ centered change agents. Regardless of where you're at in your own personal walk, adults, young and old, will discover a place in which they can grow and feel at home.
Larrie: [00:02:05] And today we have a very special guest. A long time CCV member and very good friend of mine, Denny Smith. Danny and I go back a long way. We've gone on a lot of motorcycle rides together and we're going to talk about Black Sheep motorcycle Ministry today. But we've talked about Black Sheep in the past, and if you get a chance, check out or recheck out. Episode 49 in season one, where I flew over and met with Lou Steele. Lou's got a story on it in itself, and it's just an amazing testimony of how God has worked through motorcycles to reach people. And that's what we're going to talk about today. Danny and Karen, as I mentioned, have been long time members here at CCV. Denny is an owner agency of Farmers Insurance. He owns the agency here in town, and we will include his contact information in our show notes. Well, Denny, welcome to the show.
Denny: [00:02:59] Thank you. Larrie, I appreciate you. Nice seeing you on a bright and shiny Monday morning. Yes.
Larrie: [00:03:03] And we had a great weekend. Headed into the holiday here with the 4th of July. And so Denny, we're going to talk today specifically about motorcycle ministry. And we'll talk about Black Sheep as it's one of the leading motorcycle ministries actually in the world. I mean, it's in most of the states, I think, 47 states and a number of different countries. And its purpose is alignment is aligned pretty much with with CCV of Win Train Send, and we'll talk more about that. But first, Denny, tell us about yourself. You come up through the the West and also your military background and just just give us a glimpse of, of your history.
Denny: [00:03:46] Well, I was born and raised in Wyoming, went to the University of Wyoming my junior and senior year, and played football there. My freshman and sophomore year. I played basketball, and one of the football coaches at Wyoming me saw me playing basketball and said I deserved to play football, not basketball. Obviously saying I wasn't very good at basketball. I started my agency in Wyoming in 1974, so I just recently celebrated my 50th year with Farmers Insurance. Wow. When I left Wyoming in 1989, I was actually promoted by farmers to become a district manager in Tucson, Arizona. And I did that for about 17 years. But the corporate life after 17 years was just starting to be a grind. My children were getting into high school, and I just wanted to be a part of their lives. And my son played sports, my daughter played sports. And then in 2003, Karen and I bought a small agency here in Phoenix and moved to Phoenix and immediately joined CCV. And so I've been here ever since, and we actually met each other when we had Riders of Christ.
Larrie: [00:04:53] Oh that's right. I forgot all about that. Yeah.
Denny: [00:04:56] Rock was a part of CCV and because of insurance and different things, we had to let Rock go because just the times were changing insurance wise. So I've been around and with you for a lot of years, and Don Wilson, so was a greeter at the front door for about 9 or 10 years on the Saturday evening service at 430. So remember that just kind of been here for a while.
Larrie: [00:05:22] Yeah, yeah. Well, we you've certainly been a faithful servant to CCV, and now you're in the middle of this ministry, which is vital because there's a lot of motorcycle riders out there, as we all know, and one of the corporations or companies that we all are familiar with is Harley-Davidson. And because of that, this ministry called Black Sheep has formed its ministry around those dealerships to come alongside them. Be the salt and light to the riders writers within the chapters and their whole mission in life. Black Sheep is to introduce Jesus Christ to the whole world of motorcycle riders, and for the purpose of making more and more and better disciples. And what really causes me to to be in love with Black Sheep is it's done through the ministry of the local church. You know, so many ministries out there are, you know, want to proclaim Christ and create disciples, but it's outside of the local church. And we believe that the that everything leadership is going to rise and fall based on the local church involvement, um, in our world. And so, Denny, tell us a little bit about Black Sheep and what it does.
Denny: [00:06:43] Well, you hit on it when you said that we introduced the world of motorcycle riders to Jesus Christ is exactly right. And our our Black Sheep, it's Black Sheep Harley-Davidson for Christ. That's number one. Number two is that we are inside of we. All of us are members of churches across the state. And then ours is a motorcycle ministry, not a motorcycle club. The motorcycle club has different people. We read books about them. One of our assignments before we become patched into the Black Sheep, is that we have to read books about the one percenters, because we need our people who join our ranks know that we are not one percenters, the Hells Angels, the mongrels, those kinds of motorcycle clubs. We're a motorcycle ministry.
Larrie: [00:07:35] Where did the where did the term one percenter come from?
Denny: [00:07:39] Actually, it actually began, I believe, after World War two, I believe was when it started and some of the guys that came home started riding one motorcycles. They were considered some of the toughest fighters that our nation has ever known. And I think it's just the one percenters of the people that are really their whole life. Their whole job is to be inside of a motorcycle.
Larrie: [00:08:02] I understand that the term 1% means that only 1% of the rules applies to them. Is that right? Or that might just be something they've adopted or it became.
Denny: [00:08:14] It is. That is exactly right. It's just one. And even if it's 1%, a lot of them believe that 0% of the rules and laws apply to them.
Larrie: [00:08:25] Well, is Black Sheep a 1% club?
Denny: [00:08:28] It is not. We are totally opposite. Our lives are wrapped around Jesus Christ. Our whole lives are a part of winning people to Jesus first, and then making sure that they're in a church and that they don't just fill a seat in the church, that they're actually involved in the church. For example, you could be an usher. You could be in the child support. You could be in one of the grade school. You know, the classes, anything that you do inside of your church, we want you involved in the church, and then we want to see how you take that and apply it to riding a motorcycle, because there are times when we have that patch on and we'll pull into a gas station, which happened to us just about a month and a half ago. We had ridden up north to Show Low. Coming back, we stopped for gas just right outside of Gold Canyon, and a guy came out of his truck and he was hurting. He was physically and mentally hurting. He needed Jesus in his life. He we parked our bikes and probably prayed with him for about an hour before we continued our trip.
Denny: [00:09:36] Our job is to get inside of the Harley-Davidson dealerships and to be a part of their Hogg group. So they have a chapter inside of each dealership and they're all different. They all have numbers. For example, the number for the one on Arrowhead is 83, the one for Buddy Stubbs's hog 93. And so each one of them has their number. So we're inside of that member, inside of that membership. And then we minister to not only those, but the people that work inside of that dealership. So the mechanics, the people that sell clothes, the salespeople, if any of them need some help, just somebody to listen to. And then some of us are chaplains. I actually went through a chaplain school, took me. It was a 48 hour class time school took me a long time to do that. It was every Wednesday and Thursday night for almost six months, so it took a while. Plus they had to check my, you know, just my background. So I had to fill out papers to make sure that I was deemed to be good enough to be a chaplain.
Larrie: [00:10:50] So yeah. So that sounds like the perfect kind of certification to get if you're going to be involved in Black Sheep. I know not not all Black Sheep members are chaplains or not, but but those that are align so much with the call and cause of the ministry to be able to go into a chapter. And a chapter is what, maybe 50 to 200 members, depending on the size of the dealership, right? So you have a very captive audience, and so you become sort of their chaplain, because having been involved in this, I know that many, if not most of the members of the Hog group, what I call hog hog group, it's the Harley Davidson owners group that are chapters inside of the dealerships. Nothing to do with, with with Black Sheep. But you become their chaplain. I mean, it's almost like you're their pastor.
Denny: [00:11:49] And it is a very slow process.
Larrie: [00:11:51] Yeah.
Denny: [00:11:52] A ot of them when you introduce, for example, we were very strong in Arrowhead. There were around 20 of us. And a few months ago, six months ago, we four of us split from Arrowhead and were asked by the Adrian at Buddy Stubs to be a part of Buddy Stubs. It's taken us six months just to get the papers from our international office, and it's taken us six months of going to their meetings for the first time last Saturday. The guy says, you guys are still here. Yeah. So it takes a while. And then to tell them that you are an ordained chaplain, there are a lot of them. One lady says, well, you're not Bible thumpers, are you? And of course we said, no, we're here to spiritually support you. But we it takes it takes time. Oh yeah. And it takes time for people to warm up to the idea that they can actually sit down and talk to you, that you will give them the time to talk about Jesus, what he means in their lives. And most of the things start with, I have a problem, or I have an issue, or I have an addiction, or I have, um, I have just done something that I'm very regretful about, and I need to tell somebody. And being in an ordained chaplain, when they tell me, it's like telling your attorney I can't divulge what, why, when, where? So it sometimes helps a little bit to have that, um, on your chest and I don't I where I'm the secretary of this new chapter but I, I am slowly and through some people at Black Sheep saying you really need to put that chaplain on your, on your chest. So I'm slowly but surely getting ready to do that.
Larrie: [00:13:38] Yeah. I mean it's it's so important to gain the trust. Well, not only of these hog riders, but anyone. I mean, whether you're involved in motorcycle ministry or not, to be able to share Christ with someone you first must gain their trust. And that's all about relationships. And that's why this area of ministry, motorcycle ministry is, is easier to do. Because let's face it, they all share an affinity of the love to ride a motorcycle. And so you're automatically starting off on some common ground. And so that's that's wonderful. Now I want to talk a little bit about the process of becoming a Black Sheep, because there may be some in the audience who ride motorcycles and are like, hey, I think I might be interested in that. I know you don't just submit an application and show up on Monday and you're automatically a member of the club. Tell us the process that one has to go through to become a Black Sheep.
Denny: [00:14:34] It is a bit of a it's a bit of a time. It's not overnight if you're active in the church, if you and it doesn't make any difference which church you're active in, and you want to become a Black Sheep, if you want, you can contact Larrie. Larrie can give you my information, but depending on which part of town you live in, we would then give you a contact for the Harley-Davidson dealership closest to you, and we would make sure that we did a introduction, maybe a breakfast or a lunch with you and whoever would be the president or the mentor of that dealership. Then what we do is we start just by getting to know you. You hang around with us. It's called a hang around. And you may take 5 to 6 rides with us. You may go to 4 or 5 breakfasts with us. You may do a couple of boot shine events for us. You may go to a ride for Teen Challenge with us at that point in time. It gives you an opportunity to see what we're like and what we're doing in our ministry and the Motorcycle ministry, and the kinds of people that actually want to talk to us. And are you comfortable doing that? Are you comfortable praying in public, not praying in your closet, but praying in public? And are you comfortable being able to talk to somebody about the Bible? You don't have to know the Bible inside and out like Mark Moore or Larrie Fraley or Ashley. We don't have you don't have to be that biblically sound, but you have to be willing to talk. If you then feel like you are a person that would like to be a member of Black Sheep, you ask for an application.
Denny: [00:16:27] That application is filled out. There's a background check. We have to make sure that your background is suitable. And then we start what is called our mentorship. So for example, in our mentorship program there are 13 lessons. Those lessons take approximately 5 to 6 months to go through. We meet once a week. We pray. We talk about what's in the lesson of how we how we hold ourselves. We don't drink. We ride sober. We're we're absolutely, positively kind to everyone. Men, women, children. We go out of our way to be helpful. We do things. It's it's family first. Our family is the most important thing. And then obviously church is second and then Black Sheep. So it's it's a sequence. We want to make sure that your time is valuable and that you're going to spend a lot of time with us, and we're hoping that your family gets involved. Once that process is done, the application is filled out and the mentorship is done. We then submit all of our paperwork and our recommendations, and you have to get a recommendation from your pastor. And I have to. If I was the mentor, of course I would talk to your pastor and I would talk to two of your references, and I just talked to them about you, about what you were like. And then we go from there, and then it goes to international office. And the international office has a brand new president. Marty Edwards was the founder in 1999. He has turned that over to Lars Alva. Lars is a wonderful, Christian, loving and caring man and just found out that he plays bass guitar left handed.
Larrie: [00:18:17] No, I didn't know that. I mean, I know Lars personally, and it's. I did not know that. He's a.
Denny: [00:18:21] Great guy. Anyway, it goes to international. The application is then either rejected or it is approved. And then we get your patches, and we have a beautiful ceremony in your church to patch you, if possible, in your church to patch you. And we have your family, and we invite all of the chapters from all of the Harley-Davidson dealerships in the in the Valley to join us for that patching so that it's a kind of long. I didn't mean to take that long, but it is a long. It is a lengthy process to become a member because it's love you.
Larrie: [00:18:59] It speaks just to the, the, the idea of being committed. And by the time you go through this, you will know whether this is something you want to be a part of or not. And Black Sheep will know whether it is something that you that they want you to be a part of. It's it's good to have that level, you know, so much of of Black Sheep, um, adopts the kind of motorcycle code or protocol on a lot of things they do. And that's because of its culture, its nature. Um, you know, a lot of clubs require this process to becoming a member. Some, some clubs call it a prospect. So you're a prospect for so many months or something like that or years even. I know that that Black Sheep does not call them prospects. But there is this getting to know you time frame that that you go through. Now I also referred to clubs do this. It's important to note that Black Sheep is not a club. It is a ministry. Could you explain the difference between the two?
Denny: [00:20:00] Pretty simple. People like the Hells Angels or club. They have a very strict rules of everything that they do. We are a motorcycle ministry. The ministry is. We are. The purpose is making more and better disciples through Jesus Christ, our ministry. We are missionaries on a mission, so our mission is inside of each dealership. Our missionary purpose is to make sure that we are available to help anyone through a crisis or a personal situation, through the love of Jesus Christ. That is our number one. But when you're a club and there are many clubs, if you just pick up a book, you can. I refer to the Hells Angels, but they have the mangroves. They have they have all kinds of different kinds of clubs, and some of them are. Yeah. Lethal.
Larrie: [00:20:55] Yeah I understand. So let's talk and switch gears a little bit now and talk about, um, some of the, you know, first question that I think everybody has is, well, if I ride a motorcycle, but I don't have a Harley-Davidson, can I still be part of Black Sheep?
Denny: [00:21:14] You can if it's a twin. If it's a twin engine, uh, you you can. And it's called Harley-Davidson twin Engine instead of Harley-Davidson instead of Black Sheep. Harley-davidson. And it just wear a different patch. But you can, uh, but we don't we we are not into the what they call the crotch rockets. We're not we don't have any of those people simply because it doesn't fit our.
Larrie: [00:21:43] Well. It doesn't relate to the audience that you're trying to reach. You won't find at Harley-Davidson dealerships. If you sit around a chapter meeting, you won't find someone writing a crotch rocket or a moped, or it's a twin engine.
Denny: [00:21:57] If it's a twin engine, like an Indian.
Larrie: [00:21:58] Like an Indian, or something like that. Absolutely. And we will include all of the information about Black Sheep, its ministry, its website, in our show notes, along with other information that you will find helpful. Well, thank you, Denny, so much for coming today. Is there anything that you would like our audience to pray about?
Denny: [00:22:22] You need to pray for us because the devil is got his sights on a lot of people. And when we sit down and visit with a person who has an issue, you can tell that the devil is wrestling with their soul. So pray for us as an organization. Pray for us as individuals, as we mentor, as we lead, as we're out there in the realm of the one percenters and trying to bring Jesus Christ into someone's life, it is not an easy task, and you have to be strong in your faith. You have to be strong biblically. Once again, you don't have to know the Bible inside and out. You just need to know that the Bible is there as a very strong support for you. And a lot of us call ourselves Romans. We are new chapters to Romans chapter out of Buddy Stubs, because there's a lot of strengths in the in in the Romans chapter. So just pray for us as individuals, as chapters that we continue to grow with the right people and that when we're out there, give us the strength through our Lord Jesus Christ, that we're able to complete our mission and help save someone's life.
Larrie: [00:23:40] Yes. Well, again, many thanks for joining us today. And and we'll we look forward to having you again sometime in the future. And we'll just see the progress that God has made through Black Sheep and Buddy Stubbs and the Romans chapter there. It's going to be exciting to see that that chapter grow and reach more people for Christ. Well, thank you for joining us today, and we will look forward to seeing you on the next episode of Let's Go 360.
Larrie: [00:24:13] Thanks for listening to the Let's Go 360 podcast, sponsored by Christ Church of the Valley. Check out CCV at ccv.church and our missions activity at ccv.church/missions where we are trying to fulfill the Great Commission inspired by the Great Commandments.
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