Pastor Shares Sturgis Experience, What Can Happen in Three Minutes
by Drew Nichter, originally published in the Western Recorder, October 9, 2012 issue, Volume 186, Issue 39
Sturgis, S.D.—Just how long does it take to lead 19 people to Jesus Christ? For Tommy Purvis, less than an hour. For one week each August, the tiny town of Sturgis, S.D., swells with upwards of half a million people for the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. The event draws bike enthusiasts from all over the world.
This year, Purvis was one of them. The La Grange pastor began riding bikes about a year ago. After seeing an article about last year’s Sturgis outreach by the Dakota Baptist Convention, Purvis said he was itching to get out there and see the madness for himself—and, most importantly, witness to the lost.
For the last seven years, Dakota Baptists have pumped a good deal of money into reaching the Sturgis crowd. The convention rents tent space in the heart of Main Street and buys a brand-new Harley- Davidson Switchback—which typically runs more than $16,000—to give away in a drawing. For a chance to win the bike, passers-by are invited into the tent to listen to a three-minute testimony from a volunteer.
Purvis, who leads DeHaven Baptist Church in La Grange, was one of about 150 Southern Baptist volunteers who shared their own stories of redemption and salvation with more than 3,500 people attending the rally in early August. Of those, 315 prayed to receive Christ as their Savior.
“People don’t come to Sturgis looking for the Lord,” Purvis admitted, “but it was obvious that those who came under the tent were looking for something, because they were ready to listen.”
Purvis estimated he talked to at least 100 people during his five-day volunteer stint, giving his three-minute testimony each time.
Sharing what Christ has done in one’s life in such a short amount of time “is hard to do,” Purvis said. With each individual, he would share “what my life was like before Christ, how I met Christ as my Savior, (and) what my life has been like since then.”
Then the all-important question: “Would you like to have something like that happen in your life?”
Nineteen people answered “yes.”
Among them was an unmarried couple, Purvis recalled, who discovered they had a close connection with the pastor.
Purvis shared about the death of his daughter in 1983 to cystic fibrosis. Two years earlier, she had prayed to receive Christ as her Savior. While her death was painful for Purvis and his wife, “I have the satisfaction of knowing that she’s in heaven, not because she was a good girl, but because she had received the Lord in her life,” he said.
“That man looked at me and he said, ‘My daughter has cystic fibrosis,'” Purvis recalled. “I felt my knees buckle. … What are the odds of that happening?”
Since returning home to Kentucky, Purvis has used his own three-minute testimony experience to urge his congregation to develop their own stories. It’s an approach that doesn’t just work for hardcore bikers, he said.
“People all around us, their appearances may deceive you—but they’re looking for something,”
he stressed, “and you have a story to tell. And in the right environment, your story will resonate with certain people.” (WR)
Purvis says:
I am a 1993 D.Miss. graduate, who gives much credit to ESJ School for my ability to communicate the gospel crossculturally.
Presently, pastor of DeHaven Baptist in LaGrange, KY. I am the founding pastor of this church which was started in an historic church building that was left by the previous church when they relocated outside of downtown. We have grown from 54 charter members, primarily senior adults, to over 300 in seven years through reaching families with children and teens. I credit our emphasis on missions and ministry to the Lord blessing our growth, both numerically and spiritually, here at home.
I will retire March 31 and become the pastor of Warsaw United Methodist in Gallatin County, KY. This creates the opportunity to give back to the Wesleyans who have blessed my life tremendously and to help that small congretation continue to revive its mission.
REACHING BIKERS Buck Hill (center), missions director for the Dakota Baptist Convention, gives instructions to a group of Southern Baptist volunteers inside the convention’s outreach tent in the heart of the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. The convention has pumped a good deal of money into reaching the nearly 500,000 bikers who show up to the South Dakota event each year. (Photos courtesy of Tommy Purvis)