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Bike and Sol

How a Problem’s Solution Became a Bike Shop

December 22, 2020 by Cindy Angela

It was a simple problem without a simple solution. How do we train students to work when businesses do not hire them? 

Scott Roth, then director of the Upper Perk Community Life Center (UPCLC), mentored seniors from Upper Perkiomen High School in Pennsburg, PA. Roth would teach them how to swing a hammer, update a website, make phone calls, and order supplies from a vendor. Roth learned these “simple skills” while working in his family’s business early on. But most students wouldn’t have these experiences on their own. 

Bike & Sol Director, Scott Roth (left), works with 2 youth in the bike shop. Photo provided by Scott Roth.

Meanwhile, a $22 million YMCA was opening in the Upper Perkiomen school district. Roth began working as a consultant for the YMCA helping shape their youth programs while still working with UPCLC. Roth began to promote the idea of an “earn-A-bike program”: teach kids to work and they can earn a bike, fixed with their own hands. Roth just needed a bike mechanic, so he prayed and kept asking. 

An acquaintance of Roth’s, Dick Fox, felt called to be that mechanic and the program began. After a couple months in the garage of the UPCLC, with 15 kids in the program and more bicycles coming in for repairs, the demand for parts was exceeding the donated bicycles in need of repair. 

JBI, the largest bicycle parts distributor in the US, partnered with the program. However, the program needed to be in a traditional brick and mortar shop. Soon a banner was hung on the garage with the name, “Bike & Sol.” 

Director Scott Roth on the sales floor of Bike & Sol. Photo provided by Scott Roth.

Eventually, UPCLC programs diminished as YMCA programming increased. Bike & Sol became a student work program through the YMCA.  Weekly, ten students came to the shop to volunteer. When UPCLC closed, the entire building was now Bike & Sol. 

Five years later, Bike & Sol merged programs under the umbrella of ViaShalom, a ministry dedicated to creating missional experiments. Bike & Sol has serviced over 1500 bikes and touched many more lives. 

With the COVID pandemic, bicycling has become more popular than ever. This has forced Bike & Sol to become more than a student work program. Now it is a bicycle shop that happens to have a student program. More than ten adults regularly volunteer at the shop. Due to COVID, school programs are temporarily halted, however, there are still youth working to complete their court-required community service hours. 

Bike & Sol is now an intergenerational space for young and old to meet and share their love of life. Frequently tales are told of faith and encouragement. 

Youth volunteer and learn skills at Bike & Sol, earning a bike of their own as pay. Photo provided by Scott Roth.

Scott Roth often says, “Most people have learned to ride a bike. Most people smile as they ride and cry when they fall. The good news is that we get to be Jesus to most people since most people have a bike.” Jesus used fish and healing to bless others. Bike & Sol blesses and heals through bicycles. Helping people ride bicycles is one of the best things we can do for mental health and relationship building. 

Today Bike & Sol is a community non-profit bicycle shop that covers all biking needs, from a trash-picked bicycle to a high-end race bike. The volunteers, young and old, are continuing to improve their skills to keep people riding in all kinds of bikes.

The vision for 2021 is simple: Get the Kingdom of God out riding with others. Jesus interacted and loved people in all circumstances. Bike & Sol seeks to love all who come with their bikes. Bikes know no social structures, skin colors, or economic status. They just want a human to pedal them. 

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Bike and Sol, Conference Related Ministries, Scott Roth

Bicycles, Fishing, and Bacon – But Mostly Bikes

June 3, 2020 by Conference Office

by Scott Roth, Leadership Minister

Many of you know I have a passion for bicycles, fishing, and bacon.  These have always been little hobbies of mine and throughout them I have put Jesus at the center.  I know it sounds silly to say bacon and Jesus, but there has been fruitful ministry with bacon over the years.

There is an old phrase that I love, “When life gives you lemons…make bacon.”  Well it seems this phrase has been rewritten during this season of COVID-19 to be, “When life hands you a pandemic…go ride a bicycle!”

There is a bicycle revolution happening right now in the United States.  Bicycle shop sales are up 71% and inventory of new bicycles is scarce.  People are out riding bikes in record numbers!  We have not seen this transportation trend in our culture since the car revolution.

Bicycling ministry has been a passion of mine over the past five years.  As the director of Bike & Sol and a pastor, I have been afforded so many opportunities to enter into people’s lives in deep meaningful ways.  Bicycles can make someone very approachable when riding around. When someone rides a bike, they may be enjoying the natural high that happens when endorphins run through our body, letting us know we are having a good time.

Why do I promote bicycles so much? The answer: Church. If you want a really, really, really easy way to be missional and get to know people in your neighborhood, go ride a bike.  Ride around and say hi to your neighbors.  Find others that want to ride and go connect.  Riding is such a safe and easy way to social distance and get around.

You can ride on trails, roads, or wherever makes sense to ride.  This is a really low hanging fruit way of doing relational ministries.  It’s really simple.  You pedal and talk about your life and ask questions about the people’s lives around you.  How was your week? What was work like? How’s the family?  Listen and engage.  Bicycles create such a neutral ground for us to interact.

What about discipleship ministry?  Just as you can reach out missionally, you can also reach those who are within your own faith community.  Pray for someone that God may be calling you to mentor and disciple and ask them to go for a ride.  Just ride and talk and enjoy the nature around you.  Maybe a peer of yours needs some time with you, or maybe there is someone in your congregation who needs an invitation to ride.

There are so many opportunities that are available right NOW for being Christ-like in a healthy, positive way with a bicycle. But what happens after the pandemic?  We hope that we can keep this momentum going and keep on pedaling with our neighbors and folks in our communities at large.

However you choose to use them, bicycles are an opportunity.  With our bicycles, there are simple ways that we as the church can be relevant and relational in our neighborhoods and our faith communities.  If you have questions or thoughts or want ideas on riding ministries, please contact me directly at scott@bikeandsol.com

Filed Under: Articles, Blog Tagged With: Bike and Sol, coronavirus, formational, Scott Roth

Calling and Shaping Next Generation Leaders

August 9, 2018 by Conference Office

by Stephen Kriss, Executive Minister

Over 25 years ago, I interned through Mennonite Church USA’s Ministry Inquiry Program at my home church in Somerset County, PA.  I loved the experience of working alongside a congregation that had shaped my own decision to follow Jesus and working creatively with a pastor who gave me space to learn, to experiment and to honestly engage life in the church.  At the end of the summer, I declared that I loved the experience, but that I didn’t want to be a pastor because I realized the vastness of the task at hand.   My home church then, four years later, called me as an associate pastor.  It still surprises me that they invited and that I said yes.

This summer, through Souderton Mennonite Church’s Vocation as Mission Program, Mennonite Central Committee’s Summer Service Worker Program, the ongoing Ministry Inquiry Program and a variety of independent initiatives, about a dozen young adults (all under age 30) are finishing up a summer of serving and learning alongside our congregations.  These initiatives are likely some of the best investments of our time and resources into the life and future of the church. 

Not all of them will be called as pastors, but through the mutual time together, the opportunity for shaping and learning  continues to prepare leaders who will engage the church and the world wholeheartedly through the Good News of Christ’s peace.  I am grateful for pastors who make space for those who are learning alongside.  Walking alongside learning leaders takes time, intention and openness.  It’s also being confident and humble enough in your own leadership to realize that other leaders will lead differently, fail differently and that working with next generation leaders can be a constant invitation to learn, for those of us who are more established leaders as well.

Back in my intern days, my pastor – Marvin Kaufman – gave me space to explore cultivating a sister church relationship with an African American congregation in our area.  That exploratory space culminated in Sunday night worship experiences at each of our meetinghouses.  This experience and our congregation’s willingness to participate and follow me into this relationship-building likely shaped forever the kind of ministering and leading person that I have become and am becoming, on working with the Spirit to cross cultural and ethnic boundaries to express the heart of the Gospel of reconciliation and transformation.

Abigail Shelly with Pastor Aldo Siahaan, leading Summer Peace Camp.

I’m so grateful for each of our next generation leaders who said yes this summer, and for the communities that hosted them and walked alongside them.  Working with Jerrell , who is serving alongside our Conference and The Mennonite this summer, has reminded me of the worthy investment of time and fruitfulness of relational possibilities.  Abigail and Tiffany serving together at Philadelphia Praise has made me smile, as they helped host our Interfaith leaders gathering last month with gracious hospitality.  My interactions with the Vocation as Mission interns, as we talked about intercultural challenges and possibilities, inspired me by their sincerity and questions when we met at Bike and Sol.  I loved hearing how much Rebecca and Ezther are valued at their places of service in Philadelphia and the Lehigh Valley.

2018 Vocation as Mission Interns

These experiences are some of the best investments that we make together with our Conference resources.  I’m grateful that we continue to share in this process of calling and shaping next generation leaders together for the sake of the church and the world.   This is our work together, a recognition that calling and shaping next generation leaders is the work of “our village.”   And for me, and hopefully for all of us, this is the kind of work that brings us great joy and hope, a recognition that the Good News goes on, continues to transform and will continue to transform us.

 

Filed Under: Articles, Blog, News Tagged With: Abigail Shelly, Bike and Sol, Conference News, formational, Jerrell Williams, Mennonite Central Committee, Ministry Inquiry Program, Philadelphia Praise Center, Souderton Mennonite Church, Summer Service Worker Program, The Mennonite, Vocation as Mission

Taking the Light Out of the Building

July 20, 2017 by Conference Office

As the world we live in continues to change within our congregations, we still seem to expect people to come to us. As a city on a hill, the light of the world (Matt. 5:14-16), it seems we are content to stay on our hill tops, but what if we take the lamp into the streets?

The Inquirer (Philadelphia) recently highlighted congregations doing just that in their article “From bike shop to drive-thru prayer, churches try thinking outside the pew.” Featured in the article is Franconia Conference’s very own Scott Roth and Perkiomenville Mennonite Church with their ministry Bike and Sol.

As quoted in the article, Scott says, “I don’t think that we, as believers, should be sitting in our churches on Sunday morning waiting for people to come into our buildings for us to tell them about Jesus and show them a better way of life.”

Read how Scott and others are getting out of their comfortable buildings and doing the ministry of Jesus as Jesus did it, in the streets: http://www.philly.com/philly/news/pennsylvania/from-bike-shop-to-drive-thru-prayer-churches-try-thinking-outside-the-pew-20170705.html.

Filed Under: Articles, News Tagged With: Bike and Sol, Conference News, missional, Perkiomenville Mennonite Church, Scott Roth

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