Juno News - Pastor speaks out after bikers church with ties to Freedom Convoy vandalized

00:00:00.800 on the last weekend of april 2022 rolling thunder bike convoy demonstrations took place in ottawa to

00:00:08.560 celebrate canadian freedoms this was the largest pro-freedom event to take place in the capitol

00:00:15.280 since the freedom convoy which was forcibly removed following the invocation of the emergencies act

00:00:21.520 by prime minister justin trudeau rolling thunder organizers had planned three days of programming

00:00:28.320 beginning on friday april 29th with a rally in march on parliament hill and ending sunday may 1st

00:00:35.120 with a church service at the capital city bikers church however people arrived to a church that

00:00:42.480 had been vandalized with hateful graffiti i had the opportunity to sit down and speak with pastor rob

00:00:48.400 mckee about the incident rolling thunder and the freedom convoy how mandates and restrictions have

00:00:54.480 affected their church and its members as well as the work they do in the community i was especially

00:01:00.720 grateful to be able to do this interview given that pastor mckee had turned down requests from the legacy

00:01:08.320 media thank you so much pastor for joining me today uh how about we start off with you telling me a bit

00:01:15.520 about your church its history its beliefs and the people it attracted yeah well this church has been

00:01:20.880 in existence since uh since actually 1993 it was a church plant from uh a church called the life

00:01:28.000 center we were planted in the inner city of ottawa called the downtown church and in 2000 ended up

00:01:35.280 purchasing this building and moving from the core into vanier and in finding really a forever home

00:01:41.840 bikers church was a church birthed in 2002 a guy named hillbilly garner foster was the founder and his

00:01:49.600 wife nelia out of a life of addiction and drugs and the motorcycle culture had a radical encounter 1.00

00:01:55.920 with jesus that changed his life and he said i want bikers to experience this so he thought he wanted to

00:02:01.520 to create a space where bikers would actually feel comfortable in coming to church to experience the 0.90

00:02:07.040 jesus that he experienced so in 2002 bikers church was birthed and they were kind of nomads throughout the 0.99

00:02:13.360 city they were meeting in various locations until 2007 they found this location and became the

00:02:20.400 permanent resident uh on thursday nights and then what happened probably about a couple years later the

00:02:27.440 two churches really merged and became one and so really now we just call ourselves venue bikers church

00:02:32.400 so why did your church decide to get involved with rolling thunder ottawa i mean i know you you talked about

00:02:37.680 before i think before we started this interview uh you talked about getting involved with bike different

00:02:43.200 bike rallies this bike rally had kind of a motive behind it uh why was that important for you to

00:02:49.280 support this particular bike event well it's funny when it comes to the rolling thunder we weren't even

00:02:55.200 really aware that they put our our service time on their poster our service time is public knowledge

00:03:02.000 uh i was contacted after that and asked if i would actually pray at their ride and again being a

00:03:07.920 bikers church and our ministry is being bikers uh i thought that's a great opportunity to to show them

00:03:14.880 god's love to pray peace and safety over over their ride and so i did i prayed over their ride on the

00:03:21.440 saturday morning um and again they had went ahead and put it on their schedule that anybody that was

00:03:29.440 sticking around if you want a church service you got to go and check out this bikers church uh place 1.00

00:03:34.880 and so we were unaware but we we have a a great team here that rallied around and we didn't know what

00:03:41.600 to expect uh and so we had a team that was ready to serve anybody who came in and again that's our

00:03:47.520 motto anybody can walk in our door and we're going to love them regardless of their lifestyle

00:03:51.920 regardless of where they've been what they've been through because we feel that reflects the heart of

00:03:56.240 jesus there's absolutely no judgment and everything we do is try to foster an environment where somebody

00:04:02.160 can come in that's hurting that's broken that's lonely that's unlovable that's an outcast that or

00:04:08.480 is an up-and-comer and and has their life all together where they can kind of really flesh it out

00:04:13.760 what it really means to have a relationship with jesus in a safe place uh so can you describe the

00:04:21.440 uh the acts of vandalism that like in detail from from what you've seen that took place at the church

00:04:29.360 it's it's happened actually a couple times and so the first time was back in february when

00:04:33.680 again we were just doing what we normally do as a church every day our doors are open for anybody to

00:04:38.320 come in to get food and to get clothing um and we were doing that and because of that some people from

00:04:44.080 the from the truckers convoy they found their way in here and got themselves a hot meal and some

00:04:49.600 people didn't like that they didn't like that they thought that maybe we were harboring or we were

00:04:53.920 creating a a place for them to come and to plan and to strategize and really it was doing what we do

00:05:01.360 every single day just kind of loving on people the best that we know how and that got some attention

00:05:08.080 and some of the people in the vanier community didn't like that and i actually caught a gentleman

00:05:14.320 taping some signs to the door and that was quite interesting he he threatened to kill me

00:05:21.280 signs like nazis nests burn them out really explicit language you have no bleep in place here 0.98

00:05:28.240 get the bleep out of here i'm going to effing kill you and so the police were involved with that and then 0.99

00:05:34.080 this coming past sunday we when i rolled up to the church at around 6 6 30 because i knew it was going 0.98

00:05:40.480 to be a busy day so i wanted to get a lot of stuff done and i saw the sign the the spray painting right

00:05:45.040 away on the on the wall and i just kind of thought well all right okay we must be doing something right

00:05:50.720 if people don't like the people were welcoming me in i think one of the greatest knocks on jesus was

00:05:55.840 they really didn't like who he hung out with and again we don't discriminate and anybody who comes in

00:06:01.520 our doors is is more than welcome to find themselves a safe place so you talked earlier about the

00:06:07.680 freedom convoy and you said that you you know you came and you gave people some food is there anything

00:06:12.400 else that you did throughout the freedom convoy to maybe help the truckers or no we we just our

00:06:17.280 building was open and like it's open every single day uh so there was nothing different on our part

00:06:23.040 it's just instead of some venue people that were coming in we had some we had some truckers coming in

00:06:28.880 and a lot of them came in for our service on a thursday night they came for our service on a sunday

00:06:33.120 morning because believe it or not a lot of them had a faith background uh and i think to a lot of

00:06:38.960 people painted uh every single participant with a pretty broad brush and uh when that wasn't it at

00:06:46.720 all and so the people that we met were kind of some really incredible people and uh they became friends

00:06:52.880 and we still stay in contact with them today and uh their hearts were amazing and uh yeah so it was it

00:06:59.600 was quite interesting to see the perspective and uh the image that was portrayed by media when

00:07:07.760 i thought they totally missed the mark so you know the freedom convoy and part part of the reason why

00:07:15.520 this rolling thunder happened is because of government mandates uh for the last two years canadians cannot

00:07:21.520 have been put under some of the harshest restrictions in the western world especially in ontario and in quebec

00:07:27.360 uh have government restrictions including lockdowns and vaccine mandates affected your churchness

00:07:35.280 members and if yes how yeah i think right from the very get-go the first lockdown that we experienced

00:07:41.040 when it was new to everybody nobody knew what was happening so everybody kind of went along with it

00:07:45.840 and we we shut down we went to online and we pivoted really quick we've got a great tech team here so we

00:07:52.080 were able to pivot really quick and uh tried to keep connection with with a lot of people but it

00:07:58.560 it didn't take long before we deal with a pretty broken congregation and community where a lot of

00:08:04.320 people that that are needed and this is their lifeline and to take that away from them um even for a month

00:08:11.040 is what was harsh and a lot of them found that very hard and so uh we adhered the first lockdown and then

00:08:17.920 we were able to open up again the second lockdown came and we said you know what this is hard and

00:08:22.880 so we started to get phone calls and say i can't do this again i'm alone i'm gonna relapse i i just

00:08:28.000 can i just come and sit in church and we just made it a point and say yeah you can yeah just come and

00:08:33.840 sit if you need to be here and need to be amongst our small little tech team that was here was great

00:08:39.200 and i think what really did it for me is we had the opportunity to kind of connect with a a young girl

00:08:43.920 that just came out of the sex trafficking industry and she got connected here at the church and her

00:08:49.360 life was getting radically turned around she she was there was joy and there was healing that was

00:08:54.560 happening and and then we entered the first lockdown and because she was in a safe house we had no

00:08:59.920 contact for her we couldn't reach out to her we had no information on her just just her name and uh the

00:09:06.960 lockdown came and it went and i got a phone call probably about a a month not about two weeks after

00:09:14.320 the lockdown lifted and it was from this girl's grandmother just calling to thank is this the

00:09:19.600 bikers church is this pastor rob want to let you know our granddaughter loved it there i said oh my

00:09:24.720 goodness i'm so glad you called we've not been able to get a hold of her and she said that's actually

00:09:30.480 why i'm calling um with that loss of community and that that safe place that she had she kind of fell

00:09:38.160 back into some old ways of her life and she actually just lost her life to an overdose and and that just

00:09:43.040 kind of floored me i thought no we we can't have this we cannot have this and and so we saw numerous

00:09:51.840 overdoses people losing their life again dealing with a lot of people that are coming out of a life of

00:09:58.000 addiction it was hard and so we just made it a point saying if you need to be in church our doors

00:10:03.600 are open and our motto was we've got room for one more that's uh that's very unfortunate i've heard

00:10:11.600 i've heard a lot of lockdown stories it's probably one of the uh one of the saddest ones and it's just

00:10:18.240 i think in my opinion showed the lack of and it was a micro vision only one without understanding that

00:10:27.120 church i think at least in my opinion and church is essential and mental health is essential i know

00:10:32.000 the police has opened an investigation into the matter uh are there any updates that you've been

00:10:36.560 given perhaps do you maybe have an idea of who's behind us no we again uh being uh such a big presence

00:10:45.120 in the neighborhood you you have people that like what you do and people that don't like what you do

00:10:49.520 and so we feel a lot of the the stuff that that stems from some neighbors that aren't happy about

00:10:55.200 what we do and we're just going to do our best to continue to build a bridge to them uh the police

00:10:59.840 have been fantastic uh every single officer that's come here uh even the ones that were here on sunday

00:11:05.920 and that were sent by the city as liaisons they were they were great when i called about the the

00:11:12.080 graffiti they responded within the half hour had a forensic team down here taking photos and said hey we're

00:11:18.000 going to work with you i've already got a a phone call from the detective who's been assigned the

00:11:22.800 case who's actually the same detective who worked on our first uh incident and so no they've been

00:11:28.400 top-notch nothing as of yet uh has has come of it um and i don't think we'll be we'll be informed i

00:11:36.720 said i don't need to be informed unless you feel i need to be what do you personally have to say to the

00:11:43.440 person or the people that did this or maybe that did it last time i would just say you're forgiven

00:11:48.720 uh and again we'd love for you to actually really come in and see what we do on on a daily basis and

00:11:54.880 and the stuff that we do for the community our free store our bread giveaway our food giveaway the

00:12:00.480 different events that we do from santa through the community through our backpack giveaway our back

00:12:05.440 to school block party uh and i would just say let's have a conversation come on in the coffee's on me

00:12:10.240 and we'll have a chat uh pastor thank you so much for um sitting down with me today and sharing

00:12:17.200 a bit about your church and rolling thunder and how lockdowns have affected your community i really

00:12:23.360 appreciate it oh you're so welcome and thank you for coming following our interview pastor rob gave

00:12:28.880 me a tour of his church showing me the different services it has to offer to me this showed that church

00:12:34.720 is much more than just a place where people gather on sunday morning it is an essential part of so many

00:12:40.720 people's lives for true north i'm illy cantenantel

Juno News - May 15, 2022

Pastor speaks out after bikers church with ties to Freedom Convoy vandalized

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