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May HeartBeat

Banister’ s first exposure to the Christian Motorcyclists Association was at a BMW Owner’ s Association rally in Escanaba, Michigan circa 1987. He met a couple at the CMA booth and came home with an oldstyle brochure with the application attached. It wasn’ t too difficult to join CMA; the only major requirement was to know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. He is impressed with CMA’ s steady process of increased training, seminars, and Seasons of Refreshing to help us all become loving, cooperative chapter members and more effective ministers of the Gospel. Here is a good place to drop a familiar quote from retired Vice President Kerry Gibson,“ It’ s all about Jesus!”

Early on in Larry’ s CMA journey, he met Brian Ursery, who had recently moved to Montana to form a CMA chapter. They started riding together, with Brian schooling him in all things CMA. Larry became more enthused about the ministry and helped Brian form the first Montana chapter, Going to the Sun # 339 in Missoula under Evangelist Wayne and Donnie Henderson. In those days, certain geographic areas still didn’ t have a lot of CMA exposure yet, and building chapters was

frankly very difficult. Larry credits John and Phyllis Page, a dear couple who have since gone on to be with the Lord, for being the dedicated and faithful glue that held the chapter together during the lean and formative years.

Larry really appreciated Wayne’ s friendship, leadership, and mentoring. He had held a few offices in the new chapter but was still surprised when Wayne asked him to be the State Coordinator( SC) for Montana. Larry’ s reaction,“ What the heck is that? What is a SC supposed to do anyway? Wayne’ s quotable answer was,“ You do what needs to be done and be prepared to be accountable for whatever you do.”

He knew God called him to this ministry, and Larry was ready to tackle the job, but found Wayne’ s answer lacking needed details. From the perspective developed during a seven-year USAF career, he was a little concerned about finding no detailed job description, clear marching orders, and no firm rules of engagement. From an organizational frame of mind, he was inspired to write a comprehensive operational manual to fill that need, a multi-page document that he sent to CMA

Headquarters in Hatfield, Arkansas. This draft is believed to be the backbone of the presentday CMA Handbook.

He has appreciated the growth in structure, organization, implementation of guidelines, development of a clear statement of faith and clarity of what is expected of us as members. As a State Coordinator in the early days, it was part of your job( with backup from the Regional Evangelist) to deal with those members who joined on a whim and weren’ t a good fit for the ministry. As mentioned earlier in this article, the quality of the membership process and the constant updates in training materials and resources available to the members at the local and national levels are outstanding. We often think of good stewardship involving finances, but this is excellent stewardship of personnel. The Spirit-led CMA leadership on all levels, national, state, and local that is caring and loving, constantly preparing, encouraging, and equipping the saints for the mission, is a big part of the continued effectiveness of this ministry.

As CMA Montana grew, they became involved in ministry to various secular groups like HOG and