Good Neighbor Podcast: Tri-Cities

EP# 11: Motorcycle Missionary: Jeff Stultz's Inspiring Journey from Addiction to Advocacy

• Skip Mauney & Jeff Stultz • Episode 11

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What makes Jeff Stultz with Motorcycle Missionary a good neighbor?

Jeff Stultz's transformation from the gritty motorcycle club scene to the uplifting role of the Motorcycle Missionary is nothing short of miraculous. Tune in to hear Jeff's eye-opening narrative about battling addiction, homelessness, and finding hope through a Christ-centered recovery journey. We dive into his impactful work with Broken Chains, a fellowship of bikers who have found solace in Jesus Christ and are now dedicated to spreading that hope. Jeff also sheds light on the invaluable contributions of Celebrate Recovery and Recovery Alive, and how these programs go beyond merely achieving sobriety to offer true, lasting recovery. His innovative efforts to address the pressing issues of drug overdose and mental health through community programs are a testament to his unyielding commitment to making a difference.

In our heartfelt conversation, we express our deep appreciation for Jeff's resilience, especially in overcoming his kidney issues, and his relentless drive to help others. We honor the inspiring work of the Motorcycle Missionary and his unwavering dedication to the cause. As we wrap up, we extend our well wishes for Jeff's future endeavors and encourage our listeners to nominate their favorite local businesses for the Good Neighbor Podcast. Join us for an episode that not only highlights Jeff's incredible journey but also reinforces the importance of hope, community, and support in today's challenging world.
To learn more about the Motorcycle Missionary go to:

https://motorcyclemissionary.com/

Motorcycle Missionary

(910) 257-0860



Speaker 1:

This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Skip Monty.

Speaker 2:

All right, everybody, welcome to the Good Neighbor Podcast. Are you in need of help spiritually, with encouragement? Well, hopefully we've got somebody with us today that's going to be able to help with that. Today I have the pleasure of introducing your neighbor, Jeff Stoltz, who is the motorcycle missionary, correct?

Speaker 3:

Yes, that's right Skip.

Speaker 2:

All right, Welcome Jeff. How are you?

Speaker 3:

doing Great to be here Having a great day. A little rainy today but not good for a motorcycle missionary, but I'm indoors.

Speaker 2:

There you go, there you go. Well, we all need some rain.

Speaker 3:

That's right.

Speaker 2:

So we're all really excited about learning about you and your mission actually, so would you mind telling us a little bit about it?

Speaker 3:

No, no, fantastic.

Speaker 3:

So, skip, I'm a person in long-term recovery, no-transcript, a guy with long hair and a beard and tattoos and earrings, and all that with a gruff voice who actually has lived experience.

Speaker 3:

You know that lends some some you know, some credibility to the message, to the folks that I'm getting with communities through a really unique process of mental health coaching, peer support, training, narcan certification, as well as gospel doctrine, you know, and evangelism so they're able to reach communities in a unique way that you know we say if we want to reach people the church didn't reach, and then we're going to do some things the church didn't do them and so we're trying to do those kind of things. And there's also a recovery arm to motorcycle missionary called Broken Chains, and Broken Chains is a fellowship of bikers and motorcycle enthusiasts who have found hope and healing in Jesus Christ through a Christ-centered recovery process, helping others realize that change is possible. And so Broken Chains has about 6,000 members all over the country. We're in all 50 states, we're in 15 countries around the world and we're an army of hope dealers letting people outside of the church know about the hope and freedom that's available in Jesus Christ.

Speaker 2:

I love that term hope dealers.

Speaker 3:

Yes, sir.

Speaker 2:

That is awesome, man, that is awesome. So how did you get into this mission?

Speaker 3:

So you know I've been a biker my entire adult life. I rode in the motorcycle club lifestyle. You know I've been through that life, which was a pretty tough life Been shot and stabbed and beat half to death, you know, in and out of jail before becoming a homeless, crack addict, and crack addiction for a total of six years. Homeless for three years before I got saved and sober in 2007. And I plugged into the Christ Center recovery process, first in a ministry called Celebrate Recovery, and now I serve in national leadership with a Christ-centered 12-step recovery ministry called Recovery A Lot. And so I don't really care what you call it, as long as Jesus Christ is in the center, I believe that there's some hope and freedom available.

Speaker 3:

And so the really cool thing about the recovery process that we talk about is recovery is not really about sobriety. You can find sobriety without Jesus, but it's hard to find recovery without Jesus, because recovery is more than just sobriety. Recovery is about getting our lives back, and you know our lives can be taken from us, not by just drugs and alcohol, but pornography and, you know, codependency and anger. I mean there are so many ways that we can lose our purpose, you know, and our focus on life, and so the recovery process really helps us to get back where the enemy would steal from us, not to get all spiritual on you. I'm not real. I tell people you know I love the Lord, but I'm not real churchy, you know.

Speaker 2:

Yeah that's okay.

Speaker 3:

To minister to. You know. To minister to, you know, to a group of people that don't want to hear real churchy. You know.

Speaker 2:

No, that's okay. That's okay, I'm good. Actually, celebrate Recovery is a program that came out of the Saddleback Church with Rick Warren.

Speaker 3:

Absolutely, Rick Warren. Pastor John Baker was the founder of Celebrate Recovery back in 1991. I plugged into the process back in 2007 out in Nashville, Tennessee, at Long Hollow Baptist Church and later moved back to North Carolina where my home is. After I've maintained some sobriety, my family wanted me back around and then became a North Carolina state representative for Celebrate Recovery and then in 2016, I joined the Celebrate Recovery national team as a national leader and served in that role for a total of six years. And then Recovery Alive is really kind of a grassroots, Christ-centered 12-step recovery organization or program that stems off of Celebrate Recovery. John Eklund from Temple City Church in Selma, North Carolina. He's the founder of Recovery Alive and we have just kind of taken Celebrate Recovery and innovated it. Some brought it into today. You know Celebrate Recovery has been around for over 30 years actually 33 years to be exact and we just were able to take away some of the redundancies and to move that program into a more streamlined process, and so I believe we've got about 120 Recovery Alive ministries around the country right now and it's growing like wildfire.

Speaker 3:

I think when people find out about the freedom they're available, I mean we live in a tough world, right. I mean, it's just a hopeless place with. You know, with 100,000 dead from drug overdose in the last year, you know, and today, in the greatest country in the world, 130 people will take their own lives, and you know, that's just terrible. It's just terrible, you know. And how hopeless do you have to be. And so so we want to let people know that hope is real, that hope is available. You know that change is possible.

Speaker 3:

In fact, locally where I live, we work with the, with the community paramedic program, to do post-overdose response visits to get people into treatment, into treatment. Too many times somebody goes to the emergency room, they hold them for a couple days, get them feeling better and they kick them back out. Well, now, instead of that happening, they call us, they call Broken Chains, and we come over to the emergency room. We'll pick them up and get them into treatment or plug them into a healthy community where they might find some freedom, where they might find some people that will come alongside of them, you know, in a healthy way. And that program was birthed here in Fayetteville, North Carolina, but it's actually spreading across the country in multiple states right now, where the bikers are partnering with the paramedics to bring about an impact, you know, in the communities where they serve. So just an amazing partnership.

Speaker 2:

Wow, well are there? Are there any myths or misconceptions about recovery programs that you're aware of?

Speaker 3:

There are. There's a lot of myths and misconceptions about recovery programs, and that's you know. So that's one of the things I often heard with Celebrate Recovery that people were focused on the process and not the power. You know, and that's one of the things with Recovery Alive, we call it the three P's, in that order the power, the people and the process. We believe the power of Jesus Christ is paramount to the recovery process, then the community, the people that you surround yourself with, and then the process is the third part of that piece.

Speaker 3:

So the other misconception that surrounds recovery is that it's just for drug addicts and alcoholics. You know, like I said before, recovery is for everybody. You know what, when I got sober, skip, I realized that the drugs never were my problem. The drugs are how I was trying to deal with my problems. The problems were way more deep seated in me and in my from stemmed from my childhood, from self-worth issues. You know, that developed as a young person, you know, and just it just stuck with me all along, you know, and just it just stuck with me all along, you know. So, so that, yeah, and many of us we deal with those.

Speaker 3:

We deal with those issues in different ways and you know they manifest in our lives, I should say in different ways, and for some of us it's drugs and alcohol, for others it can be shopping, or it can be anger, or it can be codependency, or it can be love and relationship issues. So people develop these compulsive behaviors to deal with the hurt that's down deep inside. In fact, I just heard a lady last night. She said you know, when we carry the trauma around that we've had that developed as children then we're actually bleeding on people that didn't cut us, you know. And so we owe it to ourselves and to those around us to deal with the trauma in our lives.

Speaker 3:

I mean, the United States is facing the biggest mental health crisis in history right now, and so we're trying to be part of the solution to help people to deal with the trauma that they've dealt with in their lives and you know, and to quit hemorrhaging on the people around them. You know, because it does affect. It doesn't affect just me, but my wife, my children, my parents, my siblings, my friends, you know, and so I owe it to everyone to maintain a healthy life and, like I said, I've been sober for 17 years and I have some people say why do you still go to recovery? And I tell them because life still happens. You know, I still hurt people, people still hurt me and I still need recovery every day. You know, and it reminds me of of of how bad I need to stay plugged into the process, man. So I don't, so I don't drift off, you know.

Speaker 2:

I understand, I understand. Well, you're doing good work, man. Let's talk about you for just a quick minute. Can you describe one hardship or life challenge that you rose above and can say now, because of it, you're better and stronger?

Speaker 3:

Well, I think cancer Skip. So I had, I had throat cancer in 2018, which was a challenge. I had to go through 28 radiation treatments as well as surgery, and you know, I realized through that, through that process, that we can endure much more than we think we can, and it really helps face things. And you know, again, I won't get real spiritual, but you know, and the book of James and James 1, he says, you know, that we should take joy when life comes at us from every direction. So basically, we should be happy in the struggle and that just kind of is reverse of what the world would tell us. But I've learned that. I've learned that, you know, that's my faith is squeezed into the open during those times of adversity.

Speaker 3:

And, uh and skip, just a week and a half ago, I had a kidney removed. I left kidneys removed because they found a kidney cancer in my kidney a couple of months ago and I just, uh, you know, I I thought I actually had to go into the emergency room two weeks ago because I was feeling something in my throat and, as I said, I've been through throat cancer and the emergency room doctor. They did a CT scan and they found a mass in my throat. This is why I'm dealing with the kidney cancer thing, you know, at the same time, and I just remember feeling like you know, if they put me in an MRI and my whole body is wracked with cancer, I'm okay'm gonna be okay, man, because I know that I can get through more than I think. And so I really really learned that and and praise god my body wasn't wracked with cancer. Uh, you know the, the mass of my throat. Uh, they were able to deal with that. That kind of went away. They removed my kidney last week.

Speaker 3:

Doctor said that it was the best possible scenario. You know the kidney removal. I don't have to go through radiation or chemotherapy. But the old saying you know what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. I think if we allow ourselves to learn lessons during those times of adversity, you know, we can see much more. I've got way more things to be happy about than I do to be concerned about or upset about, you know. So I just keep my eyes open to the things in my life. You know the blessings, the many blessings, the many positive things you know that are going on Too positive to focus on the negative.

Speaker 2:

Right. Hardship is a pathway to peace.

Speaker 3:

Absolutely.

Speaker 2:

Yes, it is. So how can our listeners learn more about Motorcycle Ministry?

Speaker 3:

So you can go to MotorcycleMinistrycom, and it's a great website Tells more about what I do. You know, in ways that people can partner with us, whether that's through prayer or encouragement or financially. You know just any number of ways we need. We need people to uh, to love on us in a number of ways and uh, and we we certainly appreciate that my wife and I we've traveled, you know, hundreds of thousands of miles, uh, to share with people the good news that hope is real, that freedom is available, that change is possible. You know, and we can't do it alone.

Speaker 2:

That's right. That's right. Well, jeff, you don't know how much I appreciate your time. You're doing absolutely wonderful work, glad to hear that your kidney and all that issue is behind you and and we just we appreciate what you're doing and appreciate you being on the show and wish you and the motorcycle missionary all the best moving forward.

Speaker 3:

Fantastic. Thanks so much for having me Skip. It's been a blast.

Speaker 2:

Same here. Thanks so much.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gnptry-citiescom. That's gnptry-Citiescom. That's GNPtry-Citiescom, or call 423-719-5873.