Bike for Bibles Event Aims to Provide Needed Bible Translations
Posted on: April 8, 2025
Tigerville, SC—North Greenville University alum Travis Agnew (’03) is planning to travel 149 miles on his bike this week, and each one of those miles will have great significance.
Bike for Bibles is a citywide effort to raise awareness and support for a Bible translation for a people group with no existing version in their language. Riding one mile in the event will equal one verse of Scripture translated to the Arbore people in Ethiopia for $35. While there is no formal race day, Bike for Bibles will have a community worship night at the Kroc Center parking lot on April 12 at 5 p.m., which is open to all ages.
Agnew, who serves on NGU’s Board of Trustees, cast the vision for the project with a group of community and church leaders in December at an organizational meeting held at Rocky Creek Baptist Church. In addition to being the organizer for Bike for Bibles, Dr. Agnew is also a participant.
“The fact that there’s about 900 and something languages that still have not received a translation of God’s word yet, it’s always been a passion of mine,” said Agnew, lead pastor at Rocky Creek Church. “The goal is really awareness for biblical literacy. The fact that there are still many people who need the Bible in their language, it’s just to kind of raise awareness in Greenville County and the cycling community to see that there’s a tangible way for people of all ages and backgrounds to get involved.”
North Greenville University’s Director of Hospitality Kimberly Morgan, and Senior Assistant to the Executive Vice President Kelly Hodge, attended the organizational meeting representing NGU, and have helped resource efforts to promote the effort. NGU is also helping to sponsor the event, which is hosted by Rocky Creek Church in partnership with the Seed Company.
While one third of the Arbore people group are Christian, they do not have a Bible translated in their language to fully understand what it means to be a follower of Christ.
“The reality is they’ve never been able to study it because they don’t have God’s Word in their language. So, our hope is to be able to get the Scriptures in the hands of the Arbore people,” Agnew said. “Our goal is to literally take this project off the list where the entire New Testament will be translated.”
The April 12 event will include NGU grads leading worship, food trucks, and opportunities for those who attend to sponsor a verse of Scripture. Those who come to the worship night are also encouraged to bring a lawn chair.
Agnew’s goal in participating was to raise money for the entire book of Galatians to be translated to the Arbore people.
“For me, particularly, I am riding 149 miles from Monday to Saturday because I’m preaching through the book of Galatians,” he said. “So I’m taking every chapter, just how many verses there are and I’m getting sponsorship to get that book translated.”
Agnew says this event will offer a tangible way for people to grow in awareness of what God is doing around the world through missions.
“I’ve never seen anybody be really concerned about an unreached people group until they have at least had a tangible way. The opportunity as a pastor is to give tangible opportunities for people in your church to be involved in the mission,” he said.
He also hopes this event will help those who participate see how precious it is to have a copy of the Bible at their fingertips.
“I hope that people will treasure their copy of God’s Word because it’s crazy that we have like 935 languages left to get God’s Word in their language and we have more translations in the English than there are languages that are still yet to be translated,” Agnew said.
“I also pray that people would want to invest their lives and their finances to make sure that we get the Bible translated in the remaining languages in an aggressive way so that we can get the gospel out, but also long-term discipleship and local churches all of the world,” he said.
For more information on Bike for Bibles, visit the event page.
