Profile: Dick Banks
Dick Banks uses his passion for bicycles to honor God and empower his community.
"If you follow your passion that God has given you, you’ll be a happy person."
There are some days when God sits in Dick Banks’ garage and helps him repair bicycles.
“God and I together have a bicycle repair business,” says the 78-year-old bicycle minister at First United Methodist Church, Tulsa, Okla. “It takes place in my garage. God probably has called me for a specific purpose and that is, one, to praise his name and number two, to fix bicycles in his behalf. And I’m a great bicycle fixer.”
 Banks says repairing bikes is a “rejuvenating activity” that is completely different from sitting in front of a computer all day working with numbers.
“Let’s face it, if you work on a computer all day and you go home at night, you don’t have anything to show for it. But if you get your hands on an old, beat-up bicycle and you put new tires and new tubes and maybe a new chair and some new pedals … and you see that thing roll out of your garage, ready to go … that is a satisfying, thrilling experience.”
He says the older he gets, the more important his relationship with God becomes. Out on the bike trail he says God makes him 18 again instead of 78. “I praise God for strong legs and good lungs and a healthy body so that I can live every day and praise his name for that incredible, fabulous, incomparable gift of life.”
Banks and his wife have been members of First United Methodist for more than 20 years. His closest friends are in the church and are an important part of his life. The church is also supportive of a bicycle club he started 12 years ago at a local elementary school.
The goal of the Eugene Field Bicycle Club is to make sure every child who wants a bicycle can earn one. The kids in the club come from an area that has a 98 percent poverty rate, he explains. Owning a bicycle is a way to escape that environment.
“When I wake up in the morning, I praise God. When I’m on that bicycle trail, since he’s made me 18 again instead of 78, I praise his name for that.”
–Dick Banks
“The bike club means a lot to these kids, and it means a lot to me,” he said. “When I see them in the hall later after they’ve finished the club and earned their bikes, I get a lot of hugs.”
The kids select the bikes by drawing. They get a new helmet and a water bottle, a pack, a lock and a cool T-shirt and if they complete the rides they keep the bicycle. They earn the bicycle by making five or six rides over a one or two-week period.
During the course, they learn bicycle safety and etiquette. The kids make their first ride on the day they select their bikes. On subsequent days, the rides get longer and more challenging, and at the end of the week there is a rally and pizza party.
 “Project Elves,” a community organization that helps schools and churches find things they need, plugged into the Internet to help Banks find bikes to repair.
“All I have to do is call the chief elf and ask her to have her elves go into action and find some bicycles for me. And those elves do that. And sometimes the bicycles are just dropped on my porch or on my driveway or on my patio by the bicycle fairy. I’ll come home and find those bicycles, and I don’t know where they came from or who brought them, but there they are sitting in my driveway.”
“Every morning you wake up and are breathing, you need to be praising God,” he says. “You need to get up and you need to do something. In my case, when I wake up in the morning, I praise God, and if it’s a bicycle repair day I get up and repair bicycles. And that to me is some of the greatest fun that I can have.”
The following people contributed to this Profile:
Audio story by Mike Hickcox; print story by Kathy Gilbert; videography by John Gordon.
UMC.org Profiles are produced by Pam Price, 615-742-5405.
Dick's Spiritual Gifts
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Tongues
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Apostleship
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Wisdom
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Leadership
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Exhortation
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Dick's Recommended Resources
First United Methodist Church
Eugene Field Elementary School
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