Who knew cowboy churches are a thing?
I was doing marketing research yesterday on Google Maps, focusing on eastern rural Arizona, and to my surprise I came across a couple of cowboy churches.
There is a cowboy church about ten minutes from my home in the foothills of the Rockies. Up until yesterday, I thought it was unique…and kind of a cool idea.
So when I discovered that there are other cowboy churches, I zoomed out on Google Maps, searched on “cowboy churches,” and, to my surprise, over one hundred popped up across America, including about a dozen cowboy churches within a 90 minute drive from my home.
Although I couldn’t find any in the Northeast or Southeast, cowboy churches cover the entire west coast from Southern California to Washington State, and spread through the America’s heartland all the way to Virginia.
According to Cowboy Church of Virginia, the Virginia state organization for cowboy churches, Cowboy churches trace their roots to a professional rodeo clown by the name of Glenn Smith. In 1972 he felt called of the Lord to minister to the rodeo and bull riding circuit.
His converts founded the first cowboy churches. Then, in 1990, a cowboy church was planted in Nashville, Tennessee. From that plant, the concept took off and has grown exponentially.
Many denominations now have cowboy churches. One estimate puts their number at 5,000. The cowboy church websites that I perused had orthodox doctrinal statements and shared several common characteristics.
Almost all the churches had a country or western feel to them. (A few had obviously become “citified.” One wouldn’t be able to tell them apart from any other church.) Pictures of church gatherings showed people wearing boots, jeans, and cowboy hats. County Western music is the worship style of choice.
Most cowboy churches meet in non-church-looking barns or rural roadside industrial buildings. Sanctuaries are called “arenas.” Horses and horse riding events are a common theme. One church even had a corral next to their building for rodeos and enough land for trail rides.
And, of course, men play a prominent role in these churches. The pastors don western wear and often are shown with their own horses. Men in cowboy hats are pictured usually sitting on the front row during worship. Guns and gun shooting events are part of the church culture as well.
Cowboy churches are an excellent example of churches that want to reach men — and their families — for the Lord. I wonder if the concept of male affinity churches could be expanded to, say, trucker churches, biker churches, auto mechanics churches. Maybe even surfer churches.
Or how about blog writer churches?
This post first appeared in NewCommandment.org.
Since 2003 New Commandment Men’s Ministries has helped hundreds of churches throughout North American and around the world recruit teams of men who permanently adopt their widowed and single parents in their congregations for the purpose of donating two hours of service to them one Saturday morning each month. We accomplish this with a free training site called New Commandment Men’s Ministry
Learn how to mobilize your men’s ministry to meet every pressing need in your church here.
_______________________________________________________________
Learn how to form teams of men for every widow, single mom
and fatherless child in your church at NewCommandment.org.
_______________________________________________________________
