BOAZ, Ala. (ABP) — Mounted greeters wave to visitors from the parking lot. Blue jeans, a Western shirt and a cowboy hat comprise the outfit of choice. Saddles are welcome, and gospel karaoke comes from within the Sand Mountain Saddle Club in Boaz, Ala.
It's a typical Sunday morning at the Cowboy Church of Marshall County. The church is one of the many cowboy churches gaining popularity across the nation, and proponents promote the nontraditional church idea because it's an effective avenue to reach men and women who haven't attended church in years.
As Christian churches within the country and western culture, cowboy churches often meet in a barn or western building. Some have their own rodeo arenas and country bands. Oftentimes, baptisms happen in a cattle tank.
During the recent Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting in Greensboro, N.C., a stampede event aimed at highlighting cowboy churches showcased cowboys and cowgirls from across North Carolina. Jeff Smith of the Cowboy Church Network of North America attended the event.
“These churches are one of the hottest things going,” Smith said. “The cowboy church movement has grown so fast. It's working. Cowboys who weren't going anywhere before now have somewhere to go.”
Randall Stoner, director of missions for an Alabama Baptist county association, is another advocate for the unconventional churches.
“They [members of the Cowboy Church] have taken on the challenge of intentional evangelism,” he said. “This church is reaching a segment of people that need Jesus Christ.”
Otis Corbitt, who works for the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions, agreed.
“It's a way of creating an environment where people will feel comfortable to come and worship the Lord,” Corbitt said. “There are a lot of people in our society who do not feel comfortable in our current churches.”
The Cowboy Church of Marshall County — the first of its kind in the state, according to Corbitt — held its first service May 7. The new church stemmed from a “cowboy and friends fellowship” that meets once a month at various barns throughout the county.
“We thought that if up to 140 people were coming once a month, maybe they'd come every week,” Chris Campbell, a former youth minister who helped found the church, said.
The church averages 50 people each Sunday, with different pastors preaching each week. There is no standard order of events and no offering, which is typical for cowboy churches nationwide.
“It's not that you have to be a cowboy to go, but the church is for people who would feel more comfortable in a less formal setting,” Corbitt said. “It is reaching out to a segment of population in Alabama that no one else was able to reach with the gospel.”
David Denham, a leader at the Cowboy Church, knows what it means to be unchurched and wanting something more out of life.
“I had not been in church in over 20 years,” he said. “I had been hurt in church before. Two years ago, an evangelist stopped by my work, and I was saved right there at work. It goes to show that you don't have to be at an altar in a church to get saved.”
Now passionate about serving the Lord, Denham wants cowboys who don't regularly attend church on Sunday mornings to feel welcome at the Cowboy Church.
“We don't want to be a place where people who are disgruntled with the traditional church come to in order to leave their church; we want to be a place for the unchurched,” he said. “We certainly have a different atmosphere here — it's a Western way of life. But there's really only one church, and that's the Lord's church.”
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