Cowboy Church

It’s Sunday!  Praise you Lord! What a good day it’s been.  As we pull up to Cowboy Church, I love seeing the dirty pickup, ranchers, dayworkers, teachers, rodeo people, business people, young mom’s, grandparents.  Cowboy church brings us all together sharing in a common way of life.  A place we come to worship the Lord, in a building that resembles a barn.  Where authenic people are exactly that….no fancy clothing, fancy buildings, fancy programs…..just simple…church.

We live a good ways from a large city.  It’s about two, two and half hours to a city that has a mall.  That’s okay, we’ll take driving to keep this life secluded and well, in our eyes there’s nothing like it.  There’s no mega movie theatre, shopping mall, or sports center that could compare to the beauty of a sunset stretched in front of a mountain border. No sound compares to the sound of your horse making tracks early in the morning, getting in your spot for the gather.  No smell better than greasewood after a rain.

As sweet country music fills the air, we make our ways to our seats.  The music, in words that make sense to a cowboy or cowgirl, makes you want to get up and do a little two steppin’.  The band is made up of men and a women, who have more than paid their way on country music stages, either professionally or pretty close to it. Our team leader, has such a passion for keeping it sounding country….true to our roots.  The lady who plays bass has written and recited cowboy poetry for years and rewrites many of our cowboy church songs.  Some songs may sound real familiar, like maybe some Patsy Cline song, Chuck Barry, or Geoge Strait, but the words are different.  They sing of a new life, about prayer, or “I Go Out Walkin’ With My Savior!”……I imagine when we get to Heaven, there may be some of those songs playing that we can sing.  I think a steel guitar, or fiddle are about as heavenly as anything I’ve ever heard.

The message, Wendel usually relates the Word with the cowboy life.  This morning the sermon involved a horse trader, and then taking that horse to a vet for some prepurchase testing. This testing would assure the buyer he would be getting what he bargained for.  Then Wendel, talked about what we have, in Christ, what He has done for us and our assurance of belonging to Him.  The scriptures he used today were from…..1John 5:1-12.  I love the way the story is woven and related to stuff we understand.

I love looking around and seeing the body of Christ at work.  A young family walks in with their newborn after they’ve been absent visiting family for a couple months, they are greeted, hugged on, and everyone has to get a look at that baby!  Lit’l kids with cowboy hats and spurs chase each other through out the church, as if they are playing a game of cowboy and indians.  The arena team meets in one room to discuss an upcoming ranch rodeo and the cowgirl gathering team ties up loose ends on a gathering they are having in a few weeks.  The flag is taken down and folded neatly and put in its proper place until next week.  So if you ever think the preacher is the only one doing the work, well, think again….not so in cowboy church.  All the way from the coffee being made, to a retired rodeo announcer greeting you at the door, cowboy church is made up of many hard working people who care deeply for their neighbors, and even more for their God!  Thank you Lord, for all you do for us……especially for your son, Jesus Christ and thank you God for cowboy church.