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More than a hundred cowboy preachers are committed to traveling rodeo ministries. Cowboy church services are available at almost every rodeo, horse show, or western event.

Since cowboys are busy traveling the rodeo and fair circuit on weekends, especially during the summer, many groups meet on weeknights—in livestock auction yards, office buildings, schools, or opry houses. The philosophy behind these churches is similar: Offer a service at a convenient time for cowboys. Sing a few country Christian songs. Preach a sermon. Hear a testimony. Pray. Catch up with each other's lives.

Some of these preachers have attended seminary, but they tend not to mention their credentials. Richard Tucker ministers to poor and underprivileged people in northwest Arkansas. Because many of them have felt awkward and judged in the mainline churches, Tucker encourages worshipers "to bring their Bibles and follow along and even interact with me as I preach."

"Folks want their preacher to be one of them, not above them, not beneath them—but at eye level," says R. O. Murray, a former rodeo bronco rider who founded [Orchard] Texas Cowboy Church. Murray is careful not to use too many complex doctrinal words, for "country folk want it told simply."

Lynn Rosenbaum, a member of Texas Cowboy Church for five years, was impressed from the first time she visited the church's tin-barn worship space: "When you've seen big, tough cowboys cry like babies because Jesus has touched their hearts, you know you've found a place to worship," she says.

Particularly in Texas, where an estimated 1 million people are part of the cowboy subculture or feel strong interest in it, denominational churches are using cowboy churches for outreach.

Ron Nolen, a church growth consultant with the Baptist General Convention of Texas, has learned from 16 cowboy churches in recent years. "The oldest predominantly Anglo culture in Texas is western heritage, and basically it hasn't been evangelized," he says. "It's almost an ethnicity unto itself."

Nolen estimates that 20 percent of Americans feel an affinity for cowboy culture. "The church, as these people see it, is not culturally relevant to their lives," he says. "Many do not perceive the church today as an institution of joy and blessing, but one that offers only overly emotional, high-pressure, in-your-face evangelism."

"When we send people overseas as missionaries, we tell them to spend time learning the culture so they can understand the people they're ministering to. That's just as important when dealing with cowboys," Nolen says. "They live by an Old West code of simplicity and John Wayne ethics—being kind to women and children, loyal and patriotic citizens, and overall good people. When these people come to these cowboy churches, many of them hear the gospel for the first time. Once they do, they easily adapt to Christian living."

In Tomball, Texas, Shawn O'Hearn holds services in a 16,000-square-foot barn. In the beginning they worshiped every other Sunday morning in an 18-stall horse barn. Today people from around the world visit "the barn of the Lord." They sit on Mexican blankets draped over bales of hay as children run to the front and dance on a dirt floor. With hundreds attending services and watching on television, the church plans to move to an indoor 3,000-seat rodeo arena.

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September 2003, Vol. 47, No. 9