Cowboy Church
Cowboy Church
The Down East Cowboy Church, a mission church of Bible Missionary Baptist Church, meets each Tuesday night in the livestock arena of the Wilson County Fairgrounds at 7:00 p.m. The building is heated during the winter season and provides a comfortable setting for worship.
Are you unable to attend a church on Sunday? Does your work, hobby, or leisure time activities keep you away? Services of the Down East Cowboy Church are open to everyone (hunters, golfers, fishermen, beach goers, ets.). Cowboys and cowgirls are not the only ones who attend! If you would like to worship God in a nontraditional way, join us each Tuesday night. The Wilson County Fairgrounds are located at 2331 US Highway 301, South, Wilson, NC. See you there!
Reaching People
To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some.
I Corinthians 9: 22, NIV
Tim Sharpe went to Serbia to reach people with the Gospel. He did that through sports camps and activities. Jennifer, Tim's wife, had the opportunity to reach people as she met those interested in learning English. In Washington, DC, church leaders were surprised at the number of unchurched people who were reached through the sacred concerts of Duke Ellington. Although the traditional church totally rejected Ellington’s compositions, pieces written solely by the famous jazz artist for Christian worship, they underestimated their value in reaching a certain people group with the gospel. When used at alternate times of worship, however, jazz enthusiasts flocked to hear the music, and many were introduced to the gospel for the first time. Perhaps these means of reaching people for the sake of the Gospel is what the Apostle Paul was suggesting in his letter to the church at Corinth.
That’s what Cowboy Church is. It’s a means of reaching people for the sake of the Gospel. Cowboy Church is an innovative way to reach a people group that mainline Christian churches have failed to attract. Although some cowboy churches are traditional, while others are charismatic, most take on a style of their own. Many are nondenominational while others are planted by organized denominations. Some travel; others are stationary. Worshipers are ranchers, farmers, rodeo cowboys and cowgirls, trail riders, and other folks with a yen for the cowboy way. This style of worship often appeals to people who have excused themselves from “regular” church attendance for various reasons. Jeff Smith, the cowboy missionary who recently visited our church, defines the term “cowboy” in this manner.
There is the cowboy who lives on the range and works 100
plus head of cattle and then there is the drug store cowboy who lives in the city and wouldn’t know a horseshoe form a hand grenade. The cowboy church is open to anyone and everyone. In fact our congregation normally has about 25% real cowboys who own and ride horses, 50% country folks who have a love for the worship style and 25% city slickers who are drawn to us by the novelty of it all.
If you would like to read more about it, pick up a copy of “Christian Worship the Cowboy Way” on the table in the back of the church. That document may answer a lot of questions for you. If we are truly interested in reaching people for God, we must go outside our four walls (Matt. 28: 19-20). Here’s a way we can do so. Pray for the Cowboy Church ministry in Wilson County.
