Part V: Who is that guy anyway?

Thanks again to Jeff Moreland for inviting me to the first meeting of the Christian Cowboys Outreach Fellowship. CCOF?. But we need a better acronym.:) Jeff invited me because I am a friend and I take decent pictures and like to blog, and I am a cowboy type person and most importantly, I have been serving in some kind of lay ministry for the past thirty years.

I was also excited to hang out with one of my youthful idols, someone who inspired a lot of my art. As a youth, I wanted to paint what Michael Murphy sang about. When they threw me out of art school at North Texas, because of my world view, his songs told me there were others like me, who loved this region and its unique heritage, so I did not give up.

But right now the question at hand is how and where to proceed as we try to understand, and with God's guidance, perfect the cowboy church movement. Jeff was thinking, or at least I think he was, that all this creativity in one room might birth some kind of cowboy unity and direction in God's Kingdom. Cowboys + Jesus + talent = great things. But it was obvious that this thing is big and random and thus unpredictable. It is a folk movement, which means it comes from the grass roots, and it will be hard to harness. It needs a trail boss.

As far as I know, there is no one outstanding cowboy preacher to be the prophet of this movement. No Billy Graham iconoclast to galvanize the cowboy people, provide a book or guide to understanding the whole thing. Actually, that is good. When you see this kind of folk movement, without that kind of direction, you almost have to assume it is... the Holy Spirit. He must be the Trail Boss! But we must be careful... falsely attributing something, even a good thing, to HIM is as dangerously close to Heresy as saying His works are that of the devil, a sin Jesus warned would never be forgiven. We must watch and pray, and let truth reveal itself. If this fledgling revival is what Greg Hunt and others believe, we dare not ignore or scoff at it. But we must also refrain from assumptions.

Paul insisted that if churches preach Christ crucified, then we have to respect them. The fact that they are an outreach to a specific cultural group is no more alarming than if we send a mission group to Ecuadorian Indians. But the cowboy church must be careful, as people are scrutinizing them closely. A friend of mine discussed a cowboy church he witnessed holding services in a public roping arena and found the whole thing pretentious. Hay bales with cow skulls, people in their best Sunday-go-to-meetin' cowboy duds, "playing church" in the dirt. He was raised on a farm and in that dirt, but not attracted to it, or people who want to "play-like." To him it was people playing cowboy and playing church, in a shallow exercise that would soon fade as people looked around at each other... like Civil War re-inacters, when they pretend to die for something they believe in, over and over again. It gets old soon because it's not real.

Several of the cowboy pastors talked about being "real." They are dead right. People are looking around for something, a church that has discarded the old pretensions of the typical American corner church; A place where you had to look and act a certain way to fit in. Hmmmmm.....

It's no good to establish another something like that, just this time with your particular favorite costume as the new pretense. A Christian brother of mine was asked to consider taking on a cowboy church project as he was the quintessential cowboy Christian man. He looked at it seriously. In his observations of other "Cowboy" churches, some of them over in East Texas where there were few horses and fewer cowboys, he saw multitudes of smiling "cowboys" and "cowgirls," excited church participants, all dressed up in hats and boots and SPURS, and wondered what kind of animal had been created here. If this thing works, and is effective, we can only imagine what other kind of special costume-oriented fellowships might be contrived to appeal to other unique social identities. Perhaps this is a good thing, so that unique cultural groups can find their own religious niche. Maybe.

But a better thing is to seek the way it will be in the future, when our Lord appears, when every knee will bow. In Heaven we are told there will be neither Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free, male nor female. Distinctions of race and gender and social class will completely fade away. That is the way it will be in His Kingdom. That is the ultimate goal. As long as cowboy preachers and their flocks understand and embrace that, it matters not what they wear or call themselves.

I'm thinkin' I want to be in Oklahoma, where they can have cowboys and Indians church! Now that would be a hoot!

So, here is the bottom line:

Keep it real.

Focus on kids. Think twice about everything you do concerning them.

Ask yourselves, does this look silly? People are watching you.

Build around fathers, but know that many fathers are MIA.

Trust the Lord to provide the glue. To go before you and clean up after you.

Never, never forget your purpose, your first love! Christ alone!


God Bless you guys and thanks for reading and sharing your insights as well.

Part IV: A final conversation with the cowboys...

Part IV

Soon the time was over, and many of the gathering got moving, as there were obligations and commitments. As most of us “cowboy types” slipped out of the restaurant, which had served as our meeting place, a few men stayed behind, not yet finished with this special time. There was a desire to say a few last things, pose for pictures and ask a few follow up questions… The focus soon became the most famous man in the room, as well-wishers and some actual fans circled around him.

He was accompanied on this day by his tour manager, Charles Lynn, musician, theologian, free spirited man Friday. Michael Martin Murphy is still someone whose songs you hear regularly on country radio stations. Songs like “Geronimo’s Cadillac,” “Wildfire,” “Wild Swans Against the Sun,” “Cherokee Fiddle” and “Carolina in the Pines” made him a Southwestern favorite. He sang “I Just Wanna Be a Cosmic Cowboy,” back in the 1970’s when the Texas-based progressive country revolution was just beginning. “Murph,” as his friends call him, has always been at the vanguard of things.

He has in recent years been the leader in reviving the old cowboy music of the Sons of the Pioneers variety. As if driven by a seeking heart, Murph has spent his career studying, experiencing, reading and processing Southwestern lore and landscape and history. Besides his family, and music of course, his love for two things have emerged. Cowboys, and God. He has immersed himself in the cowboy way, and almost lost himself in it. And more importantly, he has chosen to make himself a devoted disciple of Jesus Christ. And it is the love of these two things that brought him to this cowboy gathering today. Not to lead it. Not to even speak, but to be there in support of it and to learn and listen. A small group pulled up chairs and began to share.

Greg Hunt expounded on his theme about the powerful impact cowboy churches are having. “Cowboy Churches are going to be the center of spiritual revival in this country.” The emphasis was that this was an untapped demographic that took special treatment. Cowboy people are nothing if not independent. “America has always been the cauldron of self-reliance...” agreed Murph. That American style of independence, with all its random, untamed nature, could still drive a Christian revival where even the organized church has failed.

It was that same self-reliance that brought many of our ancestors across the oceans, and established a country based on mutual respect and freedom of religion. It was self-reliance that propelled the great evangelical movement of this Continent. Self-reliance and pioneer spirit had established a basically Protestant, democratic empire, the first of its kind in the world. Some remnant of it is still visible in these emerging cowboy churches.

Murphy spoke to singer-songwriter Brian Kalinec, who had not had an opportunity to speak as the larger gathering had run out of time. Kalinec was all smiles. He like the rest of us, found the meeting very inspiring. They discussed the gift of music, and what a special purpose it plays in worship. Brian froze pensively for a moment, trying to express what music was for him… “It’s God’s little magic,” he offered. We had only scratched the surface concerning the possibilities of this group of gifted men.

“Sometimes we don’t think big enough…” offered Murph. He went on to express his concern about the effect of the secular Media on our youth. “Today a child can watch something on television for a day that will ruin him for life…” he lamented. He was incredulous that we have not, as a people, offered a Christian counterpart. He offered with all those TV channels, surely we could create something kids would watch that might balance the scales.

And that is where my notes ended. That is what I think I heard. Certainly I have editorialized, it is after all my blog! Murph spoke to me, after everybody had said something. I told him that I had come to listen, that I had some concerns about cowboy churches and did not understand them very much. This meeting had been as much for me as anyone, a borderline skeptic who came to be convinced. As I explained to him, I had been attending an afternoon fellowship in Whitehall, Texas that was full of real cowboy types… horse trainers, horse owners, country singers, trail riders, people who came to church in hats and boots. It had been a Christian gathering of people just like we had discussed, but we never once called ourselves a “cowboy church.”

Why not? Because if anything, Christianity must be all inclusive, and we would never do anything to appear otherwise… like put a label on our fellowship that would sound exclusionary. I don’t think we should call them “cowboy” churches or “Indian” churches or “biker” or “lawyer” churches… that would tend to undermine the magic of the amazing sufficiency and diversity of the Body of Christ.

Tony King, administrator of Bar None Cowboy Church was glad to handle my questions. His answer was more or less that the cowboy churches are like a mission, aimed at people that will never enter a regular church. It’s just a focus on a particular group of people, largely unchurched, with a strategy to get into their world, any way possible.

Like Young Life, it is targeting the farthest person from Christ, and sometimes that takes extraordinary measures. I worked a great deal with Young Life as a young man. My ministry there was blessed, but I have to admit, I was always concerned with the low numbers that stuck with the program. When you make something too easy, too accessible, it can become easy come, easy go. But his answer was reasonable, so I shot him another question.

Of more concern to me was his and Jason’s story about an entertainer who had been invited to perform at one of their events. It had been learned after the fact that he sang a lot of “beerology” songs and church members expressed their concerns about him appearing there. But they went ahead, convinced that the somewhat worldly performer might be the project that day, as much as anyone.

“What do you say to someone like me who might ask, what about the impressionable young person who hears this person and their beerology at his church and their music, whether played or not, is legitimized because they heard it first in church?”

This was no problem at Bar None, the entertainer with questionable songs was not welcome to sing his “questionable” songs. I guess Jason and Tony were true to their all inclusive name… “Bar None.” That's an example of "cowboy logic." But this does not realistically address the question. Young kids will see the star, go buy the CD’s, and listen to that music the rest of their lives. Parents will go buy it for them, because he was at their church. I know firsthand how impressionable I was at around 17 to 21 years old, when I listened to Jerry Jeff Walker and Co., who were the high priests of beerology in my youth. I can’t imagine how much more I would have worshipped at that twisted altar, had I seen them first in church! In effect, this kind of twist is exactly the kind of wrong message that Murph started the conversation about. We as Christians should be offering something to counter the world and the Devil, not something to accommodate it.

But something tells me that Bar None will be more discerning in the future. The teachings of Christ leave no question that for those who lead these little children astray, it would be better for them to have a millstone tied to their neck and to be thrown into the sea. A special judgment awaits those who misuse this trust.

The cowboy church is new and rough around the edges. We all need to pitch in and make sure it does what Greg Hunt thinks it will. But this movement is vulnerable to swift, unmanagable growth and an abundance of "git‘er done" types like Simon Peter and a shortage of doctrinally sound individuals like Paul. Even though Chuck Montgomery was right about Pharisees, Paul had the training and wisdom of one, and without him, we would not have most of the great writings of the New Testament. The idea of “Bishops” in the early church was developed for just this reason. Without wisdom, this whole thing could end up as just another embarrassing whim.

But it will be meetings such as this one, with open minds and hearts like these, where wisdom will be found. The only spiritual measure of success in this world is changed lives. That is happening if these men in the room were any example of the leadership in ths movement. Men are being brought into every day ministy that mainstream churches might have never considered twice. It says in the Bible that God often uses the foolish to confound the wise. You gotta love a God like that!

Part III: Christian Cowboy Outreach

Recently a cowboy church was started in Brenham, Texas and the numbers grew exponentially. The perceived mass of modern Christians turning away from the “mainstream” church prompted Charles Lynn to reassure everyone that mainstream is a relative term, "Mainstream is never mainstream." Cowboy churches are already courting if not relishing in the mainstream.

Whatever is accepted as the popular thing is almost always something itself in flux and either on the way in or on the way out. As we talk of the cowboy church as outside that golden place we all think is reserved for some other entity, it may well be already nestling into the main stream of Christian life. The “mainstream” church is losing people at such a rate, and the cowboy church movement is growing at such a rate, it is quite possible at some juncture in the near future, without any announcement, the cowboy churches will reach a critical mass and one day be “the thing,” or at least be accepted as solid partners in the evangelical movement.

Stacey Nobles offered that at this stage, as fast as things are happening, word of mouth is going to carry the momentum, and advertising programs fall behind the flow as the word spreads like wildfire.

Singer songwriter George Ensle, who regularly performs for cowboy churches throughout central Texas, offered that he has more and more learned to trust the Lord to inspire the music, and give him the songs that relate to the day’s message. He also believes that humor and being real are essential to effective outreach. He proposed that any “real Christianity” will include an emphasis given to reaching our kids. “We treat our children like second-class citizens.” Yet Jesus said we had to be like them to ever enter the Kingdom! Ensle seemed to be suggesting that any correct strategy will include making the kids, and outreach to them, top priority.

As that strategy took on refinement, and it was agreed that Fathers were the essential building block to bringing in the whole family, and truly impacting kids, Barry Chinn offered some perspective about the place of fathers. After years of ministry in the penal system, prison ministers found one haunting fact: Almost every man on death row was known to hate his own father. Our job is to model Christ, as He is the ultimate surrogate father for kids with no fathers or ones whose fathers have failed to be good fathers.

Singer-songwriter Kyle Hutton of Magnolia was asked to give some words before he had to leave. He is the founder and host of “Real Life, Real Music,” ministry. He seemed to be optimistic that even if fathers and preachers fail, God will find his own. “Even when there is no leader, people will find a way.” Hutton said he and his fellowship were finding that they must see everyone that crosses their path as the target of their ministry. It might be the folks that come, or it might be the musicians they have recruited that day. He warned that we must be discerning between the legitimate hunger that Lynn spoke of, and downright disobedience. In other words, some of the folks that we meet in this movement are restless for the wrong reasons. Some are running from accountability or nurturing a personal rebellion against God, and not just the mainstream religions.

Chuck Walker of Cedar Park explained how God has led him into a rewarding radio ministry. It is called the Jesus Country Show.

Comedian Chuck Montgomery broke everybody up with his impish smile and off the wall approach. He reminded us that nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care. If the cowboy church has become the vanguard of outreach, then the mainstream church unfortunately has become the “Pharisees,” standing in the way. “And no Pharisee ever won anybody to Christ!” To be successful we must abandon old judgmental paradigms, look hard for our commonalities, and forever bury old divisive attitudes. We need to find common ground with people and doing that proves we care. He echoed George Ensle’s idea that church needs to be fun. Humor trumps almost all opposition. And that’s where he comes in.

Then he offered something almost profound… “We need to clean out our own houses…” and just accept and love people where they are, and not try so much to clean out their houses.

I offer at this point that it is this overwhelming need for “housecleaning” in American Christianity that has opened the opportunity for cowboy churches to take off like a rocket. People are just choosing to walk away rather than fight the fight inside the so-called mainstream churches. When a great river runs into an obstacle, if it cannot move it, it floods around it.

Next : We will sit in on an intimate circle between several young cowboy pastors and Michael Martin Murphy.

Note: This is a part of a popular series on Cowboy churches. You can find and read all of them by going back to the main page, and use the search button at the top right to search: CHRISTIAN COWBOYS.

Part II: A collision of cultures... inside Christiandom

Last Friday I had the honor of sitting in on a unique and educational luncheon hosted by music promoter Jeff Moreland, which focused on the Cowboy Culture and the recent development of “cowboy” churches. Almost two dozen artists, entertainers and cowboy pastors were gathered in one room to share and vision together. Below are some observations and nuggets I gleaned from the conversations…

But first this plea… I’ve done my best to capture what was said. If anybody remembers it differently, please, in charity and good faith, lay it down like you remember it… I sure don’t want to misquote or misrepresent.

Pastor Stacey Nobles of Llano spoke first, and encouraged everyone that “God always takes care of those He sends.” We should not be worried about opening this new mission field. But he added that any authentic ministry had to be built on TRUST. Cowboy churches must earn the trust of their flocks, and remember that they are depending on their pastors to offer authentic programming. He added that he is bothered quite a bit by so-called “Christian” musicians looking for a gig, and he had no way to find out their religious orientation or authenticity, and that we all needed some kind of way to rate and recommend the various artists to one another. He made it clear, he did not hire musicians that appeared to be in it just for the money.

Barry Chinn, a pastor from Manchaca, testified that God had provided confirmation after confirmation that God was calling him to lead a cowboy church in Manchaca. He has seen how important FELLOWSHIP and support are critical elements to these cowboy gatherings. .. Some kind of cowboy church info network would be advantageous.

The question at hand was still, “Why are we here today?” At this point, Michael Martin Murphy, country music recording star, in a moment of comic relief, walked over to the Republic of Texas map hanging in the restaurant and, tongue in cheek, interjected, “This is why we are here… to take back all of this!” as he pointed to areas in New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming once a part of Texas. There was a howl and a round of applause. And suddenly we all understood, seriously, that our vision could grow beyond our imaginations and outside our comfort zones… as we asked God to expand our territories. Michael sat down.

Pastor Jason Taylor of Tatum spoke soon after, and rested any doubts about what the cowboy churches are about, and helped zero- in our purpose as he put the “chips” on the table. First he addressed the whole question about song leaders and musicians. “Do not call… you do not apply at our church,” he proclaimed, as he explained they had great musicians in house, and even some that went on the road. Musician credentials were not his concern on this day. He began to explain that at Bar None Cowboy Church, the word “cowboy” was equated with OUTREACH. His was an active, engaging assembly, where he flatly rejected the concept that they ever had “church.”

“We don’t have church!” Taylor declared, and he did not want to ever be accused of looking or acting or feeling like a conventional church. “We’re a bunch of rednecks!” he confessed, asserting that the mainline church would never do for his flock. They offered a variety of attractions to attract people. “At my church, we are not concerned [like others] with how to get people into our church… we are concerned with how we can be involved in people’s lives.” For Bar None that means rodeos and equestrian events that people around the area will come to. Taylor explained that they might host a PRCA rodeo, just to get a 7 minute commercial in the middle and preach a bit of the WORD to the audience. He was almost restless at this point, explaining that he was not really very at home in a nice pleasant suburban restaurant chatting with a bunch of pastors… “I need to be where the shit’s at,” he laughed sheepishly. It was obvious his ideas and choice of words were a collision with standard church work, even a veritable clash of cultures.. .

Jeff Moreland made the point here that this is why we were here… to collide… our ideas and visions. Maybe there was a long needed dialogue between mainstream religion and this amazing cowboy movement. If Michael Murphy broke the ice, then Jason Taylor had poured it down our backs...

Greg Hunt, pastor of Magnolia Cowboy Church backed him up immediately, “Folks want it real” he reasoned, saying that many of their flock were tired of the conventional, somewhat pretentious mainline church crowd. A rodeo arena keeps it real for his fellowship. It was agreed around the room that many people who come to this kind of ministry would probably never darken the door of a conventional church. So important is the rodeo atmosphere, some cowboy churches have built their event arena BEFORE their worship center. The strategy was plain and simple… and Biblical.

Hunt agreed with Barry Chinn, who had just admitted that the cowboy churches were … for men. They were going after FATHERS, developing men-friendly churches; Places where men would be attracted and feel at home. They aim at fathers, and as Hunt explained “… if you get them, the rest will follow.”

No one in the room had to be reminded that Jesus was born in a manger, a manly place, a crude outbuilding associated with animal shelters, with humble, unclean livestock herders (shepherds) as witnesses to his birth, and when he began to build his church, he gathered a bunch of redneck men, and deliberately associated himself with outcasts and working class people, mostly men, who were Gallileans (considered heathens), fishermen and such, and often used their outdoor lifestyle to draw analogies. The cowboy church is a good modern parallel. But a church aimed at men?

As far as is recorded, probably all of the writers of Holy Scripture were men. The Scriptures record precious few female prophets. All twelve of the Disciples were male. Jesus met them often in their male-dominated world, and rode in their boats and even cooked them up a catch on the beach one morning. THEY were his focus, at his last supper, and his last appearances. Churches today are often run by women, which is not bad, but the absence of men is alarming. Women were there during the First Century church for sure, but tagging along behind the men as that culture allowed. It was to the men, the Apostles and founders of the church as we know it whom Jesus commissioned the greatest Faith movement of our present culture. And not surprisingly, a predominance of the early church leaders were men. For centuries. Fishers of MEN? You bet. But still I’m thinking… this is sure to rile the Women’s Rights groups…

But I’ll tell you, these guys don’t give a cow chip.

More next time…

Part I: "Christian Cowboys Outreach Fellowship"

My friend Jeff Moreland put together a gathering in Klein, Texas Friday that became a golden moment for me and others who participated. Thank You Jeff!

It was a hand-picked pow-wow of cowboy songwriters, entertainers and cowboy church pastors, all seeking to network and better use their abilities to serve the Lord's Kingdom. You will be reading much more about it in the days to come.

Kyle Hutton, Brian Kalinec, George Ensle, Pat Gavin, Kevin Robinson and Michael Martin Murphy were some of the entertainers that attended. It seemed strange to see them all together without a single guitar in the bunch. But, as was soon evident, they had a lot on their minds and singing was not on the agenda.

Jeff explained that we were there to "collide" our various ideas and perspectives... and hopefully forge something in the process. And we did, as instant friendships began all around the room. I'm not sure I've ever experienced such a group, where there was so much wisdom and talent in one place.

And not to my surprise, there were around a half-dozen Lefties there, almost three times the population's average. Right-brained folk are as thick as fleas in creative circles. It's going to be fun to see what emerges...

Charles Lynn, Michael Murphy's production and tour manager, always has astute insights. Lynn admitted that the juxtaposition of the entertainment world with the ministry world was almost perplexing. And that perceptions about what is "mainstream" are usually wrong. "Mainstream is never really mainstream." Cowboy churches are probably more mainstream than we think. But he offered that cowboys are notoriously rough and rebellious and difficult to handle, and thus a real challenge. He also asserted that hunger pains are what guide people, so as we offer what they are hungry for, they will find us.

It occured to me as he said that, how similar cowboys are to those rough and tough fishermen that Jesus chose. When the Savior of the world came to change Man's relationship to God, he did not go to the synagogue to pick his disciples. He went to the beach, and began to banter with a bunch of rednecks. In his estimation, it was these uneducated, hard working men of the open sea that had the right stuff. These were the likes of who would change the world for Christ.

Greg Hunt of Magnolia Cowboy Church later proclaimed that it would be Cowboy Churches that would lead the way to a spiritual revival in our Country, if it were ever to happen. Hunt sees the hope of our Country in these churches. As he stood there resolute, with his cowboy confidence, I saw the likes of Peter preaching to the thousands at Pentecost. With that purposeful, expectant comment, he may have impacted my estimation of the Cowboy Church forever.

I certainly would have no problem with something called "Fisherman Church," as the significance would be obvious. Perhaps I put too much importance on names and titles. If Jesus came around today, as Michael Martin Murphy has said, he would probably gravitate to "cowboys," working men of the outdoors, the way he did fishermen then.

Fishermen, cowboys, sodbusters, whatever, we need to be ready to feed the sheep. Their stomachs are growling!

Note: This is Part 1 of a popular series on the Cowboy Church movement, to see them all go back to the main page and use the search button at the top right... search CHRISTIAN COWBOYS.