It raced toward me from the left side of the two-lane highway. The familiar big and white sign had become my own personal landmark over the years. On the outskirts of Sealy, Texas, just north of I-10 and Port City Stockyards, it signaled the countdown: 29 minutes to go before reaching my parents’ farm. This time, there was something about the image that touched my heart—the kneeling cowboy in front of a cross, the horse in tow, and the simple lettering: “All Around Cowboy Church.” The collage of symbols called to me as I navigated the mix of dually trucks, cattle trailers, SUVs, and the occasional motorcycle passing to and fro on Highway 36.
The young Abercrombie-clad teen sitting next to me woke me from my reverie. “We should visit the All Around Cowboy Church, Mom,” she piped up. I realized immediately that my child and I could both benefit from some old-fashioned, rugged church going. I was craving something deeper, something more organic and natural, something … wholesome. I wanted more than just an experiment. I wanted an experience, a departure from padded pews.
The next Sunday morning we sped toward Sealy to make the 10 a.m. service, and my daughter asked if Pastor Sonny Rice would do rope tricks. Truth be told, I wasn’t sure myself, but we were both just happy to be wearing jeans to church.
That one service, it turns out, ended up inspiring me to chase cowboy churches around Texas. My odessey revealed that the movement is strictly cultural (Western) and often lacking in artifice (walls). Leery of organized religion and spooked by the evangelical trappings of mega-churches (wide-screen video conferencing, etc.), the proudly independent—ranch hands and cowgirls and your average Texans—worship at these cowboy churches. To them, simplicity is more important than liturgy. Jesus is Lord. Period.
Thanks to my small-town, horse-crazed heritage, I saw myself in these country folks. I met people emblematic of the Western way—and the people drawn to it. Practical independence, not ideology, was valued here. And though I expected campfire and barbed wire, not wireless, and while a few congregations were little more than a collection of cowpokes around a fishing hole, many of the cowboy churches we visited were technology-forward and website-savvy. Some ventured into radio and television, others created sophisticated networks to spread their message of salvation.
It may have taken me a half-dozen pastors in Stetsons, but I eventually discovered the old-fashioned religion and common horse sense that have been a practical part of the Western way of life for generations. Dare I say that I found a version of Jesus’ own open-air ministry?
"Come as you are,” Pastor Sonny told me over the phone. “We welcome everyone—drunk, doped up, don’t have to have a suit on. It doesn’t matter.” And he wasn’t kidding. It’s perfectly fine to wear dirty boots and spurs to a cowboy church. Here, a person’s inside matters more than the outside.
Sprinkled among many happy families sat a few quiet, ill-kempt souls, shaking out the cobwebs after a night of carousing. An exhausted, tousle-haired single mom sat with her wriggling brood. One young couple wore matching Western shirts and sat in starry- eyed wedded bliss.
Pastor Sonny and his co-pastor wife, Gloria, regularly witness people letting go of their anger to get free and healed from illnesses in miraculous ways.
“We support missions in Mexico to reach the vaqueros,” says Rice. “We help down-and-out cowboys with food and God’s word through the Rockin’ W Rodeo Ministries, too.”
This was no backwoods place, however. The spacious wooden church was created by intelligent design, and I’m not speaking of our Heavenly Father. It was a human architect who blended ruggedness and technology on these scenic 48 acres with ponds, buildings, and grazing horses. Inside, horseshoes adorned the steps leading up to the wooden platform stage. A metal Lone Star hung on the wall alongside a large State of Texas flag. A Navajo blanket was spread on another step and served as knee padding at the altar.
