wfn.org | UMNS# 04424-Texas church ropes in cowboys at Arena Church

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Texas church ropes in cowboys at Arena Church 

Sep. 20, 2004	 News media contact:   * ( ) * {04424}

NOTE: Related resources are available at
http://www.umc.org/interior.asp?mid=5643.

A UMC.org Feature
By David Frey*

When Curtis House was pastor of Happy (Texas) United Methodist Church, he
wanted to reach the cowboys of the massive cattle yards surrounding his north
Texas Panhandle town. If he couldn't get them to church, he figured, he'd
create a congregation where they might feel more comfortable.  
 
With two prayer partners, both devout United Methodists and cowboys like him,
House launched the Arena Church in a community center next to the rodeo
grounds of this rural town of about 600. It's a sort of cowboy church like
others that have caught on in Texas and throughout the country, where
cowhands find a less formal service in a familiar setting and churchgoers
don't mind if they show up fresh from the feedlots.
 
"We've had cowboys show up in boots and spurs," House says.
 
Some cowboy churches are traditional, some charismatic. Some are
nondenominational. Some, like the Arena Church, are affiliated with an
organized denomination. What they share is an informal approach meant to
welcome farm workers, ranch hands and rural residents who might otherwise
shun organized religion.
 
Four huge feedlots surround Happy, where cowboys spend long hours working in
the mud and manure six days a week. Most of the cowboys didn't want to come
to church in dirty boots and sweaty shirts. A lot of them were suspicious of
organized religion. Many worked Sundays, anyway.
 
So House, with prayer partners Mike Kuhlman and Steve Friskup, opened the
Arena Church in 1999, kicking it off with a Labor Day calf roping that also
roped in interested congregation members. The church held services on weekday
evenings when cowboys were able to attend. 
 
Organizers put out flyers at nearby feedlots, cattle auctions and stores like
Wal-Mart. House even saddled up and rode among cowboys on the feedlots,
spreading both the Gospel and word about the church.
 
"With me being right beside them on horseback, it makes a difference," says
House, a roper himself who grew up on a nearby farm.
 
The Arena Church has since moved into Happy United Methodist Church, freeing
up the fees the congregation was paying to use the community center to give
back to churchgoers in need. Several who started out going to the Arena
Church are attending regular Sunday services. 
 
"It brought some people into the church that, for whatever reason, were never
giving the church a chance," says the Rev. Tom Stribling, Happy's pastor, who
replaced House after he was reassigned. "They believed in God, but they
didn't like religion or denominations. That was their excuse not to attend."
 
Starting the Arena Church, he says, "took their excuses away."
 
"It ministers to a group that a lot of the time we can't reach other ways,"
Stribling says. "They aren't real open and won't go to a church inside a
church building, but they'll come to this Arena Church because of what it is.
It's an outreach that really opens some doors up that otherwise we wouldn't
be able to walk through."
 
Like a more traditional church, the Arena Church includes singing, prayers
and speaking. But the songs are more contemporary, played by a praise band
that formed for the congregation's cowboy services but now plays on Sundays
too. Participants speak, but there may be no minister, and the lesson may not
resemble a sermon. 
 
"In most cases, it's like giving your testimony, sharing something in your
life as an individual," Stribling says.
 
Instead of passing an offering plate, the church places a cowboy hat at the
entrance, and churchgoers are asked to drop in whatever they can afford. If
they need money, they're asked to take it out. The church has given
congregation members money to get into drug rehabilitation and to get caught
up on pickup truck payments.
 
These days, Kuhlman, a local farmer, heads up the weekly service. Although it
started as a cowboy church, cowboys aren't the only ones who show up, he
says. Others like the lively, nontraditional services, too. Sometimes, as
many as 50 people turn out.
 
"It's made up of all kinds of people," he says. "Businessmen. Nurses. School
teachers. Kids. Different types of people."
 
People who have never felt comfortable going to church feel comfortable at
the Arena Church, he says.
 
"It's an outreach ministry," House says, "to try to pull them into a
relationship to the church, to a worldwide body. Yes, they are reluctant, but
as they become comfortable with you, they'll show up in church on Sunday
mornings."
 

*Frey is a freelance writer in Carbondale, Colo.
 
News media contact: Matt Carlisle, Nashville, Tenn., (615) 742-5470 or
newsdesk@umcom.org.

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United Methodist News Service
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