By Mark Maynard
Kentucky Today
There are a lot of ways churches are delivering the Gospel to Every Home.
None may be more unique than how Mike Beavers, the pastor of Broken Chains Cowboy Church, did it last week.
Beavers loaded the saddlebags with material from the Kentucky Baptist Convention and his church and jumped on Cinnamon and rode through the rural backroads. He received some stares and confused looks but was largely well-received, prayed with some of those he visited and enjoyed the ride.
Mike Beavers took Cinnamon with him to deliver the Gospel to Every Home to some rural homes in Williamstown, where he pastors Broken Chains Cowboy Church. (Submitted photo via Kentucky Today)
His wife and daughter drove in a pickup truck with him and had the shovel and bucket ready for duty in case Cinnamon, uh, well, you know. “I didn’t want to offend people or make people mad,” he said.
Beavers started the cowboy church last September and saw the Gospel to Every Home as a good way to not only introduce the gospel but also his church to the community. “I need to go door to door and invite people to church and let people know who we are,” he said. “The KBC had this Gospel to Every Home material so why not do it at the same time? So I loaded the saddlebags up and got on my horse.”
Cinnamon is a mare that hadn’t been ridden in five or six years, he said, and had always ridden with other horses. He said the horse needed the exercise and he needed to share the message. The uniqueness of the delivery caught many by surprise.
“Everybody was smiling and looking at the horse, of course,” Beavers said. “Most people did have kind of a confused look and would say, ‘Can I help you?’ A couple of people opened the door before I got there because the horse was neighing. She was letting me know she didn’t like being left alone.”
The reception was positive, he said, with people “taking pictures of us and being excited when I told them who I was.”
Coming to the community on horseback was a good conversation starter for Beavers, who has a church with an aim to make people feel comfortable during their worship service. Cowboy churches have become bigger and bigger with meetings in barns, rodeo rings or even around a campfire. His church meets in a church building but in the fellowship hall, not the sanctuary.
“We have the coffee pot going the whole time and try to keep it relaxed,” he said. “If I’m preaching and somebody has something to say, they can just jump up and say it. It’s for people who don’t want to dress up or have some anxiousness about going to church.”
He said the idea of the cowboy church was started by a man in North Carolina who had stopped for a break after riding his horse and was reading his Bible on the trail. A few people joined him. He asked if they went to church and they looked down, kicked some rocks and told him no. They said Sunday was the only day they could ride. He asked them what if he started a church service in a rodeo arena on a Monday night? They told him sure they’d come and about 50 did, beginning the cowboy church that has now grown nationwide.
He began his church plant through the help of Jerry Tucker, who pastors Cane Run Station Cowboy Church out of Lexington. “It was a two-year process praying about it,” Beavers said.
Beavers said he was able to deliver about 15 packets on the first ride which was interrupted by rain, but he plans to deliver more. His congregation is still small so he’s working the rural roads by himself and hopes to have another 35 Gospel to Every Home kits passed out this weekend.
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