They’re horse lovers and rodeo fans. They cowboys at heart and Christian in spirit.
It’s one of the fastest growing “brands” of Christian faith, picture ten gallon hats and a faithful steed, where a pastor wrangles a faithful flock of cowboys.
“We figured out about 10 years ago that there are more horses per person in South Carolina than there are in Texas,” said Pastor Doug Jones of the Happy Trails Cowboy Church in Pelzer.
Jones preaches in a metal building along Highway 25. Along the front, the best parking spaces are reserved for visitors. This signs read “visitors hitch ‘em here”.
It’s a cowboy church, preaching in the cowboy way, filled with cowboy hats, although Jones admits, there are no actual cowboys.
Instead, “Happy Trails” is part of a nationwide movement attached to the horse community. Part of a wave of cowboy churches, growing in number and size, Happy Trails grew from 40 members a year ago to 140 now.
The service begins with a clanging bell and a western-style call to worship, “let’s get ‘er started”.
A bluegrass band, more Appalachian than Western starts the service with old fashioned gospel tunes. The cowboy bible has a rodeo story buried in the book of Revelation. The four horsemen of the apocalypse have company.
The congregation’s toes start tapping.
“I’ve been a cowboy ever since I was knee high to a grasshopper,” said Roy Doucette. “Roy Rodgers was my hero.”
The “Cowboy” church started in Texas but has been rapidly expanding East. Started in 1972, a rodeo rider and rancher named Glenn Smith opened a cowboy ministry in Midland, Texas.
Now the movement includes groups like the “American Fellowship of Cowboy Churches”, “International Cowboy Church Alliance Network”, and the “Cowboy Church Network of North America.”
Happy Trails Cowboy Church is one of about a dozen cowboy churches in South Carolina affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention.
“We’re just everyday people. We have horses. We like horses and we like to ride,” said church member Ed Beard.
