Away from the polished and formal settings of manyof today’s churches, faith flows in a Lake Creek barn

At first glance, it looks like a combination hoe-down, barbecue, family reunion and mini-Grand Ole Opry.

But when the sermons get going in Red Rock Cowboy Church’s barn at Lake Creek, you know you’re in the middle of some serious revival religion.

With fiddle and guitar backup, three female vocalists belt out gospel favorites, such as "Uncloudy Day," "Keep on the Sunny Side" and "What a Friend We Have in Jesus," while churchgoers — up to 150 on Saturday evenings — clap and extend hands to heaven.

Red Rock was created by Pastor Mark Albertson to serve the spiritual needs of real-life cowboys and other rural-dwelling working people who may have gone to church as children but as adults feel out of place in the formalities and doctrines of "dressed up" urban churches. Albertson spun the church off from Table Rock Fellowship in north Medford, where he did his ministerial internship.

"I wanted to take us back 50 years, where you’d see a gathering of guys, the sort who’d go off and build a barn together," said Albertson. "I’m not after the domesticated sheep of the city. I’m after the wild sheep in the hills.

Advertisement

"They’re hungry for the Lord and just don’t know it. They don’t trust people right off. It takes a while. You get their trust by being honest."

The church isn’t unique to the Rogue Valley. Hundreds of independent cowboy churches have popped up across the country, mostly in the West, inspired by cowboy ministries started in the early 1970s to minister to buckaroos on the professional rodeo circuit.

Cowboy Church International and Pro Rodeo Ministries based in Tucson, Ariz., is reaching beyond the rodeo crowd in various ways while the Colorado Springs, Colo.-based Fellowship of Christian Cowboys sticks mostly to ministering to rodeo participants. Red Rock uses a free abridged Bible — "The Way for Cowboys" — provided by the FCC.

Red Rock members do rodeos and trail rides to reach Southern Oregon’s cowboys. They also take part in community sports, projects and music events in tiny Lake Creek, 12 miles out of White City off Highway 140. Services are held 6:30 Wednesday and Saturday evenings; Saturday’s services follow a potluck barbecue "to get to know each other and spread the good news (of Jesus)."

Said church elder John Rouhier, "We’re trying to reach people who haven’t set foot in a conventional church since they were six. It’s for cowboys and cowboys at heart — the ones who don’t feel comfortable in a regular church setting."

Worship leader, guitarist and cowboy Bill Jones of Eagle Point had gone decades without church — until May 10, 2003, the day when "I knew this was the place," he said.

"A lot of people have this church thing," Jones said. "They’re on the fence. They’re sitting in this big, formal place and not having a heck of a lot of fun. They might feel pressured by the structured type church. They could go one way or the other. You come here — it’s not a threat. It’s down home."

About one in five parishioners are actual cowboys, said Associate Pastor Mike Reinertsen, but all of them find the church "meets a huge need in the community for a family-oriented worship and fellowship that’s been lost in the large churches. A multitude of people miss that bonding and sense of family and they get it here."

Said parishioner Pam Harris of Central Point, "I’m pulled here. My family is here — my brothers and sisters in Christ."

"It’s like back to basics, back to the values America was raised with — home, family, morality, ethics," said parishioner Phil Deaville.

The church, housed in an old plank barn on Cascade Ranch land (turn right just past the fire station), will sponsor a rodeo on-site Oct. 16-17, with cash prizes and rodeo belt buckles. It also has a pee-wee rodeo for kids.

The church’s rapid growth can be attributed to one thing, said Albertson: love.

"It’s successful because we’re doing what the Lord wants, which is to love one another — then it’s impossible to fail," he said.

Raised on a Lakeview ranch, Albertson knew the lonely ways of cowboys who "drink and run around too much, trying to fill a hole in their heart with something else (other than God) and seeing that hole grow bigger."

Parishioner Evan Duke said he’s licked a drinking problem and "put behind me a lot of anxieties and animosities" coming from his father’s death in a logging accident when Duke was 10.

His wife, Sharon Duke, added, "I truly believe we were led here by God. Evan had been very angry and hadn’t been to church since he was 10. Now, he understands things happen for a reason and he’s let go of it."

Albertson said he received a vision of building a church based on love in the Lake Creek area — even naming it Red Rock and not having to pay for the space initially, he said.

A small group of parishioners from Table Rock thought he was talking about a two- or three-year time frame, but he was talking two or three weeks, said Rouhier.

The church started up in a barn on Old Stage Road in Central Point, receiving support from Table Rock Christian Fellowship the first year. It soon moved to Lake Creek and hopes are to build a permanent church in the near future.

Red Rock’s sermons are rock-bottom fundamentalist — preaching that the end times are at hand and the flock is being divided into "goats," who are covered with filth and will perish — and "sheep" who get sheared of worldly sin and will inherit the kingdom of God for eternity.

"The world is perishing," said Associate Pastor Matt Cook in a recent sermon, quoting many Bible sources. "The day is coming. This is the truth. We know who the goats are, covered with filth, ticks and lice. If they don’t come and be sheared, they’ll flop on their backs and that will be the end of them."

Being funda-mentalist, Red Rock pastors preach the literal word as they find it in the Bible, calling abortion "murder" and homosexuality an "abomination to the Lord," said Cook. However, Albertson noted that people involved in these acts would be welcomed and loved at Red Rock, the same as anyone else, but they would hear the teachings that such actions are sin.

"Why is it working?" Albertson asked. "Well, you drive downtown and see the bars full and the churches empty. It’s because people just want to be loved. They get it briefly at the bars, but it’s false. The churches are empty because they forget to love you.

"Here, we love each other. And we tell it straight — you’ve got two choices: smoking (hell) or non-smoking. You get right or get left."

On the Web

www.christiancowboys.com

Cowboy Church International

www.prorodeoministries.com

John Darling is a free-lance writer living in Ashland.E-mail him at jdarling@jeffnet.org