Pastor Gary Morgan

bout 30 miles south of Dallas, Texas, sits the small town of Waxahachie. Known today for its 1800s Romanesque courthouse on the town square, surrounded by vintage Victorian-style homes, Waxahachie in the 1920s enjoyed an economic boom from cultivating cotton. You’ve probably seen some of the town’s landmarks, for scenes in such movies as “Places in the Heart,” “Trip to Bountiful,” “Tender Mercies” and “Bonnie and Clyde” were filmed there. Waxahachie is the county seat of Ellis County – which is home to one of America’s first and largest cowboy churches: Cowboy Church of Ellis County. Pastor Gary Morgan, one of the movers and shakers in the quickly expanding Cowboy Church movement in the United States, shares his insights on a culture’s impact on churches, American schools’ impact on today’s kids, the burnout that many people experience today, and the impact of the beauty of God’s creation.

ATTL: Are you a native Texan?
GM: Yes. I spent the younger part of my life on a ranch that my grandfather owned and spent my teenage years in San Angelo, Texas. I graduated high school from Wall, Texas – a farming community school. Looking back, I guess the ranch probably didn’t make enough money to self-support, so my dad and granddad had a concrete construction business, and they built stock tanks. Many of the stock tanks that you see in central and west Texas today were built by them years ago. While growing up, I spent a lot more time hanging out in the pasture than I did in town, by a long shot.

ATTL: What do teens do in pastures?
GM: Shoot things, mainly.

ATTL: How did the ranching and rural life influence you?
GM: I always felt I had a lot more in common with my grandparents’ generation and maybe even my parents’ generation than I did with the generation of the 60s and 70s. I grew up with the instinct that some of those things were going away, and I always thought that was sad. There are fewer farm and ranch people today than there’s ever been; but there’s still a whole lot of people who still ascribe to that culture and keep it alive, whether they’re rodeo cowboys or just horse hobbyists or whatever. It’s a big group of people that the cowboy churches reach – people who have an affinity for that older, rural culture that's not as prominent as it used to be.

ATTL: What are some of the characteristics of that culture, which cause a need for a different kind of church?
GM: One of the fascinating things to me when I first became involved in the cowboy culture was discovering that people who are affiliated with the cowboy churches move in a completely different orbit than the American culture as a whole. You would rarely see them at Wal-Mart, Target, Office Depot and other places where you would commonly expect to bump into people you know. Certainly you wouldn't see them at the mall. They buy their clothes in Western Wear stores. They buy most of the things that they need in the feed store, the tack store, or at Tractor Supply.

ATTL: What is their cultural attitude toward church?
GM: They tend to be more patriotic than the average bear – very, very dedicated to God and country. The old-time values that perhaps my grandparents grew up with are still very much alive. They’re very open to the Gospel. That’s why the cowboy churches are essentially experiencing revival right now. They’ve always been open to the Gospel, but they have not been necessarily open to the padded pews and the type of worship experience available to them in traditional churches.

ATTL: So most of the people who join cowboy churches are previously unchurched?
GM: That’s correct.

ATTL: How do they find out about the cowboy churches?
GM: Word of mouth in this culture is even faster than word of mouth in the broader culture. They’re very well networked, partly because equine interests are such a big part of the culture. Word spreads dynamically in this culture as they encounter each other at roping events, feed stores, veterinary clinics, and similar places.

ATTL: What are some of the mistakes that traditional churches make in trying to reach people in this culture?
GM: Thinking that, “They’re just like us except for cowboy boots.” They truly have a different life experience and different thought process. They tend to be highly individualistic and self-sufficient. They strongly resist the pressure to conform that is, unfortunately, present in so many traditional churches. The idea that they need to be coddled through every crisis by a pastor or other church member is also foreign to them. It's not that they don't need help from time to time. They do. It's just that, generally speaking, they prefer to be given space to work things out themselves. If they need you, they'll call. Frankly, I had to unlearn 90 percent of what I knew as a traditional pastor when I entered the Cowboy Church movement. Most of what I had been taught simply did not work. In fact, I often found that I had to do the exact opposite of what I had been taught in order to be effective. It's quite different.

ATTL: When were you saved?
GM: I was saved in 1982 as a result of a premarital counseling session. I was lost as a goose in a snow storm when my wife and I decided to get married. She wanted a church wedding. I really didn't care what kind of wedding it was as long as I got the girl. Part of the deal of getting a church wedding was to sit down and visit with the pastor and do premarital counseling. He shared the Gospel in that session in such a way that it made sense to me. It was the first time that anybody had put it out there in a way that clicked with me. Shortly after we began to attend church, I went ahead and made the decision to accept Christ.

ATTL: When did you feel the Lord was calling you to become a pastor?
GM: It almost seems like that was there at that initial experience with Christ. But certainly by 1986 I was sensing it really significantly, and by 1987 I just couldn’t ignore it any more. At a Sunday night church service, an old gentleman with just one lung preached while our pastor was out of town. At the end of the service, he gave the standard altar call like they all used to do. But then he also went on and said, “The Lord has laid it on my heart that there’s somebody here who needs to answer the call to full-time ministry, and you need to take care of that right now.”

Well, it was just like he had a rifle scope on me. I felt in my heart that he was speaking right to me. Oddly enough, it actually made me mad. I didn’t go forward. I left, really frustrated about it. But it wasn’t very many days before I called the pastor and talked to him about it. I was hoping he would talk me out of it, but he didn’t. Instead, he shared that decision with the whole church the following Sunday, and that’s where it kicked off.

ATTL: Is this your first pastorate?
GM: No. In the first part of 1989, I went back to college and finished my degree. While I was doing that, I pastored a little rural church just outside of San Angelo. After I completed college, my wife and I thought we might go to the mission field. The people at the Foreign Mission Board told us that it would be a good thing if we went to seminary somewhere out of our comfort zone so we would get an idea of whether or not the mission field was really for us.

So we went to seminary at Midwestern Baptist Theological in Kansas City, Missouri. I went through it OK, but it was really tough on the family. My wife, especially, was not happy there, and we were definitely looking to come back to Texas just as soon as I got out of seminary. I pastored all the way through seminary, too, at a little rural church there. When we came back to Texas, I pastored a Baptist church up in the Panhandle. And then I came here eight years ago. 

ATTL: Is there a Bible verse that’s special to you – one that you rely on a lot when you’re troubled?
GM: There absolutely is. It’s Philippians 4:6-7: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

ATTL: Is there a time in your life when you were really troubled about anything?
GM: Yes. About a year ago, after being one of the key leaders in the Cowboy Church movement, as well as pastoring a church that grew from 350 to 1,500 in attendance, I experienced a pretty severe and significant burnout. It speaks so highly of the way our church has come together over the years, that they were gracious during that time and gave us an open-ended sabbatical. I spent about four months away on sabbatical. I didn't really travel much, but I did go to a spiritual retreat. Primarily I spent a lot of time charging my batteries, seeking God’s face and trying to hear his voice, and get his leadership for the future.

ATTL: Burnout is becoming more and more prevalent in the American culture.
GM: I personally believe that whether you’re talking about the cowboy culture or about the broader American culture, we are over-efficient, over-booked and over-stretched. I think that very few people have the emotional and spiritual strength to keep their connection with God, much less the spiritual and emotional strength to truly love, care for and minister to one another.

One of the greatest challenges that spiritual leaders face is not yielding so much to the pressure that’s out there to be busy, busy, busy and perform, perform, perform like the rest of the culture does. I think that it is important for us to set the example of slowing down and being able to have time to hear from God and being able to have enough margin to deal with our families and our flocks without getting caught up in people’s expectations. I think the greatest thing that the American culture needs to see is a life that is truly lived in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.

ATTL: In the United States, August is a month when parents are thinking about their kids going back to school. Do you have any advice for Christian parents who are concerned these days about the culture that their children are encountering in American schools?
GM: I frankly have some regret that we let our kids go through the public school system. I think that our kids encountered a lot of things there that were not the healthiest things. If we had it to do over again, I don’t know if we would do it differently, because our kids are very smart. All of our kids are just off the chart, and we didn’t feel qualified to teach them at home. But I think that they went through a lot of difficult things in the schools.

It’s a very difficult culture out there now. I would say to parents, “Be sure you are communicating with your kids and that you’re on top of what they’re hearing, what they’re learning, and what they're being fed in our public school system. I don’t mean that we don’t have some awfully good people in the public school system, because we absolutely do. But my goodness, there are a lot of things that they’re having to teach, and a lot of curriculum they’re having to present, and a lot of ways of thinking that they’re, frankly, having to dance around. The fact is God is a persona non grata in our public school systems. And, the fact that kids are there for six or eight hours a day, five days a week, is clearly something that’s to be overcome, not embraced.

ATTL: Do the people in your church come to you for counseling, or is that not a part of the rural culture?
GM: A cowboy church generally requires significantly less pastoral care than a traditional church. However, the first associate pastor I hired was a counselor. They certainly do have issues, just like everybody else does. Their issues tend to be really complex and ugly. When you’re dealing with a high percentage of unchurched people, you’re talking about people who may have significant alcohol or drug issues or sexual addictions that may go back for a long time. Many will have broken or dysfunctional families. You’ve got to have a means for helping them work through these things. But when it comes to smaller issues, or surgeries, or things like that, they feel very capable of going through those things all by themselves. You don’t find many people who have been around horses all their lives who haven’t had some broken bones and bruises. I think that rural people are just a little bit tougher folk; they just shake a lot of stuff off. And the culture probably encourages some of that man-up-and-be-tough kind of attitude.

ATTL: Is there something that you always wanted to do that you haven’t done yet? 
GM: I don’t really think that there is. I have been very blessed. I’ve gotten to try and do so many different things through the years. I’ve gotten to ride, rope, hunt, scuba dive, travel, and fly fish. I’ve raised three wonderful kids and been blessed with a fantastic wife. I've also gotten to pastor one of the most amazing churches on earth, and to be a part of an explosive movement of God's spirit in the Cowboy Church movement. I've experienced a broad range of life, and I’m pretty content.

ATTL: You mentioned you’ve traveled and also been in the ocean. Is there a part of God’s creation on this earth that you think is more breathtaking scenery than anything else?
GM: Wow. You know, I just tend to see the beauty wherever we are. For example, in our early married life, we spent significant time in the Texas Panhandle – and most people are probably familiar with the fact that it’s not really scenic. But the Panhandle has some of the most beautiful sunsets there that you’ll ever see anywhere in the world. And the ability to look out across 20 to 50 miles and see thunderclouds moving across the sky is beautiful. I saw God’s created beauty out in the flatlands of west Texas, and I’ve seen it in the paradise of Hawaii, in the Rocky Mountains, and I see it where we are today. There are different kinds of beauty, but in its own way, it all carries the mark of God. I tend to see the beauty of his creation everywhere.

ATTL: The cowboy churches are rapidly expanding across the United States.
GM: Yes, they’re growing fast. When I first came to the Cowboy Church of Ellis County, it was either the first or second cowboy church that was affiliated with the Baptist General Convention of Texas. My understanding is that now there are over 140. We’re also seeing a real expansion of cowboy churches in Alabama, Kansas, Arkansas and Louisiana; and there are some in Colorado, Montana and New Mexico. They are cropping up all over the nation.

ATTL: So your church and many of the cowboy churches are Baptist-oriented.
GM: Yes, we’re absolutely Baptist in our theology, but a traditional Baptist would never figure out who’s on first. It’s quite a different model, and the philosophy undergirding these churches is significantly different.

ATTL: In what ways do they differ?
GM: In the beginning, we carefully identified issues that were causing churches to struggle, decline or plateau. As we put together what we felt could be workable, we asked ourselves: “Is this something that we can put down or change without violating the Scriptures?” And if the answer to that was “yes,” and we felt that it would be more effective, then that’s what we did.

The cowboy church is a low-barrier model; everything is looked at from the unchurched person’s point of view. So, for example, we don’t pass an offering plate, we don’t have an altar call, and the music is more spectator-driven than audience participation. These are things that are very effective in disarming an unchurched person. 

We’ve also changed some of the nomenclature that’s used in church government. We don’t have deacons, for example. We have lay pastors, which somewhat corresponds to that. We found that in a lot of Baptist churches the deacons had become a board of directors, which we did not feel was a very biblical model. We’ve gone back to the biblical servant-based model. Lay pastors are an extension of the pastor to be a servant to the flock. They minister to people, pray with them, visit people, and do many of the other tasks that unfortunately in a lot of churches are primarily handled by hired staff.

ATTL: Do you have advice for anyone who might be interested in starting up a cowboy church in their area?
GM: My biggest piece of advice would be to contact the Texas Fellowship of Cowboy Churches (www.texasfcc.org) if they’re in state; if they’re out of state, they can contact the American Fellowship of Cowboy Churches (www.americanfcc.org). That organization conducts schools four times a year, usually attended by 400-500 people from all over the nation. They give a very good orientation into how and why things are done the way they are in cowboy churches.

To learn more about the Cowboy Church of Ellis County, visit http://www.cowboyfaith.org/ To download Pastor Morgan’s sermons, visit http://www.cowboyfaith.org/multi-media/sermon-archives/