
Cowboys are infamous for their John Wayne lifestyle; hard-bitten and hard-drinking. But new Cowboy churches are starting every week across the USA, in a movement pioneered in the mid 1980's by ranchers and rodeo professionals such as Glen Smith (known as the 'cowboy apostle') and Rev Ted Presley, president of one of the oldest 'Cowboy ministries', Cowboys for Christ. With Country style music for hymns and worship, church services are conducted in ranches, arenas and barns and often, cowboy parishioners turn up to listen to the sermon on horseback.


Left, top: Young Cowboys worship at the church service held at the youth Rodeo competition in Mineral Wells,Texas. Bottom: Pastor Monty Price, baptises Shaun by full emersion in his horse's drinking trough, Midland,Texas. Right: Pastor David De Arond giving an alter call at the Cowboys for Christ Barn Church, in Chandler, Oklahoma.