Cowboy church fundraiser, Celina Record

Cowboy church raising funds for arena construction Lisa Ferguson, lferguson@starlocalmedia.com May 13, 2016 Pastor Steve Smith welcomes all worshipers to services at Bold Cross Cowboy Church. Even the four-legged kind. It’s not unusual, he said, for some of its 80 congregation members to tote their horses to Sunday services at the church which are held under a large tent set up in the dirt on donated land at an Aubrey ranch that is situated within Celina’s extraterritorial jurisdiction. The one thing the place is missing that most other cowboy churches boast, Smith said, is a fully equipped outdoor arena for hosting rodeo-style events. It is building one, however, and will attempt to raise the several thousand dollars it still needs to complete the 150-foot-by-300-foot arena during a fish fry and auction event scheduled for Saturday. The arena will serve as Bold Cross’ family life center, Smith said. “That’s where we come together.” Items up for bid will include guns, knives, an autographed Nolan Ryan baseball, a $500 gift certificate for Zimmerer Kubota & Equipment in Denton, Caterpillar-brand remote-control toys, a ladies’ handbag and a handcrafted cross made of horseshoes. Once the arena is complete, Smith said, congregation members on weekends will be able to “get up in the morning, load their horses up, come to church, worship God and then afterwards we might open up the arena for a roping … and we might spend the whole day” there. JJ Cagle oversees Bold Cross’ arena ministry team. He said the venue will be integral to attracting and retaining members who might not otherwise attend weekly services. “People that you can’t get to come inside the church, they’ll go to the arena first. It’s more [of] a safe place to them,” he explained. “You’re looking at guys who rope and women who [barrel race], people that don’t go to church that often,” Cagle said. “They feel more comfortable out there in the arena than they do going through a church door because it’s more laid back [and] they’re in their normal environment.” The arena “is the heart of the cowboy church,” he said. “If they’re just out there doing what they’re doing then you can start preaching to them, and before they even know it they’re coming to the church house.” Cagle said he hopes to raise about $5,000 through the fish fry and auction. The funds will also help purchase a timing system to be used during the competitive events that will take place in the arena, including “play days” when the church’s youngest members will be allowed to rope and race. Plans are for the church to host its first “ranch rodeo” event over Labor Day weekend, Cagle said. “It’s kind of a twofold ministry,” Smith explained of the cowboy church concept. Congregation members attend “to participate in the (rodeo) events, plus they’re gonna get to hear the word of God.”