Cowboy roams Idaho, planting churches

Wearing a hat like the one cowboy actor Tom Mix made famous in westerns in the '20s and '30s along with a vest, brown cowboy boots and a full gray beard, Jim Ballard looks like he just stepped out of a Hollywood studio. But unlike the silver screen cowboys of old, Ballard spends his long Idaho days recruiting church planters and helping plant churches as director of missions for the Eastern Idaho Southern Baptist Association. He also has served as a North American Mission Board worker for the past seven of his 37 years in ministry. "Probably the greatest challenge I face is the distances I have to cover," said Ballard, whose association is made up of 13 counties and surrounded by three states -- Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. "There's a lot of distance between places up here." With his home in Blackfoot, Idaho -- midway between Pocatello and Idaho Falls -- Ballard, 57, says he puts an average of 75,000-80,000 miles a year on his vehicle as he covers his assigned territory. Ballard preaches at a different church every Sunday in his association, which includes 13 churches and two missions. Some are without pastors or are church plants which haven't yet called a pastor, so Ballard often fills in. He may preach in as many as three churches on a given Sunday, some three hours or 200 miles apart...AP