Orlando-area Cowboy Church is at home on the range

Yippee-ki-yay, praise the Lord, and pass the feed bucket. The Cowboy Church — bringing Jesus to rodeo riders, barrel racers, ranchers, farmers and Western wannabes — is spreading across Florida and the Southeast in a growing effort to bring religion to those who don't much care for church. "We are seeing a lot of people come into the cowboy-church movement who don't normally go to church," said Jay Avant, pastor of Milltown Cowboy Church near Davenport. Meeting in barns, horse arenas and pastures, the Cowboy Church appeals to the unpretentious, the plain-spoken and the keepers of the culture of saddles, Stetsons and pointy-toed boots. There are baptisms in horse troughs, a Cowboy Bible and the Ten Commandments translated into the language of John Wayne: No foolin' around with another fellow's gal; don't be hankerin' for yer buddy's stuff; honor yer Ma and Pa. "They don't want it sugarcoated," Avant said. "They want the plain truth, and they want it to where they can understand it." Avant's two churches — one that meets on a ranch near Davenport and another that congregates in a St. Cloud open-air barn — belong to the Cowboy Church Network of North America, which has grown to more than 60 churches in the Southeast and Canada since its founding in 2004...OrlandoSentinel