Church Growth

Hello everybody, welcome back to my blog spot. After the deer hunt we have been able to get the deer meat processed and we came up with about 150 lbs of deer meat. We have started distributing the meat to some families in the church that we wanted to bless. It was well received and I think we will have a better hunting season next year because we are hunting for other people as well. We have an awesome group at our church and I don't think I would trade them for anything.
This last two weeks I have been amazed at the growth we have had in our church. Last week we had 61 people this week we had 67 and it seems like each week we just keep growing. I love to see new people come into the church. I met a couple of new people this week that my heart just went out to and I hope to see them come back again.
I am excited to see that we are about ready to kick off our women's ministry here in a couple of weeks. We are sending at 6 ladies to go a conference called "COWGIRL GET-TOGETHER" sponsored by Cowgirls of Faith on Friday evening, January 25th and Saturday, January 26th, at the Living for the Brand Cowboy Church in Athens, Texas. Please be praying for our ladies that they would come back refreshed and renewed.
Blessings,
stan

West TX Hunting Trip

This weekend my brother in law Keith"Cookie" Wright and I went to his inlaws place in west Texas to do some hunting for the end of the year. We have had some hard hunting this year trying to find anything here in Nacogdoches, so we were excited to have an opportunity to go and get a free hunting trip in God's Hunting Country. We got 7 deer in 2 days enjoy the pics

My Son

While I was away this weekend my wife took my son to the park and took a bunch of pictures to show me what I missed and made a movie of it. Enjoy

A gift

This Sunday morning my brother in law and I are leaving to go to a ranch on the outskirts of Kerrville, TX. We are going to be hunting there for a few days. They say that the Axis deer are coming right up to the front porch. Well I thought that might be a big exaggeration but they sent pictures that prove it.

I am excited because I have never been able to hunt for axis before. They are a beautiful animal and much larger than a whitetail. This year we are going with a purpose. I have two families in our church that could use some good deer meat and I am dedicating this hunt to the Lord so I can provide for others. I even hope to keep some meat for my freezer. Please pray for a bountiful harvest

My Mommy the Dancer

One day a fourth-grade teacher asked the children what their mothers did for a living. All the typical answers came up -- teacher, nurse, businesswoman, saleswoman, doctor, lawyer, and so forth. However, little Justin was being uncharacteristically quiet, so when the teacher prodded him about his mother, he replied, "Well my mother's an exotic dancer in a cabaret and takes off all her clothes in front of men and they put money in her underwear. Sometimes, if the offer is really good, she will go home with some guy and stay with him all night for money."

The teacher, obviously shaken by this statement, hurriedly set the other children to work on some exercises and then took little Justin aside to ask him, "Is that really true about your mother?" "No," the boy said, "She works for the Democratic National Committee and is helping to get Hillary Clinton to be our next President, but I was too embarrassed to say that in front of the other kids."

Sorry just a little humor, I hope you can laugh at this.

My Anniversary

Well today is the day that is so special to me because today is my anniversary. I have been married to Caye the love of my life for six years now. I know it seems like we have been together all of our lives.

Proverbs 18:22 He who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favor from the LORD.

God has blessed me big as we say in the Cowboy Church.

A wise Cowboy

A friend sent me an email with this radio call in from a young cowboy, I sure was humbled by that child , it goes to show out of the mouth of babes praise is perfected, enjoy. http://www.godtube.com/view_video?viewkey=d5d4ee2c067a456e7c0f

Back to basics

Hi everybody, I have started a new blogspot for the church it is at

http://www.impactcowboychurch.blogspot.com/ so I am gong to get this one back to be my hunting blog. I am attaching some pics of my first Doe this season. My brother Keith is in the Pics as well. He helped me clean her and it sure is good to have help. Enjoy

New Beginnings 11-3-07

This weekend has been great. Starting on saturday we had 1 baby dedication, 3 baptisms, and 1 salvation. It was an awesome night. On sunday I went and preached at the Piney Woods Cutting Horse Association and got to take some members out to it and later we all went to lunch. This was the first Baptism service se have had and boy was it fun.

Our new chuckwagon

Here are some pics of our new chuckwagon. We found it in Woster, Ohio so we are about to take a road trip to go get it. We will leave sunday morning and hopefully be back tuesday. Our Chuckwagon cook is so excited I may have to get him to calm down so he don't have a stroke or something.

It sure will look good going down main street with our new logo on the side

ICC livestock

Cowboy churches are a little different in the fact that they usually have some livestock that belongs to the church. We are no exception now. The only thing now is I am starting to feel like Gus Mccrae on Lonesome Dove with his two pigs because that is what we have now.

We caught two wild pigs that we will fatten up and serve as our "guest of honor" for our first Christmas dinner. Yum Yum come get some.

We have a black one and a red one. The black one thinks he is a real rank twister but I don't think that his foul attitude is going to save him though. The word crafty would cover this mean little critter, but I think in the end the only thing that will cover him is going to be Kraft BBQ sauce.Enjoy the movie and don't laugh too hard.

Blessings

first two services at ICC

Good Morning, I know it has been awhile since I blogged, I have been busy running around trying to get everything taken care of so we could have our first church services.

Let me start and say that starting a new church is not for the weak at heart or for someone who has a not so strong marriage because the stress could cause a heart attack or divorce. I am fortunate that after loosing 53 lbs that I am healthy as a horse and my marriage to my beautiful wife is strong enough to bend and be flexible.

I am very excited about the first two services we had and am looking on to the future. I am going to buy the Baptism Tub today (8ft long water trough). I am hoping to have our first baptism service in about two weeks. I hope to have a good crowd around for that and our first baby dedication will be the 2nd weekend in November.

Our first service we had about 70 people total and the 2nd service we had 43 but we had to compete with the big Piney Woods Fair so although it looks like we went down we had several people call and say that they was going to the fair because it is only once a year and or was going out of town.

I can't wait to see what happens this weekend because it just get's better all the time. I am lucky to have the friends and support staff that have come around me to help me get this started and no one person can do it alone. As a matter of fact I have to lay the credit down at the feet of my staff because it is because of their hard work and contacts that we have been able to grow. I do know how important it is to take care of your staff so we are trying to plan our first staff get a way even if it just one day.

Our praise and worship team we are calling the "On the fly band" because they just flew into our lives and came along right when we needed them. Only God can bring about something like that. I love the sound that they have. It is old style honkey tonk country music put to christian lyrics and old gospel songs. As a matter of fact I thank most of your honky tonkers would feel right at home in our service. We have already had one salvation and several baptisms lined up to be had so I am hanging on for the ride my life.

God Bless,

Launch Date

Well tomorrow we will kick off our new church plant called Impact Cowboy Church of Nacogdoches. Along with the help and support of Liberty Fellowship and The Vine Fellowship of Arlington, TX we are about to kick off our new work. The thing about Cowboy Church is that there is at least a little cowboy in every American. We as American always pull for the under dog and we fancy ourselves as people like John Wayne in the movies. We walk around with a little swagger and we have confidence that can't be shaken but we all know as people we have our flaws. John Wayne in his personal life had many flaws such as alcohol and women. Two big weak points for most men, although he is remembered for being larger than life he still died of Cancer I believe.

Please don't think I dislike John Wayne because I love to catch a good J.W. movie but he represents the fallen man in all of us. In my first two messages I will be preaching about a Biblical character named Nehemiah and he was the real Godly version of John Wayne. He rode into town with a purpose and didn't care who he offended because he served God. He was a real cowboy at heart in Neh 2-11-15 It talk about Nehemiah going out to inspect the walls of of Jerusalem well he went riding on horse back at night so he could secretly examine the wall now with the wall being torn down and rubble being everywhere he had to be a good horseman just to make the ride. Well when he got together with everyone he told them what God wanted him to do and man they came on board with him because he was a leader.

One last thing and it is a small thing but most cowboys have had to deal with alcohol at some point in there life. So did Nehemiah he was the cup bearer for the King, you could say that he got his start serving alcohol because I don't think too many Kings had cup bearers to get them a glass of milk. ;-D just kidding

Next week I will be talking about the revival that broke out once they started listening to the Word of God. I am excited to see what God is doing for us and I hope you will be able to come see us in Nacogdoches, (ROB)

Blessings,

New Logo

We just got our new logo. I fell in love with it. It represents a church that got roped in by the Holy Spirit and was branded for Christ and now through the Power of the Cross are reaching out to the Western Heritage culture, Let me know what you think.

Stan

My little buckaroo

Recently Maw Maw went shopping for Jonathan and got him all fixed up with some Wrangler jeans, boots and belt. Aunt Pam got him a few western shirts so I had to take some pictures of my little buckaroo. Recently a friend of my mine named Rob gave me a cd of a country singer named Rodney Adkins and on that cd was a song called my little buckaroo (I think). It is about how a father notices that his son is growing up and watching daddy in everything he does. Well Jonathan is growing up fast I hope you enjoy the picture.

And so it begins!

We are back from a trip to Fairfield, TX where the Texas Fellowship of Cowboy Churches hosted a Cowboy church planting school. It was a two day event which kicked off Saturday at 12:15 pm and lasted till 9pm and ended with a concert of three different Cowboy bands. It was a great time to be had by all. On Sunday it started at 7am with a chuck wagon breakfast and then started our classes and went on till about 2:30pm.

The one thing that I forgot to tell you was that the temperature was around 100 degrees outside both days and yes after two days of sweating it sure felt good to be back home in our home. Although we were lucky we had our fifth wheel camper so we did have hot showers and A/C at night. We were probably a lot better off than 90% of everybody else. There were people sleeping in their horse trailors and in hotel rooms that were rather quiet expensive.

I was able to take my core group with us to the school. There were 7 of us all together. Keith Wright which is my brother in law which will be our lay pastor of chuck wagon cooking, Rex Crenshaw which will be one of my starting Elders. Darlene Estes which is our Singles Director, Joe and Leigh Rush a sweet couple with a great heart for youth. He used to be a Pro Bull rider. He is either aweful brave or really crazy, which to be honest you need to be a little of both to want to work with Youth, and then there was Caye and I.

It was a great time, and there was about 400 people there for the school. There are going to be a lot of cowboy churches started this year. They think there will be 250 cowboy churches by 2010. Cowboy church is done differently and is more comfortable for those people that are not of the traditional church mindset. It is about bringing people to God in an enviroment that they can understand. When you come to a cowboy church you may hear country and western praise worship music that you might think sounds like honky tonk music and I love it. Sometimes you can look up during praise and worship and see a couple doing the two step or the jitterbug swing during worship. I don't think you will see that in a traditional church. Maybe we need to all rethink our pirpose of church.

We can't expect the lost to jump to when we start reading KJV, it just ain't going to happen, and yes "ain't" is a word in the Cowboy church. Cowboys want to know how God relates in their lives and they are not complicated. It reminds me of Joe Friday "Just the facts!" They want to know that you are a straight shooter and that you don't have any hidden agendas and that you just don't want their money. Which the average cowboy don't have money to throw around. They are loyal people when they are attached to someone or something. They ride for the brand and yes God even wants to save cattle rustlers and horse thieves although everyone else wants them hung for their crimes God wants to pardon them.

So in the spirit of doing something different we are going to be doing team roping's and team ranch rodeos as well as trail rides. God is spreading his grace on Cowboy Churches because they are missionary minded because they are reaching a lost people group right here in the U.S.

Blessings,

stan

What a blast!

What a blast I had this weekend. I went to go preach at a church in Denton, TX that has been in the middle of a major change. The Pastor has stepped down and the congregation has been in a hard place. I was sent there to love on them and for the first time I experience a side of ministry that was so awesome. The Lord gave me direction to just be real with them so I let formality take a back seat and just speak to them like they were old friends that I had not seen in a while. I found it strange that they had certain things that the old pastor would not allow and when they told me about some of them I decided that it was time to so them something different. I got to walk the isle and even touch them as I walked by. I saw there hearts melt when I would stop by and and touch a man's shoulder or just spend time sharing with them the word that the lord had given for them.

It did not go exactly like I planned but I think it was better. I got them to laugh, some cried, some shouted back in rejoicing and praising the Lord. I asked them if they would be willing to be interactive in praising the Lord and they responded. It was fun and I am thankful I had they chance to see people respond to my antidotes of life. I was explaing that my wife and I were about to go to Nacogdoches and how I thought is was funny that the Lord would send a cowboy from High Springs, FL to start a cowboy church in Nacogdoches, TX and how I thought that was an oxy moron and they started laughing but agreed that God had a sence of humor as well.

I hated to leave because I think my 15 month old son found him a girl friend there, and it was great to watch him play with her. Any who all said and done it was awesome. Thanks Pastor David for the chance to share with them.

Blessings

Surprise

Impact Cowboy Church of Nacogdoches

Surprise, I have interesting news to share with you. After months of planning and trying to conceptualize the church I am going to start has some what changed into something a little different than I originally planned for, but it is awesome to watch God shape and mold something to bring about his plan to being reality. I started meet with people in Nacogdoches about starting our church and things started coming evident pretty quick. First I had always planned on having a church that was in the country side of life. For instance I was thinking about having praise and worship with the country and western sound and I had thought about rustic design for the church, but what everybody really wanted in the town was a Cowboy Church. The more I started thinking about it the more I started to see that they already have enough "church" on every corner but you usually want see many cowboys there because it is too much for them. They want a place where they belong and can feel like they can contribute with their unique gifts that are not in much demand at a normal church. At a cowboy church if you can rope you can easily lead someone to Jesus.

In Nacogdoches we have a coffee shop called Java Jacks and trust me they have some awesome coffee in you are ever in town they are better than Starbucks, but any how on their sign out front it says "Down the street from ordinary". Well that got me thinking and I had to ask my self did I really want to do something for God or did I just want to do something? I know that I want to do something for God! The closest Cowboy Church around is about thirty miles away. This way I am not trying to edge in on somebodies so called turf or their corner of the Kingdom.

Most Cowboy churches are usually Baptist and in fact it has become one of the fastest growing church planting concepts that they have, but I am not Baptist I consider myself practically Charismatic. I came across a church that changed my life called The Vine Fellowship and a Pastor named David Kerr who believed enough in me to allow me to serve with him. I have always been different than most people at our church but that was how God has made me and I love the fact that I grew up on farms and ranched for a time of my life and that I like hunting and have a passion for sharing it with others so they can learn to enjoy God's creation for themselves. I have been studying 1 Corinthians and in chapter 12 it talks about the Body of Christ, well although I am doing something just a Little different I am still in the same Body and I think that is the awesome ways of God how he uses different people to do the same work but yet in a different way.

A friend of mine named Rob is always excited in showing people how to discover and use their spiritual gifts. Well I am getting excited about the same thing except I am going to a different type of people.

I will keep you informed as I get information.

Blessings,

Stan

Strange days

I had meetings with two of the leading pastors here in Nacogdoches yesterday and they both asked me not to plant a church here because it is already strained in the area and they have had a downturn on finaces here in town. I thought it was funny thought how one of them wanted me to go start a church in Lufkin saying that it was more fertile ground and even offered finacial help in doing so. These were the same people who several months ago said that it would be great to have the help here in town.

Frustration is the word of the day around here, the job market is looking pretty rough and we will be leaning on the Lord to get us through. I am having to pick myself up and dust myself off and go on. Please pray for me and my family for wisdom and financial backing.

Blessings,
Stan

Rain rain go away come back another day.

Well friends, I am in Nacogdoches, TX where I want to move and we have been taking a few days to relax because of the rain and thought that a good couple of days down time would be awesome, but it has never quit raining yet and the extended forecast shows the next eight days with rain and thunder storms. I am in a coffee house here in Nacogdoches called Java Jacks and it is raining so hard it is going sideways.

I knew something was wrong when I heard a knock at the door and saw Noah, he wanted to borrow a can of coffee, it really bothered me when he asked if I thought it might last for 40 day's or not. What was that about? Sorry enough with the bad jokes. I am just a little sad because of the weather and wanted to see anyone felt the same way I do.

I am trying to make appointments with the local pastors here in town to get to know some of them better. I am also wanting to get hooked up with the ministry alliance in town.

Well that is what is going on with me today,
Blessings,
Stan