Cowboy church with Asheville connections

Kentucky.com has the story:

There is no stained glass or fancy carpet.

In fact, for months, members of this church gathered on the packed dirt at a stockyard, patting their feet to the sound of bluegrass gospel music as the smell of manure, hay and diesel fuel wafted through the place.

If the setting doesn’t tell you what kind of church this is, take a look at the pastor, Dewayne Waldrup. He’s not wearing a dark suit and collar or a flowing robe. Nope, the whiskered Waldrup dons a black cowboy hat, jeans and cowboy boots and preaches a few feet away from a leather saddle.

Every service begins with a “Howdy” and a pledge to the U.S. flag. And visitors can put their names in to draw for a fancy belt buckle.

This, folks, is cowboy church.

Now meeting at 7 p.m. every Tuesday at the Bourbon County Fairgrounds, Blue Grass Cowboy Church started up last November at the Bourbon County stockyards and draws weekly crowds of up to 60 people with one thing in common — they love horses, cattle and the “cowboy culture,” says Waldrup, who moved with his wife to Nicholas County in October.

….

Waldrup was raised on a North Carolina farm where he fell in love with horses and daydreamed about being a cowboy and living out West. Now 46, “I never branded cattle or lived on the range, but I’m still a cowboy at heart,” he said.

Waldrup now lives on a 30-acre farm in Moorefield, where he raises horses and other animals. The Waldrup children are all grown. A 23-year-old son in the Army will go on his second tour in Iraq in March. Two daughters — ages 22 and 17 — live in Asheville, N.C., and a 21-year-old son lives in Marion, N.C.