Maverick minister rides rodeo circuit

c. 1999 Religion News Service TAFT, Tenn. _ The covered horse arena filled with a red haze from the dust stirred up by the morning barrel races seems an odd place to have church. But on a recent Sunday afternoon in the State Line Arena, cowboys and cowgirls shuffle by with fist-sized hamburgers; wranglers work […]

c. 1999 Religion News Service

TAFT, Tenn. _ The covered horse arena filled with a red haze from the dust stirred up by the morning barrel races seems an odd place to have church.

But on a recent Sunday afternoon in the State Line Arena, cowboys and cowgirls shuffle by with fist-sized hamburgers; wranglers work the calves for the afternoon calf roping through the gates once to show them where to go; and spectators and cowboys drift over to the rough-plank seats on the wall near the concession stand.


Standing on the dirt floor in front of the bleachers, Mike Robertson picks up his well-worn Bible with the black calfskin cover and invites people to have a prayer with him.

Three horses lined up at the rail assume the comfortable, half-lidded look humans sometimes get in more conventional churches, and as Robertson starts preaching, one calf in the corner moos a low “amen.”

Church can happen anywhere, Robertson said.

Robertson, a champion rodeo pick-up cowboy, rodeo judge and a preacher who lives in Huntland, Ala., knows his being a rider and a minister gives him a special calling.

“Riding pick-up gave me an `in,”’ Robertson explained after his short sermon, filled with ranching and riding metaphors. “This way the cowboys don’t see me as just a preacher coming to set up a table and hand out Bibles. It’s earned me a lot of respect from a lot of cowboys who didn’t know me before.”

No wonder. When a cowboy in trouble sees Robertson angle his fast, calm horse close beside a bucking bronco whose hooves might be kicking as high as his head, lean over to calm the bronco so he can slip off, or feel Robertson’s firm grasp set him back straight on the bronco’s back so he can untangle his hand, he respects the minister.

This preacher, after all, can quite literally save him in more ways than one.

Three times running, cowboys have voted him Pick-up Man of the Year at the Professional Cowboys Association finals in Biloxi, Miss.

But ask Robertson for rodeo stories, and he’s more likely to tell you about pick-ups of a different sort: fellows wanting to talk to him about their problems while he pens bulls, cowboys asking for prayer for a child facing surgery, the wife of a rodeo rider who prayed for salvation after one of his sermons while she watched the bull-dogging below.


He takes up an offering in that same manner.

“There’s a hat out down here for an offering for this ministry,” Robertson says at the end of his short sermon. “If you’ve got it to give, give. If not, don’t. And if you need some, take it.”

“I’m not down there to get their money,” he said later. “Judging, riding pick-up, horseshoeing and Patti’s secretarying provides our income. We’re able to pay our own way _ I think that’s given me a lot of credibility.”

Robertson’s unusual ministry involves the entire family, who travels with him to as many as 40 rodeos a year. Both Julie, 14, and Daniel, 10, compete in their age groups.

Patti Robertson works as a secretary for rodeos, keeping track of entries and money.

“Any man can be called to the ministry and can pastor a church,” Patti Robertson said. “But not any man can go out and do what we do. Rodeo people are on the road on Sunday. You’ve got to take the Word to them because you’re not going to have these people walk into church.”

Walking into church would not have been on Robertson’s mind back when he was a senior in high school and beginning to travel the rodeo circuit as a bull rider.

“I didn’t want nothing to do with church or with God,” Robertson said during his sermon. “I ran around with a pretty wild bunch _ you know, kind of a local beer-joint-type band deal. But I had a couple friends get killed in wrecks. That kind of got my attention.”


After college, he served as pastor of several conventional churches. But Robertson still felt the pull of the rodeo. He competed some and said a few words when a rodeo organizer asked him to speak one Sunday.

One rodeo led to another, and after 12 years of conventional ministry while working rodeos and writing inspirational pieces for rodeo magazines on the side, Robertson resigned four years ago to work rodeos full time.

“I can’t tell you the people Mike has influenced,” said longtime friend Wayne Thornton, a gospel singer and part-time rodeo clown who has helped Robertson with revivals and cowboy church services. “He doesn’t argue about religion _ he lets his actions prove him out.”

Robertson shrugs off any suggestion that what he is doing is extraordinary.

“We didn’t plan it this way,” Robertson said. “But I think everybody’s got to fit with what they’ve got.”

DEA END CAMPBELL

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