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A Cowboy’s Most Distinguishing Mark

Without a doubt, a cowboy’s most distinguishing mark is his hat; the kind of hat, the crease, the color, the way he wears it, and so forth. My mother used to tell stories about the way her father  wore his hat. My grandfather was never a slave to fashion, especially when it came to wearing his hat. My mother said that when he bought a new hat, he never had it creased. And she said that when he picked up his hat to put it on, that he always just grabbed it by the crown and jabbed it on his head, totally unaware if it was frontward or backward or whatever.

Certainly, for my grandfather, his hat was his most physically distinguishing mark. My mother said, she never had a hard time picking him out of a crowd, all she had to do was look for his hat. Continue reading “A Cowboy’s Most Distinguishing Mark”

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Essential Things Every Cowboy Needed In Order to Survive In the Wild West

Most drovers on a trail drive didn’t have much to call their own. They may have owned a saddle, some tacking and a bedroll. Many did not even own a horse. On a trail drive, they would draw one, usually green broke out of the remuda.

But there were some things most had in order to survive and to make life a bit more bearable on the long trail drive. Rich M. in an article in “Off the Grid News” listed “15 Things Cowboys Carried With Them In The Wild West To Survive.”

I will make a short paraphrase of those 15 essential things he believed every cowboy needed . . . Continue reading “Essential Things Every Cowboy Needed In Order to Survive In the Wild West”

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What is the Purpose of the Church?

What is God’s Purpose of the Church? Is it a place of worship? Is it a place of Christian fellowship? Is it a place where believers can be strengthened and equipped for the work of ministry? Is its purpose to make disciples and evangelize a lost world with the Gospel of Jesus Christ? Yes, to all the above and lots more, too.

One of our daughters attended a Christian university in Illinois. On one of her school breaks she asked my input about an assignment given by one of her professors: “Define the Purpose of the Church”. We spent considerable time over her school-break discussing and debating possible answers. We came up with two main ideas:

  1. To carry out the Great Commission given by Christ; i.e., to carry the gospel to a lost world.
  2. To serve as a place of worship and to equip the saints for ministry.

Maybe it depends upon one’s doctrinal and theological views and Biblical interpretations to insightfully answer that question. If one’s view of the Continue reading “What is the Purpose of the Church?”

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Comparing the Church to an Old-Fashioned Branding

When I think of a local functioning church, I imagine an old-fashioned branding. At a branding, everyone has a job to do. There are no by-standers; no observers–everyone has an assigned task to do:

  •      Someone tends the gate
  •      Another rounds-up the calves
  •      One does the roping
  •      A person attends the fire
  •      There is one who heats the irons
  •      Someone holds the calf (That was usually my job)
  •      While another does the branding

And if some folks remined after jobs were assigned, well they didn’t just stand around. They got involved too, doing everything they could to assist, Continue reading “Comparing the Church to an Old-Fashioned Branding”

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The Real Deal

I carry an 1878 Morgan silver dollar in my pocket. I do it for a couple of reasons. For one, a dear friend gave it to me a number of years ago and told me that every time I reached in my pocket and felt the coin, it would be a reminder that he was praying for me–a pretty good reason.

But there’s another reason. I carry it because it is authentic. It is the real deal. it is the most authentic thing I have that actually identifies me with the cowboy of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It is the exact currency cowboys carried in their pockets and used to buy, sell and  trade.

You know the old saying, “If only this coin could talk!” I often rub the silver dollar between my thumb and finger and wonder, where all has this coin been? How many pockets, how may hands have handled it? How many Continue reading “The Real Deal”