What Is Cowboy Church and Why Is It One of the Fastest-Growing Worship Movements in America?

If you watched Brandon Lake FaceTime Dan + Shay today to invite them to Cowboy Church at CMA Fest, you might have found yourself asking a simple question: what exactly is Cowboy Church?

The short answer is that it is exactly what the name says - and so much more than you might expect.

The idea is simple. Cowboy Church is a form of Christian worship that removes every barrier between a person and the gospel. No suits. No pews. No expectations about what you look like, where you have been, or whether you have set foot in a church before. You show up as you are, boots and all, and the door is open.

Brandon Lake described his version of it plainly when he announced the CMA Fest gathering: "Not the kind of church with suits and pews. The kind for the wanderers, the worn-out, the misfits, the ones who aren't sure they belong anywhere."

That sentence is not just a tagline. It is the entire theology of the movement in one breath.

The roots go deeper than you might think. The modern Cowboy Church movement traces back to the early 1970s, when organizations like Cowboys for Christ began meeting in rodeo arenas, barns, and open fields across the American South and West. By 2000, the movement had grown into thousands of congregations - today there are an estimated 5,000 cowboy churches across the United States alone. They are nondenominational, Biblically centered, and built on the simple idea that worship does not require ceremony to be real.

What happens at a Cowboy Church service? The format is informal by design. Worship music tends to lean country, bluegrass, or gospel - sometimes all three. Sermons are short, plainspoken, and Scripture-based without church jargon. There is no collection plate passed around the room. Hats stay on during worship and come off only during prayer. And no one asks you to fill out a visitor card or explain yourself.

The goal is not to make people feel like guests. It is to make them feel like they already belong.

Why it resonates at a place like CMA Fest. Country music has always carried faith in its bones - from the Carter Family to Johnny Cash to the worship artists filling arenas today. CMA Fest draws hundreds of thousands of people to Nashville every June, many of them from rural America, small towns, and communities where faith is woven into daily life but formal church can feel out of reach. Cowboy Church meets them exactly where they are - on a Sunday morning, at a free outdoor stage, before the rest of the day begins.

When Brandon Lake stands at the Chevy Riverfront Stage on June 7 with Dan + Shay beside him, it will not look like a church service in any traditional sense. But for the wanderers and the worn-out in that crowd, it just might feel like one.

Related Article: Dan + Shay Are Joining Brandon Lake for Cowboy Church at CMA Fest and the Call That Made It Happen