It started with a simple prayer.

Faced with a growing dissatisfaction with his ministry, Blair Bates and his wife Brenda told God that whatever he wanted of them, they would do; wherever he wanted to send them, they would go. Bates admits that they wanted to stay in the Okanagan Valley where they'd put down roots, but they were serious about their prayer. God, in turn, began leading them down an unusual path of ministry.

Seven years later, the Cowboy Valley Church is reaching out to the unique cowboy community prevalent in southern British Columbia. The venture began in a small way, following that prayer. With a daughter eager to take riding lessons, they began building relationships, first with the owner-operator of a riding school.

As with his first prayer of obedience, another simple prayer played a part once again. As the riding-school's owner coped with a major family health crisis, Bates offered to pray. "She knew I was a pastor, so she said yes and we prayed," he recalls.

When God healed her husband, Bates soon found that he was being asked to pray for rodeo participants' safety in a year when injuries abounded. "That was a door that God was opening," he said. Within a short time he found himself asked to pray before rodeos beyond Peachland. From those humble beginnings, the overall ministry began to develop.

Within four short years, he was holding mid-arena services at least once a month for rodeo participants. Soon he was asked to do the same for high school rodeos throughout the region.

"It's all about building relationships within this community," he notes. "All of them (the cowboy community) are God's children. They don't go to church, they may drink and carry on and they may take the Lord's name in vain, and yet 'church' is a very real part of their culture.

"Cowboys have a very deep love and reverence for God's creation. They acknowledge God as creator and they also understand that he is sovereign over his creation. There is an undercurrent of respect for God- unspoken, but it's there."

Throughout southern British Columbia there is, he says, a huge cowboy community. "In our area alone there are more than 1,000 ranches." Major gatherings for this community often focus around rodeos, with 300-400 events annually.

While Bates's focus is on the cowboy community, he notes that the same principles apply for any pastor or individual seeking to impact their own communities. First and foremost is that initial prayer of obedience to God's will. Then it is waiting for God to show you individuals and ways you can serve.

"Maybe your 'culture' is a business culture at the local Chamber of Commerce or Lion's Club, but your approach must be the same. Learn the culture, live your life before them and understand that God loves them."

Bates's background as a musician and worship leader also showed rodeo conveners that he was comfortable 'on stage' with the result that, over the years, he has increasingly been called into action as the rodeo announcer. That too, he sees as a God thing. His visibility as the announcer leads to interest in his pre-rodeo prayer times which, in turn, leads to a deeper interest in the overall ministry.

Cowboy Valley Church now holds biweekly services. Attendance varies. "Sometimes there are just a few. Other times we get more." Part of that is the fluid nature of the cowboy lifestyle - a sense of individualism and independence rather than spending time as a group. He also notes that some of the individuals he's counseled and spoken with over the years may not be attending his services but are, in fact, frequenting other churches across the valley and around southern B.C.

"God gives us a little bit more each year," he says, noting that this Christmas he held a Christmas Eve service in the barns at the riding school. "It was about as close to that first Christmas as you could probably get - worshiping Christ, surrounded by the sounds and smells of the animals." More than two dozen people showed up for that simple, but moving service and they are people who intrinsically are seeking more.

As he lives his life, Bates knows he is under a microscope. "We know that people are watching us. They want to see whether we live out God's truth in front of them." In his own humanness, he remains vulnerable before his community.

"They've seen my mistakes, heard my apologies and they accept me." That genuineness and flawed humanity strikes a chord with the cowboy community who celebrate honesty above most values. "They don't expect me to be perfect in front of them. I am 100 percent where I am supposed to be!"

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