by admin | Aug 26, 2026 | Behind the Bucking Chutes
By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross
Everyone talks like they knew “Dolly” on a first name basis because in a sense, Dolly Parton belonged to everyone through her work, personal way of communicating and her giving.
Christians claim Dolly as theirs because of her expressions of faith.
Progressives claim her as theirs because of her support of loving others even if they’re different from you.
Everyone claims her as their because she literally personifies the American Dream no matter what your politics. She came from nothing here in Sevier County where I get to live, and built herself an entertainment empire that will continue on likely until Jesus comes back.
Dolly’s story gives everyone hope that with hard work and dedication, they can make it.
My reason for being on social media is primarily to be connected with the rodeo and ranching cowboy communities through Cowboys of the Cross. I’m writing this encouragement for you.
Whether you like country music, whether you were born 75 years ago or 15, you know who Dolly Parton is. Many of you have made the trek to Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge and I’ve seen many of you post right from Dollywood.
Whether ranching or rodeoing, you guys know you can’t make it without hard work and dedication. And we know we live in an imperfect and unfair world where not everyone makes it.
Being a Christian cowboy is the same thing. Where Dolly’s success story gives us all hope in what we can achieve here, there’s one more important hope we need to let her faith point us to and that’s the hope that comes in Jesus Christ. It’s an eternal hope where we know even if we don’t make it here, there’s something even greater waiting for us after this life if we put our hope in Jesus.
A saving faith in Jesus, one that guarantees us Heaven, comes from this understanding:
God, who we know is perfect, will not allow our imperfect sin into His presence. He will actually judge and condemn it. Jesus, as God’s son, was sent to live in this world and eventually die on the cross as a sacrifice meant to take God’s full wrath against all of our sins. When we believe in who Jesus was, and is, and what he did for us, we then need to repent of our sin with a sincere desire to be saved and forgiven from God’s judgment. When we do this, God will no longer condemn us but see as us perfect regardless of who we are and we’re given a perfect eternity with Him.
Dolly Parton advocated kindness and to love everyone. This is how God does it—by giving every one the same chance to be saved and spend eternity with Him, no matter who we are and what mistakes we’ve made. He loves us all and wants us with Him for eternity.
That’s a hope that transcends the American Dream and gives us everything we need, success or failure in our own eyes or the eyes of others who wrongly judge us, to make it through this life and to the perfect one waiting for us.
Ephesians 2:8-10 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
by admin | Feb 18, 2026 | Power in our Words
By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross
There’s an expression that sometimes circulates on social media in posts or memes—that the best sermon is lived, not preached.
There’s good intentions in this, but it can really misdirect us.
Our words are incredibly important for two reasons: so that our actions line up with what we say we believe about the Bible and so that we can clearly communicate the gospel. We can live a Christ-like life but if we can’t help people understand what it means to have a saving faith in Jesus, our actions help no one with their eternity.
People want to know why we live differently; why our actions might be different than those. Why did you give money to that homeless guy when you know he’s going to buy drugs? Why didn’t you just knock that guy right off the bucking chutes for acting like that back there? Why would you shake that rodeo judge’s hand when he’s cheated you out of the finals two years in a row?
Even if they don’t come right out and ask it, our actions lead to questions in their thoughts but if they also hear us speak about our faith, they can obviously connect it all together as having something to do with Jesus and the door might open to tell them about our faith if we haven’t found a way to bring it up already.
But how we live our lives and the Christ-centered reasons we give for it can lead to people hating us or challenging us.
1 Peter 3:15-17 but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, 16 having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. 17 For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil.
The hope Peter is referring to here isn’t the same as hoping for a certain outcome, it’s about those with a saving faith in Jesus understanding there is nothing here for us compared to what is to come in an eternity in Heaven. Our hope or trust isn’t in anything from this world but in Jesus and heaven.
Peter wants us to live out a life that honors Jesus and his holiness while being able to tell people how to get to heaven through Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, repentance or our sin and a desire to be forgiven in the understanding Jesus took the punishment that was otherwise meant for our sin.
Peter stresses the importance of how we live our lives, that it can actually lead to suffering in a culture that hates Christian beliefs but because of our efforts to live like Jesus, it makes those who come up against us look shameful.
But he also stresses we have to be prepared to defend our faith and share the gospel with others. Our words are necessary to explain that sermon we are living out.
by admin | Dec 13, 2025 | Behind the Bucking Chutes
By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross
Chances are, Jesus wasn’t born in a stable. That doesn’t make his birth any less humble.
The idea of donkeys and cattle being gathered around is not as likely either.
Those ideas, while appealing to cattlemen, ranchers and cowboys, came along later and now, we grow up singing Christmas carols and songs that reference them and as kids, we grew up with television specials that depicted those kinds of images. Those images are everywhere from expensive pieces of art and home decor to jigsaw puzzles and Christmas cards. It’s understandable that we would make these assumptions when we consider the Christmas story.
I remember as a new believer, hungry to learn more from God’s word every day, that I was looking forward to adding reading what we call the Christmas story from Luke 2, into my Christmas traditions. Christmas morning, I opened my Bible and settled in to read through it. By verse seven, it was all but over in less than a minute of reading.
Luke 2:7 “And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.”
There was no urgent knocking on doors in effort to find a place to stay as Mary was in labor. There was no description of the stable or animals gathered around. The story does continue with an angel of the Lord appearing before shepherds and of their journey to see the newborn Savior but there are very few details describing that manger scene we can all picture in our minds.
The manger, a feeding trough, is our clue that there likely were animals present and Jesus’s birth most certainly was still humble, but according to Steve Mathewson from an article with The Gospel Coalition. Most English translations of the Bible use the word inn but the Greek word being used is “katalyma” which, in two other places of the Bible, Mark, 14:14 and Luke 22:11, translate to “guest room.”
In that time period, historical understanding tells us there was often a downstairs room where animals might be kept for their heat and to keep them protected and it’s likely because there was no room in the guest room where they hoped to stay, Jesus was born in a downstairs family room where a feed trough, a manger, would still be present to feed the animals brought in there at night.
It just doesn’t leave room for donkeys and cattle.
It doesn’t mean we should stop singing, “Away in a Manger” and “The Little Drummer Boy;” it means we need to remind ourselves how careful we have to be with God’s word. It’s easy to let our culture influence how we interpret scripture when it’s scripture that needs to influence our culture.
As we think about the Lord’s humble birth and being placed in that manger, a powerful scene from our Christmas stories of an angel of the Lord appearing to a group of shepherds, an ancient version of modern cowboys, to tell them of Jesus’s arrival.
Then, even more stunning, in Luke 2:13, “Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God…”
The shepherds went to see Jesus and from all their experiences, went home praising and glorifying God.
Whether or not Jesus was born in a stable, Jesus’s birth was still both humble and spectacular from the manger to the presence of countless angels before the shepherds.
These are details we know for certain from Scripture and are our inspiration to praise the arrival Jesus just the same as the shepherds this Christmas season, letting our celebration be one that praises God for what He did for us in sending a Savior to die for our sins. His death and resurrection gives eternal life to those repentant of their sins, seeking forgiveness through a saving faith in who Jesus was, born that day in a manger, and who he is now in Heaven.
by admin | Jun 19, 2025 | Behind the Bucking Chutes
By Daryl Skeeter Spaulding / Cowboys for Christ
Have you ever met someone who always finds fault in a church fellowship?
A great Baptist preacher I knew had a wonderful statement he said all the time, “Every time you point a finger at someone, you have three pointing right back at yourself”. How true that is! There are some folks who are never happy for very long in one place. We all have an expectation of what a church should be like in our own minds, but we as Americans are used to having things our way.
Attending church is so important to our spiritual growth, but it’s not a place to just park our carcasses down and expect to be served. We should go to be “a part” of something. “a part” does not mean idle. It’s good for all of us not to think too much of ourselves,” get out of our box” as the saying goes.
I have great memories being in Brazil for a summer mission trip. We worked in somewhat of a remote area constructing a building for a youth camp. The kitchen crew worked under a lean-to and each day they boiled large pots of water at a roll for 20 minutes for drinking and cooking for the following day. Our team traveled each Sunday to a different church to sing and talk about the work we were doing as part of the service. I’ll never forget seeing poor people travel by a small boat down river just to get to church. At other places they walked to get to church. And you can forget the fancy wood pews.
Maybe, you yourself have served on a mission trip here or abroad. Worked in a food pantry preparing boxes to give to those in need in your community or collected items for Samaritan Purse Christmas shoe boxes. At the “Brand of The Cross”, the cowboy fellowship where my wife and I attend, we collect items for those shoe boxes all year long for a packing party along with a chili cookoff competition. The whole fellowship gets involved; it’s a lot of fun.
Jesus was the perfect model for us when it comes to serving others. He washed the disciple’s feet just before His arrest. He needed to show them how to serve each other.
We find in the gospel of John 13:12-16. After washing their feet, he put on his robe again and sat down and asked, “Do you understand what I was doing? You call me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, because that’s what I am. And since I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash each other’s feet. I have given you an example to follow. Do as I have done to you.
When you and I serve others, it takes the focus off ourselves. It’s a great remedy to becoming a nitpicker. God bless you as you go serve!
by admin | Oct 10, 2024 | Behind the Bucking Chutes
By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross
How much do we really think about just how deep God’s love for us is?
Those aren’t the thoughts of a typical cowboy.
At the rodeo, we face pressure to win or we don’t have entry fees for the next few weeks, we get our thumb taken off and miss the calf roping win, our truck breaks down, we get discouraged
At the ranch, political issues crop up that affect how we use our land, prices sometimes dive before our cattle get to market, a storm blows through and an extra week of work piles up making repairs to broken fences and barns. It gets discouraging.
Don’t worry, God’s in control.
I’ve heard that so many times and yet, I still worry. There are times it makes me think I haven’t matured as a Christian nearly as much as I had hoped when I can’t seem to give my stress and worry over to God.
First, we have to remember as Christians, we have a perfect eternity waiting. As bad as our situation is right now, it actually can be worse. It is hard for us to grasp just how short our time here is and when we are struggling and even suffering, it gets even harder to see that.
But we are loved by God so much that He sent Jesus to die a painful death to take all punishment meant for our sin that if we believe in him, repent of our sin and ask to be forgiven, we are given a perfect eternity it Heaven.
Romans 5:8 But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us
The troubles we face are because this is a sinful broken world. We are born into this world as sinners separated from God because He won’t allow sin in His presence and will judge and condemn it. But despite deserving God’s punishment as we live sinfully, He still sent Jesus to die and take the punishment in our place.
When we receive that gift of salvation through our saving faith in Jesus, it doesn’t mean our struggles end but there are two things it does mean: a perfect eternity awaits us free of struggle and whatever we are going through, God will use it for good.
Romans 8:28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.
Sometimes with hindsight, we can see how God used a struggle to build us up or even to save us from an even bigger struggle. But sometimes, we don’t always get to see the direct outcome of God’s plan. It’s one of those places where we need faith when that happens and hope in our perfect eternity, free from struggles. It doesn’t mean it isn’t hard but our strength to endure comes from God and the hope He gave us through Jesus is what can get us through anything.
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