An historic church building will begin a new chapter this Sunday when the Arena of Life Cowboy Church holds its grand opening in the former First Presbyterian Church at Fourth and Parks this Sunday, November 5, at 10:30 a.m.
With their congregation dwindling, Presbyterians recently made the decision to disband and donate their 1929 building to the Cowboy Church.
“I was surprised but extra excited,” Cowboy Church Pastor Bunk Skelton said of his reaction to the offer by Presbyterian Pastor Nancy Ruff. “I’m not one to all at once get real gung-ho about something, so I asked for time with the Lord. But the more I sought the Lord, the more I thought we couldn’t say no.”
Ruff said the Presbyterian congregation had just gotten to a point to where it was no longer viable to continue, but they had hope that they could bless another church.
“It’s not easy to close a church,” Ruff said. “But in dealing with those emotions of closing our church, we are richly blessed that God gave us the opportunity to give our building to the Arena of Life Cowboy Church. We are so excited to be a part of God’s blessing. We’re really thrilled they accepted our offer and that our legacy will continue.”
While the Presbyterian Church had a long history in Clarendon dating back to 1899, the Cowboy Church is relatively new for the community. It was founded January 5, 2013, and moved into the former Eads’ Furniture building on Kearney Street in May of 2014. Since that time, the church has been dreaming of building their own church and has even had six acres donated to it east of town on US 287.
“We’re not trashing the idea of our own new building,” Skelton said. “We’re still working toward that. This will just make it easier as we can put our lease payments into our building fund now.”
Speaking of renting their previous location, the pastor had kind words for their landlord there, saying Virginia Patten had been extremely good to the church through the years.
Skelton said his congregation first thought of making changes to the Presbyterian building but changed their minds.
“The first impulse was to make changes to make it fit us,” he said, “but then we didn’t really want to. We just make small changes to make it work for us, which mostly has amounted to running some electricity.”
The new owners are also opening up previously covered over windows on the front doors of the Presbyterian building.
The Cowboy Church held its first services in the building last Sunday, October 29, but it’s official grand opening is this weekend.
“We’re very, very excited and grateful and thankful that they have allowed us to carry on the ministry of the gospel in this church,” Skelton said.
The Presbyterian building will give the Cowboy Church more room and allow it to offer more Sunday school classes. The church has been having its youth meetings on Wednesday nights and its adult Bible study on Thursday nights, but now those activities will both be held on Wednesday nights at 7 p.m.
Skelton is inviting the community to join them as they celebrate the new location of the Cowboy Church this weekend with Sunday School at 9:30 and the service at 10:30.
Also, the Presbyterians are not completely gone from the building. Ruff said Skelton is allowing her to continue her women’s Bible study in the building. It’s a testimony to how close the community of faith is in Clarendon.
“We’re in a super good community,” Skelton said. “When He calls you to a place, He provides for you; and we’ve seen that over and over.”
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