The unique subculture of the Western cowboy has been misunderstood and ignored by the church. But charismatic cowboy evangelists are charging out of the corral to boldly share Christ with those riding America’s rodeo circuit.

---

Dusk is falling on that other “city that never sleeps,” the once-barren outpost that took a gamble on the Nevada desert and hit the jackpot. As the sun sets behind the Spring Mountains, Las Vegas casino workers brace for the standing-room-only crowds nighttime will bring. A few die-hard gamblers have been at it all day; others wander in, looking somewhat revived after sleeping off the effects of the night before. Later, droves of starry-eyed risk takers will inundate the casinos into the early morning hours.

But nowhere in this city of high rollers are the stakes as high as they are on this night at the nearby Thomas & Mack Center, the University of Nevada sports arena. The gamblers here are the athletes who will compete in tonight’s main event before a capacity crowd of more than 17,000. They’re rodeo contestants, and some of them are putting their very lives on the line. A 200-pound cowboy is no match for a 2,000-pound bull.

One-ton beasts aren’t the only challenge cowboys routinely face, however. The national sports media largely disregard rodeo cowboys. Rodeo groupies see them as prey, and outsiders consider them entertainers. Few recognize the sacrifice, skill and strength it takes to do what they do.

Being idolized by fans who place enormously high expectations on them adds to the pressure. And if all that isn’t enough, only a handful of top money winners ever see enough earnings to break even at the end of the year.

Former rodeo contestant Coy Huffman understands all that. That’s why he is here tonight and every night, giving the guys one last word of encouragement, one last reminder of God’s faithfulness, one last prayer for safety and success before they enter the arena. It’s time for Power Up, Huffman’s pre-rodeo service in the big white tent just outside the Thomas & Mack.

“They that have turned the world upside down have come here,” Huffman tells the crowd of 30 or so, half of them on horseback, the rest sitting on hay-bale pews. “Satan and his buddies are about to start asking, ‘Who let the dogs out?'” But the 61-year-old Huffman doesn’t ask the question; he lets the Baha Men handle that through a boom box cued to start playing their hit song at just the right moment.

“They’re going to ask, ‘Who let this bunch of born-again, devil-defying, Jesus-loving, God-glorifying, hot-on-the-trail, heaven-bound hounds loose?'” he shouts as the music fades away. “The gate is opened up so you can ride to victory. Hang on to the Word and ride, cowboy, ride!”

A couple of cowboys let out a whoop; a few start to laugh. Most everyone smiles in amusement. This is about all the reaction Huffman or any other cowboy preacher ever expects to get, even in the most charismatic of meetings. Cowboys can, at times, be a quiet lot.

Even so, the cowboys at the Power Up are part of a move of God never before seen in the rodeo world. It’s a revival found at livestock auctions, in cowboy churches, and on isolated ranches and farms that dot the rural landscape of the Western United States. And it’s one that 1930s Pentecostal preacher Smith Wigglesworth reportedly prophesied would come not only to, but also through, the cowboy community, a less-than-accurate but useful term for describing the culture. This awakening encompasses ranchers, farmers, horse trainers, professional rodeo competitors, cowboys and, of course, cowgirls.

“People are being saved by the tons in the cowboy world,” 66-year-old Glenn Smith, the acknowledged “granddaddy” of cowboy evangelism, told Charisma. “They can come to cowboy services just as they are, in dirty Levis and with cow stuff on their boots, and leave saved.”

As recently as 30 years ago there wasn’t a single outreach aimed at cowboys. Now there is a multitude of evangelistic efforts, many of them charismatic and Pentecostal. In addition to preaching the same gospel, these efforts share at least one other characteristic: mobility. Ministering on the rodeo circuit, providing pastoral care for county-sized ranches and cowboy congregations, discipling potential leaders and maintaining relationships with new converts requires so much travel that some cowboy ministers live in recreational vehicles year-round.

“It would be hard for someone from a regular-type ministry to reach these people,” says Huffman, now a rodeo announcer and traveling cowboy pastor. “I live among them and work with them. You have to build a relationship and prove yourself before they become your friend and listen to you. If I try to bring the message first, I hit a solid wall.”

A Hard Life

Faith is a tough sell among this group known for hard living. It’s no wonder “cowboy” came in at number 246 out of 250 in a ranking of occupations in Jobs Rated Almanac. Ranch cowboys provide backbreaking labor under dangerous conditions for long hours at low pay. Considering that, they’re understandably skeptical when a preacher comes through talking about the “good life”–especially if he’s toting an offering bucket.

There are regional differences in how people respond to the gospel as well. Texas leads the way in spiritual breakthrough. But the northern plains and Rockies are a different story altogether.

“This country here, it’s on harder ground spiritually,” says Brent Baumann, 38, from the Cowboys With a Mission (CWAM) headquarters in Meeteetse, Wyoming, east of Yellowstone National Park. “We’ve seen more people come to the Lord in the last two years, but the growth has been slow and steady in these northern parts.”

Ask those in cowboy ministry what it takes to reach this community, and one word surfaces most often: integrity.

“This is a unique breed of people, but they have one thing in common with God–they are people of integrity,” says Smith, president of Rodeo Cowboy Ministries and the International Western World Outreach Center in Post, Texas. “If a cowboy said he was going to whip me if I showed my face at the Cheyenne rodeo, then I know the first thing that’s going to happen when I pull up into ‘ve got a whipping coming. Cowboys do what they say they’re going to do. Once they began to see that God would do what He said He would do, they began to turn to God in masses.”

Smith, a former bull rider and rodeo clown, is among the few who have seen the cowboy church movement expand from its inception in the 1970s to today’s network of hundreds of churches and ministries worldwide. The challenge these ministries face comes not only from hardened unbelievers, but also from the traditional church world.

Huffman, a graduate of Seattle Bible College who also attended Oral Roberts University and Colorado Christian University, is an ordained minister who heads up Pro Rodeo Ministries and Cowboy Church International in Tucson, Arizona. But because his “church” doesn’t meet within four walls, Huffman says, his is often not considered to be a valid ministry.

Smith is blunt about the way the church treats those in the cowboy community, saints and sinners alike: “The church of Jesus Christ has done more to run those people away from the Lord than you’ll ever know. They’ve condemned them for what they wear. If their cows are calving on Sunday morning and they can’t make it to church, they’ve condemned them for that.

“But God gave us a specific message: Tell the Western people that He loves ’em, He’s not mad at ’em, and He wants to come into their life and
show ’em these things. And that’s just what we tell ’em.”

Rural Revival

One of those who heard that message loud and clear is steer wrestler Rope Myers, now among the top 15 competitors in his event and one of the few who turn something of a profit each year. Though he came to know Jesus at a youth rodeo when he was 12, Myers, now 31, all too soon made rodeo his god. That wasn’t hard to do. His father, Butch, and brother, Cash, both rodeo professionally while his wife, recording artist Candice Myers, also grew up in a rodeo family.

“I learned that I had to put God first in my life, but the real change came when I realized that God is supposed to be first, last, second, 25th and every other place in your life,” says Myers, who is from Van, Texas. “When you’re loving on your wife or taking care of your kids, you’re still keeping God first, because you’re pleasing Him.”

Pleasing God is one thing that seems to come easily to newly converted cowboys, Myers believes. In a sense all cowboys, but especially rodeo cowboys, live by faith; they have no guaranteed income, little protection against disabling injury and often nothing to fall back on if they fail. Being a cowboy is not only what they are, but it’s also what they do.

“Once a cowboy comes to the Lord, it’s easy for him to start living by faith in God,” Myers explains. “He has the chance to be a light in a very dark place. But it’s hard to go after God when you’re so busy, and you have to travel so many miles, and you don’t have the infrastructure that people in a traditional church have.”

The need for such an infrastructure recently gave birth to a whole new area of ministry: the cowboy-style cell group. Myers, along with professional team roper Allen Bach and several others, formed a ministry called Pro Rodeo Partners in Christ that incorporates Bible study, prayer partnering, discipleship and accountability into a flexible format adapted to the cowboy lifestyle.

“We want to come alongside one another and keep each other from making the kind of mistakes you can’t come back from,” Myers says.

Creativity and flexibility are critical to success in reaching cowboys for Christ. Innovative ministries include events such as “church ropings,” which are rodeos that offer prize money without charging an entry fee–something unheard of
in traditional rodeos. The catch is that contestants must listen to a bit of preaching, which most of them are glad to do to avoid shelling out any more money to rodeo producers.

And then there’s Cowboy Bistro, launched several years ago by Ted and Linda Wiese of Rocking W Rodeo Ministry in Likely, California. Ted is a former rodeo cowboy and bullfighter, well-known on the rodeo circuit. In 1998, the couple briefly put Ted’s evangelistic ministry on hold so Linda could attend culinary school. Today, they prepare “gourmet comfort food”
in their $100,000 professional mobile kitchen and serve free meals to rodeo workers and contestants.

The Wieses rely on donations from ministry partners, Christian cowboys who tithe off their earnings and people who drop money in donation buckets at meal sites.

“The cowboys know who we are and why we do this,” says Chef Linda, as she’s called these days. “They’ll walk right in to my mobile kitchen and want to talk while I’m cooking. We’ve discovered just what a privilege this is. It’s all about servanthood.”

Easily overlooked on the male-dominated rodeo circuit are the women, including the cowgirls who compete in barrel racing–the only event open to women on the professional circuit–and the wives and girlfriends of cowboys. But Donna Huffman is able to minister to them as she travels with her husband. She and Coy spend most of the year on the road.

“The women see that we’re there for them,” says Donna, a former barrel racer. “Many relate better to a cowboy ministry. They need someone they know and trust, someone they can safely go to for spiritual help.”

Women such as Donna Huffman and Candice Myers, who arranges her public singing schedule to coincide with Rope’s rodeo schedule, know the toll rodeo life takes on families. They see women around them struggling with financial uncertainty, weeks of separation, adulterous relationships, alcohol and drug abuse, and the fear of injury or even death. All that and more wreaks emotional havoc on rodeo families.

“The rodeo lifestyle is hard,” Donna says. “But over the years I’ve seen a lot of women come to the Lord, women who didn’t feel comfortable in a local church. They want to talk to somebody who understands their lifestyle.”

When they started out in cowboy ministry 25 years ago, the Huffmans found it difficult to direct new converts to churches they were sure would accept them “as is.” Today, they have fewer problems steering a new believer in Christ to a nearby cowboy church or house group.

“Once you realize how much of our population is rural, you see the potential for this type of ministry,” Donna says of the cowboy ministry movement. “It takes time and perseverance, but we’re reaching an entire group of people that haven’t been reached by the conventional church.”

---

Marcia Ford is a free-lance writer and editor and a former associate editor for Charisma. She is the author of Charisma Reports: The Brownsville Revival and lives in DeBary, Florida, with her husband and teen-age daughters.

---

REACHING THE UNREACHED

Saddled Up For Jesus

Brent Baumann is a missionary, but he doesn’t live overseas. He’s the founder of Cowboys With a Mission, an outreach to cowboys around the world.

Six months after attending a Youth With a Mission (YWAM) Discipleship Training School, Brent Baumann still wasn’t sure how he fit into the international ministry. The son of a Montana rancher, Baumann was called to missions work but felt more at home on a ranch than in a traditional YWAM setting.

As Baumann helped his father calve cows in the spring of 1995, God showed him how he could use the YWAM ministry model to reach the cowboy culture so familiar to him. That year, he founded Cowboys With a Mission (CWAM), a ministry that reaches horsemen around the world from its headquarters in the tiny town of Meeteetse, Wyoming.

“I was minding my own business when the Lord gave me the vision to train cowboys to go on mission trips,” Baumann told Charisma. “We’re just as concerned for herdsmen in Mongolia and Tibet as other ministries are for rodeo competitors.”

Today, CWAM teams travel to Central Asia, South America, Africa and Australia to work among cowboys. CWAM also maintains an office in Brazil and plans to open a third office in Australia. At home, the ministry holds rodeo camps for youth on its 40-acre ranch and conducts cowboy church services throughout Wyoming and Montana.

The “come as you are” attitude of most cowboy ministries permeates CWAM as well. “We don’t care how you smell or how you dress. You don’t have to be a cowboy,” Baumann says. “We just want you to come.”

No matter where CWAM missionaries go, locals seek them out–all because of their cowboy hats. “It’s part of the attraction of the American cowboy,” Baumann explains. “Regardless of what culture we’re in, people feel comfortable approaching us.”

Richard Ashley, a missionary in Mexico with Rodeo Cowboy Ministries, was once followed by two young boys who kept calling him “J.R.” While Ashley would prefer a different role model to the character on the 1980s TV drama Dallas, he’s not complaining; anything that makes him more accessible to the lost is fine with him.

“People idolize cowboys,” Ashley says. “We have such a wonderful opportunity to preach the gospel because we’re cowboys. We can go where no one else can.”

That includes countries that are hostile or even closed to the gospel.
One such country, Ashley says, overlooked the cases of Bibles he brought in since he was also bringing in free saddles for cowboys. Pastors cried openly when they saw the study Bibles Ashley had transported specifically for them.

While the blessings are many, so are the challenges. Financial support doesn’t come easily, nor does prayer support. As with other cowboy ministries, missions groups have difficulty being taken seriously by traditional churches in the United States.

“We’re treated like a sideshow at a carnival,” Baumann says. “Pastors roll their eyes when we express interest in speaking at their churches. They might see cowboys as a mission field, but they don’t recognize cowboys as missionaries. They don’t realize that we’re very serious about the work we do.”

Calvary Assembly of God in Orlando erased a $15 million mortgage and whooped it up Disney-style

Calvary Assembly of God in Winter Park, Fla., an Orlando suburb, celebrated its debt-free status at a two-hour mortgage-burning service on Sept. 24, featuring pyrotechnics, a laser-light show, balloon drops and bursts of colored confetti that all punctuated a highly festive atmosphere. A four-year effort to erase the remaining $10.8 million debt on a $15 million mortgage, inherited in 1995 by senior pastor Clark Whitten, ended with enough funds left over to donate $50,000 each to two Florida-based ministries.

“You’ve lived in the shadow of this mountain of debt for too long,” Whitten had told Calvary when he first assumed the pastorate. “You’ve gotten comfortable living in the shadows and have no hope that the mountain will go away. You have to stop telling God how big the mountain is and instead tell the mountain how big God is.”

In the last four years, the congregation chipped away at the mountain until it was removed entirely. While the church received a few large donations, most of the debt was erased through small but consistent giving. Calvary continued supporting missions even when bills went unpaid.

“The willingness of the people to not get self-focused allowed God to bless us,” Whitten said. “Giving to missions played a significant role in the church’s ability to stay internally healthy through some challenging times.”

Recent years have been comparatively kind to Calvary, but its history has been erratic. Established in 1953 in a one-room, dirt-floor building, the church prospered during the charismatic renewal in the 1970s, birthing a number of ministries, including Charisma magazine. By 1981, attendance averaged 3,500 at four

Sunday services.

That same year, however, the pastor resigned after a moral failure. The next pastor left nine years later as the burden of debt on the current $21-million facilities, built in 1987, threatened to split the congregation. Though the church had 4,000 people on its rolls, attendance fell to 1,700.

The arrival of Mark Rutland as senior pastor in 1990 seemed to signal a new era. Attendance increased, but the huge mortgage remained. When Rutland announced his resignation four years later, the congregation was thrown into turmoil once again. He had been well-liked, and his departure cast a cloud of uncertainty over Calvary’s future.

That created a tough situation for Whitten. He had erased a $5 million debt in his previous pastorate, but he faced an uphill climb in launching an aggressive debt-elimination campaign at Calvary.

At first, some balked, including Orlando developer and church board member Tim Fierro. Whitten had asked Fierro and his wife, Sharon, to head up the steering committee for the campaign, called “Moving the Mountain.”

“I knew it could be done from a business standpoint,” said Tim Fierro, who has attended Calvary since 1990. “But at first I thought: This isn’t my debt. I didn’t create this. Why do I want to get involved?”

The couple had to trust God to change their thinking if they were to take on the challenge Whitten presented to them. They agreed to accept the position.

“Within two weeks we were able to pay off the mortgage on our house and a loan on one of our businesses,” Fierro said. “Talk about motivation–I became a believer very quickly.”

Still, Fierro had to convince several thousand people that they could eliminate an $11 million debt. Through the years, the church had paid more than that in interest alone.

“Some people were very negative. They’d heard it all before,” he said. “But the people eventually saw that this was possible.”

On the day Calvary launched Moving the Mountain, protesters picketed outside, accusing churchgoers of worshiping money instead of God. The leader stormed the pulpit, confronting Whitten and calling him a liar, among other names. He was arrested, but the picketing continued for months, even at Whitten’s home.

“The thing was, we didn’t place all that much emphasis on money,” Whitten told Charisma. “We told people to pray and do what God tells you to do. I didn’t want the people to feel manipulated.”

Rutland, now president of Southeastern College in Lakeland, of the recipients of Calvary’s two $50,000 donations–commended Calvary on what he called its “signal accomplishment.”

“Clark must have a peculiar anointing and genius for this,” Rutland said. “He’s the one who made it happen.”

Said Fierro: “This has been a powerful witness for the entire central Florida area.”

Domestic abuse occurs among Christians and non-Christians at nearly the same rate. How can we make the church a place of refuge for battered women?

Five years into her second abusive marriage, Maggie* and her new husband surrendered their lives to Jesus Christ. Their spiritual commitment gave Maggie hope that her tumultuous marriage could be saved.

But when the physical abuse continued, Maggie sought help from their pastor. She told him about the terrors of living with a man who once had her pinned against a wall and choked her until she heard something snap in her neck.

Her evangelical pastor’s counsel: Go home, pray and submit.

“If your husband kills you,” he concluded, “it will be for the glory of God.”

Maggie survived both her husband’s merciless torment and her pastor’s chilling advice. But like many battered women, she found her place of refuge not in the church, but in the world—at a women’s shelter in Texas.

“Domestic violence is a major problem in America and in the church,” says pastor and marriage counselor Jimmy Evans of Amarillo, Texas. “But the church has not treated it like a serious problem.”

Statistics underscore its seriousness. According to a joint study by the National Institute of Justice and the Centers for Disease Control, nearly 2 million women are physically assaulted by a current or former spouse each year in the United States. With the average number of annual assaults per victim estimated to be 3.1, the total number of assaults per year is 6 million.

In addition, one-third of all women who seek medical care have suffered domestic violence. It’s said to be the No. 1 crime in America and the least-reported.

The most shameful statistic: Many of its victims—and perpetrators—are Christians.

Maggie, whose experience led her to work with other domestic violence victims, said that half the women who sought help at the shelter where she worked were Christians. Trapped between their theology and the reality of their situations, they often withheld vital information from the staff.

“They were afraid to take advice from the world. They were very protective of their husbands,” says Maggie, who became the shelter’s liaison to Christian women.

Don Sapaugh, former president of Rapha Treatment Centers in Dallas, says reluctance to share information is especially characteristic of pastors’ wives who suffer some form of abuse. “They don’t know where to turn,” he says.

Many of the calls to Rapha’s confidential ministers’ hotline are from women who are being abused by their minister husbands. But some are from pastors who want to confess they’ve been abusing their wives.

Is There Safety in the Church? 

Christians, whether they’re ministers or laypersons, say good counsel is hard to find. Maggie, who is now a missionary married to a “wonderful Christian man,” sometimes questions whether she was right in leaving her abusive ex-husband. The counsel of her pastor, who later admitted his error, continues to haunt her.

The type of non-help Maggie received is not unusual, Evans says. “Pastors simply don’t know how to counsel an abused woman,” he says.

At least one study seems to confirm Evans’ opinion. In a survey of battered women who had successfully escaped their abusers, the victims ranked clergy last in helpfulness.

Why aren’t women finding more safety in their churches? At least part of the problem, experts say, can be traced to misinterpretations of scriptures about marriage.

The Bible passage most often used to “justify” abusive behavior is Ephesians 5:22-24: “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.”

Sapaugh says this passage is terribly mishandled. And some pastors, he says, “set up man-made criteria for what is and what isn’t submission, and end up throwing spousal abuse in the middle of it. I’m confident that’s not the intent of Scripture.”

Evans agrees. Biblical submission, he says, does not include physical violence or the violation of personal sovereignty. “The Bible doesn’t ever lend itself to somebody being abused,” he says. “The Scriptures tell us to defend the defenseless” (see Prov. 31:9; Is. 1:17).

He directs both the abused and the abuser to read to the end of the chapter. Paul commands husbands to cherish their wives in the same way that Jesus “nourishes and cherishes” the church (Eph. 5:29).

Dr. Jekyll … Mr. Hyde

According to experts, about half the abuse committed by Christian men is physical or sexual, and the rest is emotional abuse involving mental manipulation. Often this second type of abuse is taken less seriously by the church, trapping many Christian women in an emotional prison.

John was the divorced worship leader in a nondenominational charismatic church in West Virginia. Rebecca, a divorced church member who kept to herself, knew little about John and was surprised when he asked her out. In 1990, one year after their first date, they married.

“I was careful this time,” says Rebecca, whose first husband was abusive. “I thought I was safe marrying a Christian.”

But the man Rebecca married went through a sudden transformation. “He changed completely on our honeymoon and never changed back,” recalls the 32-year-old accountant.

John verbally pummeled her, criticizing everything from her appearance to her basic failure as a human being. The abuse intensified, yet he continued to lead worship, verbally pounding away at his wife between services.

Rebecca sought help from a doctor. He prescribed antidepressants, and she began to believe she was losing her mind.

After two years, Rebecca reported the abuse to her pastor. Still, it was eight months before John was removed as worship leader—even though the church’s leaders were aware of the abuse. By then, Rebecca had moved out of their house.

Before their separation, Rebecca had succeeded in getting John into several counseling sessions. But they were counseled together—a practice many experts say is a prescription for failure.

In their case, the experts were right. John became a master of manipulation, ignoring the advice he was given and placing the blame for their problems on her. Such blame-shifting characterizes the central problem in all abusive relationships: the overwhelming need for the abuser to control another human being.

“[The controller] refuses to own up to his own behavior, much less admit that there might be something wrong with it,” write Ann Jones and Susan Schechter in When Love Goes Wrong, a secular book on abuse that Rebecca credits with preserving her sanity. It’s considered by many, including religious counselors, to be the definitive work on spousal abuse.

In cases of physical violence, Jones and Schechter write, it can be dangerous to counsel husband and wife together because the victim may face worse abuse after she blows the whistle.

One victim’s husband beat her mercilessly for telling their counselor about the abuse; the following day the woman killed herself. Because of situations like this, some mental health agencies prohibit the simultaneous counseling of husband and wife in abuse cases.

Suffering in Silence

Thoughts of suicide place Christian women in a dual bind. They’re not only shocked that their emotions have plummeted to such depths, they’re also afraid that they’ve permanently damaged their relationship with God.

As a result, many women suffer in silence. One example is Victoria, a 42-year-old woman from Kentucky. A Christian since age 12, Victoria believed God had brought her the man of her dreams when Frank came into her life in 1974. As a new Christian, Frank had renounced his rebellious lifestyle and returned to the fold of his prosperous family. Soon after, he settled down with his bride.

But less than a year after they married, their church embraced the teachings of the shepherding movement, which emphasized the authority of church leaders in both the public and private lives of parishioners.

Overnight, Frank changed from a loving, caring husband into an overbearing tyrant. Whatever his pastor dictated, Frank enforced in his own home.

Victoria was told what to believe, what to read and how to wear her hair. When she questioned the pastor’s total control over their lives, Frank branded her as rebellious and unsubmissive.

Within a short time Frank became a leader in the church, which added a new dimension to his need to control. Years of tyranny eventually took their toll, and Victoria reached a point when she simply wanted to die.

“Women who are being controlled often have thoughts of suicide,” Evans says. “By the time abused women come to me, they’re so devalued that they typically have feelings of self-abuse.”

In Victoria’s case, Frank’s prominence in the church and the community enabled church members to look the other way when it became clear that he had emotionally abandoned his wife. He has managed to retain his leadership position in the church, despite their pending divorce.

Exposed by the Light

Abusive marriages don’t have to end up like Victoria’s. In many cases Christian couples have found the path to emotional healing and reconciliation.

Tim and Karen met while they were college students involved in a student ministry. Within months they were engaged and married shortly before their senior year. Soon, though, Tim’s plans to attend seminary were shattered by Karen’s unexpected pregnancy. The pressures of supporting a family triggered an eruption of violence against Karen.

At the time, the couple lived in a medium-sized city, which gave Tim an anonymity that enabled him to abuse his wife with impunity.

Eventually, two factors entered their lives that made a huge difference: a pastor who dared to confront and a job opportunity back in Tim’s hometown.

Shortly before leaving the city, Karen’s pastor intervened on her behalf (Tim had long since stopped going to church). He confronted Tim about his abuse and provided him with practical advice on how to deal with anger.

In 1983, Tim and Karen moved to the rural town where Tim’s family had lived for generations. Suddenly, Tim was faced with a level of accountability he’d never known before.

“Living in a small town with a population of 2,000 has a fishbowl effect,” he says. “I had a job as a teacher, and my behavior reflected on me professionally.”

By 1985, the abuse had stopped completely, and Tim made himself accountable to others. Meanwhile, Karen forgave Tim and found emotional support among her Christian friends. Today, Karen, Tim and their four children attend church together.

There’s no question in Tim’s mind that what reversed his abusive behavior—and healed their marriage—was exposure. His message to both the abused and the abuser is clear: Make abusive behavior known immediately.

“Abuse and violence feed on darkness,” he says. “Admitting that abuse exists sheds light on the sin. We’ve been too willing to allow secret sins to exist. The cure is exposure to the light.” 

The Way Out of Abuse

There is now a nationwide counseling hotline for victims of domestic violence, something numerous agencies have tried for years to make available to both victims and abusers.

The National Domestic Violence Hotline can be reached by dialing (800) 799-SAFE (1-800-799-7233).

Several organizations provide information or referrals to agencies, support groups and professionals who assist victims of domestic abuse.

The following resources may be of benefit to you, if you or someone you know is a victim of domestic violence. We encourage you to contact them. 

Alliance for Children and Families

(800) 220-1016 

American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy

(202) 452-0109 

Minirth Clinic

(888) MINIRTH (1-888-646-4784)

National Coalition Against Domestic Violence

(303) 839-1852 

National Council on Child Abuse and Family Violence

(202) 429-6695 

Rapha Treatment Centers

(800) 383-HOPE ( 1-800-383-4673 )

Center for the Prevention of Sexual and Domestic Violence

(206) 634-1903 

 

Rapha Treatment Centers Ministers’ Hotline

(800) 383-4673 

Videos:

Broken Vows, a one-hour video with study guide; available through the Center for the Prevention of Sexual and Domestic Violence (see phone number above).

* Not their real name

Marcia Ford, a former associate editor for Charisma, is an independent book, magazine and website editor who lives in DeBary, Fla. She is the author of Charisma Reports: The Brownsville Revival (Creation House).