For one church in Auburn, members' Sunday best consists of blue jeans, boots and cowboy hats.
The congregation meets Thursdays at 6 p.m. and Sundays at 10:30 a.m. in an open arena with a dirt floor and uses hay bales instead of traditional pews.
The Cowboy Church of Lee County, located on Highway 280 across from College Street, has been in operation since November 2010.
Pastor Gary Walker said despite the location's newness, the Cowboy Church has been around for some time.
"The Cowboy Church is nothing new," Walker said. "We as an association are the American Fellowship of Cowboy Churches."
Walker said he believes Cowboy Churches have over 300 locations, many of which are in Texas.
"There's lots of churches in Texas that'll run several thousand," Walker said.
"In Marshall County up by Blount County we have one of the largest in the state, with three or four hundred members."
The mission statement of the Cowboy Church is to reach the Western culture for Jesus Christ, Walker said, and the churches have worked wonderfully throughout the South.
"They're used to coming to horse shows and rodeos and bull-riding things," Walker said. "It's a little rougher crowd. They're used to coming to these venues, but they're not going to go to traditional churches because they're very suspicious of it."
The heritage of the Cowboy Church is Southern Baptist, Walker said, but they tend to keep that fact quiet.
"We don't advertise it because our demographic, the people we're trying to reach, are the folk that don't fit into traditional church," Walker said. "We want them to feel like they can come here."
At the same time, though, Walker said they do like the legitimacy of being a fellowshipped church.
The church will be voted into the Southern Baptist Convention next week.
"We want to let folks know that we're not just some hayseed-Hanks that just came out here, dropped our tailgates and stuck our hats out," Walker said. "We are bona fide."
Walker said Cowboy Church is one of the fastest growing church plants in the Southern Baptist denomination, and its specific location is the 13th fellowshipped Cowboy Church in Alabama.
In addition to Sunday morning and Thursday evening services, Walker said the church hosts Western-themed events to draw interest.
"We'll have a team-roping like once a month out here on a Sunday afternoon," Walker said. "That's what we do, it's how we reach the folks. We're not trying to have the biggest church in the county."
The locations for Cowboy Churches are chosen carefully, Walker said.
"Obviously this wouldn't work in New York City," he said. "We try to seek out culturally relevant areas."
Brenda Vickery is a member of the church and leads the children's ministry with Walker's wife, Kathy.
Vickery was a kindergarten teacher until she retired, and she now teaches a class akin to Sunday school in a room above the arena's floor.
"I think we have six or seven who come consistently," Vickery said. "The ages range from 2 to about 15, but they seem to like it."
Brent McCoy, senior in wildlife sciences, said he has been attending Cowboy Church since January or February of this year.
"I had a friend through showing horses who got me into it," McCoy said.
McCoy said he enjoys being a member of Cowboy Church, even in the colder months.
"We just bundle up when it's really cold out, or go to the room upstairs," McCoy said. "In the earlier days, though, they would sit around barrels of fire."
Walker used to be a pastor at a traditional church, but felt called to come to the Cowboy Church after hearing about it from a friend.
"I tell people it found me," Walker said. "My wife and I explored it further, then we decided it was exactly what God wanted us to do."
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