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Dave Klehn, a seasonal employee from Georgia working for the Grand Teton Lodge Company, listens to services June 29 at the Diamond Cross Ranch. Cowboy Church welcomes wranglers from ranches in Buffalo Valley and seasonal workers in the Moran area. NEWS&GUIDE PHOTO / BRADLY J. BONER

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A line of pickup trucks and SUVs turns off the highway from both directions, an immediate exit off asphalt onto a dirt road leading directly into God’s country. Here fields of puffed dandelions sit as if in awe beneath an outline of the Tetons.

The sun hugs the hills as it begins its descent. People file from their cars in starched denim jeans, cowboy hats and boots, or T-shirts and flip-flops, each hoping to get a bit closer to Him in the looming red pavilion.

Residents from Buffalo Valley and Jackson filter inside, nodding to the new – those from Chicago, Florida, North Carolina – and greeting the familiar, as they settle into green plastic chairs.

It smells of barn, a combination of dirt and sawdust mixed with the muted odor of manure.

“This is cowboy church,” Grant Golliher says in welcome to the dozens who gather on a Sunday evening. “You can spit on the floor if you like, kick the dirt.”

Golliher asks only that they don’t fall asleep.

Two girls twirl to the music of a Christian band, throwing sawdust in the air as though it is glitter.

A brown horse lets out a shrill whinny, surveying the worshipers with wild eyes.

There is little sign of religion in the traditional sense here, other than a circular piece of wood near the top of the vaulted ceiling, where in silhouette a cowboy clasps his hands kneeling by a cross, his horse behind him.



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Ten years ago, Golliher felt compelled to offer a church service for the wranglers and hired hands of Buffalo Valley who couldn’t make it to Jackson on Sunday mornings. Golliher called the services, held in the white tent on the Diamond Cross Ranch, cowboy church, in honor of its attendees.

Golliher wanted the nondenominational service to reach people not normally drawn to church, including those scared of, or disillusioned by, organized religion.

He wanted to offer a place to hear the gospel without having it crammed down one’s throat. He wanted it to be a place where a cowboy could come comfortably in his boots and jeans after a day of work.

“God has given us an avenue that is nontraditional, unique and safe,” he said.

When Golliher was a baby, his mother tried to kill herself. Golliher was sent to live with an aunt while his mother underwent treatment. As he grew up, found himself adrift, feeling as though he didn’t belong anywhere.

“The only place I found really any comfort was in my relationship with Christ,” he said.

Golliher’s mother found God herself, but in churches with rules and laws.

“I just didn’t think I could live that way,” Golliher said.

So Golliher left religion and his home state of Colorado to come to Wyoming to cowboy and work on his own spirituality.

“It’s not about religion; it’s about a relationship,” he said. “Church is not in a building; it is a group of people who get together to encourage each other.”



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Cowboy church started with about 25 people regularly attending. Golliher tried offering a more traditional service but found attendance fell. When he talked about God and used training horses as an example, people came.

Golliher preaches his philosophy of training horses and uses it as a parallel to a relationship with God. God doesn’t force people to do things; people choose to serve him.

Working with the horse offers people a chance to see a sermon.

“Every horse is different and every message is different,” he said.

Cowboy church is now held in Golliher’s arena and averages an attendance of more than 100 people every Sunday.

This summer, Golliher will work with just one horse so people can see its progression.

The horse, Zachariah, is 3 years old and was not even halter broke the first Sunday.

Golliher plans to ride him by the end of the summer.

How he has been treated in the past is unknown.

The horse was visibly uncomfortable as Golliher approached it. An unbroken horse has little value. Golliher wants to make the horse valuable, like God wants to do with people, Golliher said.

Three others entered the ring with Golliher with sacks that represent the troubles of the world. As they moved toward the horse, the pressure forced it toward Golliher, who waited calmly.

“It’s when things are hard,” he said, “that’s when we usually go to God.”



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For some, like Sabra Gent, a National Park Service employee, cowboy church is a supplement to her spirituality. She also attends The Chapel at River Crossing in Jackson. Spirituality is like baking a cake, she said: It needs multiple ingredients, she said.

Others, like Liz Purdy, come from traditional church backgrounds, but because of summer jobs can’t make it to town.

Purdy was skeptical about how Golliher’s work with a horse would relate to the Bible and God. A seasonal worker at Jackson Lake Lodge, she normally attends a Presbyterian church of 5,000 members in Seattle. Her summer work schedule doesn’t allow her to make a trip into town Sunday mornings for a more traditional service. But what she found at the Diamond Cross was a sense of fellowship, an opportunity to be around other Christians and, she said after her first service, a chance to see the message “come to life.”

Sally Bland, a schoolteacher from New Mexico who works at Colter Bay during the summer, was drawn to the service because of its Western roots. As a child, Bland rodeoed and was often traveling on Sundays. Church services sprung up on the rodeo circuit offering practical lessons based on Christian ideals, including letting people define their own relationship with God, she said. Coming to cowboy church is like coming home.

For Jackson resident Bob Whitmire, cowboy church isn’t about religion.

“I don’t get as much out of it spiritually as I do relationally,” he said.

Whitmire, who regularly attends River Crossing in Jackson, has attended cowboy church for three years. At first he was only intrigued by the horse training. But he soon saw something greater in the cowboy working his horse.

He remembers Golliher explaining that once a horse can be ridden, the training doesn’t end. The horse has to trust the cowboy, but the cowboy can’t let the horse abuse him, so sometimes he has to correct him. It’s like raising kids with Christian morals, Whitmire said. “You get life lessons from Grant.”



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Golliher doesn’t know what brings individuals to the services, but at the end he asks them to remember when troubles appear, to run to God. And he prays each will take away whatever message God wants them to, from their evening on his ranch.

Golliher, who is an elder at River Crossing Church in Jackson, isn’t an ordained minister, nor does he consider himself one.

“I’m just a horse trainer with a message,” he says

As the parishioners trail out of the barn, there is an easy peace to the evening as the light folds over the hills.

In the nearby pasture, Golliher’s horses, who have already found their trust in their leader, flick their tails.

When and where

Cowboy church starts at 6:30 p.m. on Sundays at the Diamond Cross Ranch in Buffalo Valley. Gates open at 6 p.m. To get there, drive north of Jackson on Highway 26/89/191. The ranch is on the north side of the highway, about five miles past Moran.