Cowboy follows God's lead

Local cowboy Andy Hill rides with an extraordinary posse: God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit.
Hill, a former Marine and Midland police officer whom Odessa's West Texas Cowboy Church welcomed as its new pastor on Jan. 1, may not have a resume packed with years of experience as a pastor, but he's no spring chicken when it comes to religious guidance.

The 43-year-old family man knows a thing or two about ranching, too.

God, however, rarely lets Hill stick to what he knows best, he said, often calling him to take new and unexpected paths branching from life's paved roads.

From his service in the Marine Corps to law enforcement in Abilene to seminary school at Hardin-Simmons University to missionary work as a church planner in the deserts of northern Mexico and back to law enforcement in Midland, Hill's path to his new position at the cowboy church has both abruptly zigged and unexpectedly zagged.

"I've found that God likes to take me out of my comfort zone in life. That's not necessarily something I always like," Hill said, quickly adding that He has never let Hill down.

Today Hill spends much of his time as the foreman of the Wishbone Ranch in Martin County, but the love of ranching came to him later in life.

As the young son of a cotton grower in Haskell, Hill said he never saw himself becoming a rancher.

"I had that background," he said, "but I never had that farming gene. But I loved the livestock."

After serving five years as a patrol officer and six years as a detective at the Abilene Police Department, Hill said he and his wife believed God had other plans for them.

In 2001 - with 60 hours of seminary credit hours under his belt - Hill, his wife Lori and their two daughters packed their bags and headed to Costa Rica for a year of formal Spanish study.

It was their next destination, however, that brought the Hills to the rugged landscape of the Sonoran Desert south of the Mexican border with Arizona.

Hill said the two spent about five years in the rural Mexican communities establishing churches and spreading God's word. Once a church was established, they would find a local person to take over as pastor before moving on to the next community.

"Our goal," he said, chuckling about their mission, "was kind of to work ourselves out of a job time and time again." 
It was there, Hill said, that he learned the virtues and beauty of cowboy life from ranchers on both sides of the border.

But, true to form, God had another twist in store for the Hills.

"It got to the point it was time to come home," the pastor said. "At the time, it was confusing. It was something only God could put together, but it came together just right."

Next stop: Midland, where an opening at the Midland Police Department awaited Andy Hill.

But of course God had other plans, and an opening at the Wishbone Ranch soon drew him away from law enforcement.

It seemed Andy Hill was destined to be a rancher after all.

He said he began attending the West Texas Cowboy Church last February and was asked to be its new pastor in December.

Joe Dutton, an oil worker who ranches and raises cattle on the side and who attends the West Texas Cowboy church, said Andy Hill was the ideal candidate for the church's new pastor.

"Andy Hill is the person that we need, and I think, because of his rural background, he is ideal for that church," he said. "Because of his background, he brings the word of God from the perspective of a cowboy."

Like everything else that comes Andy Hill's way, the offer caught him on his heels. He said leading a church was another card that never seemed to be in the deck for him, so he looked to God.

"I took a couple of weeks and prayed about it," he said. "In the end, God said, ‘Be willing.' "

Hill said his plans for the church include extending a welcoming hand to anybody in search of Jesus, regardless of who they are.

"Some people get the idea you have to be a cowboy to go to a cowboy church," Hill said, "and that's not always true. I want to see us reach out to anyone that's looking for Christ - number one - and anybody who's looking for a home. No matter what."

Dutton mirrored Hill's sentiments about the no-strings-attached nature of the West Texas Cowboy Church. Worship there offers something few of the more traditional churches in the area can offer.

"A lot of country people don't like to go to a church with carpets in a suit and tie," he said. "We need to make it possible for them to attend church without those disciplines on them. It's a rural church, but the church is not the building. It's the people that make it up."

He may not be a longtime native of the Permian Basin, but Hill said he's proud to call it home.

"I've only been here a short while, but I have loved every minute of it," he said. "I'm looking out across the most beautiful view in West Texas as we speak - out over the Caprock." 

‘I want to see us reach out to anyone that's looking for Christ - number one - and anybody who's looking for a home. No matter what.'
Andy Hill  New pastor of West Texas Cowboy Church

when to go
>> W.T.C.C. services are at 10 a.m. on Sundays and Bible study is at 7 p.m. on Wednesdays.