As grandstand lights illuminate the summer sky behind Polkville Baptist Church each June, thousands of spectators gather for an event that might seem unexpected for a local congregation: a professional rodeo.
For the past 26 years, the church has hosted the annual rodeo to raise money for missions, turning an unconventional fundraiser into a long-standing outreach that shares the gospel with attendees and supports ministry efforts across North Carolina and around the world.
“We just want to bless our community,” said Will Davis, Polkville Baptist’s pastor.
The rodeo traces its roots to Hurricane Floyd, which devastated eastern North Carolina in 1999. Like many Baptist churches across the state, Polkville Baptist partnered with N.C. Baptists on Mission — then known as N.C. Baptist Men — to help rebuild homes destroyed by the storm.
“We knew we didn’t have the funds,” Davis said. “So we took this on with faith that God would provide.”
Not clowning around
The idea came from an unlikely source. Davis recalled that a retired rodeo clown suggested to the church’s deacons that they host a rodeo. Church leaders embraced the concept and worked with two men in the church who had connections in the rodeo industry to recruit sponsors, organize the event and launch the church’s first rodeo the following spring.
“The plan was to hold it for a year,” Davis said.
Instead, church leaders took another step of faith. They left the grandstand lights in place, scheduled another rodeo the following June and trusted God to provide once again.
He did.
Attendance steadily grew over the years, transforming the event into one of the area’s largest annual gatherings and drawing thousands of visitors to the rural community in the foothills of western North Carolina. After the rodeo was canceled in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, crowds surged when it returned the following year.
“In 2021, we had 9,000 people,” Davis said. “We had more people here than we could accommodate.”
This year’s rodeo drew approximately 7,000 people over two nights, June 19-20.
“We had the stands completely full on Friday,” Davis said. “On Saturday there was nowhere to sit.”
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EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Stephen Halley and originally published by the Biblical Recorder.
