THOMSON --- Chris Smith daydreams of teepees and zip lines.
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The church he founded on 85 acres just south of Thomson for "cowboys and country folks" is growing. It's becoming so much more than a church, or rather, he says, "what I thought the church should have always been."
The Old Frontier, Smith's come-as-you-are church, started as a nondenominational Christian campground, complete with RV park and horse barns. It's growing into a youth and corporate retreat center, and Smith has plans for an Indian village, gem mining and archery.
At the center of it all is the cowboy church he started in 2008, four years after God gave him the vision for the camp.
Smith likes to tell the story.
In June 2004, while eating at Dearing Café, Smith said, he received a divine revelation. It was a voice he heard in his heart, and it called him into youth ministry.
"The calling of God was clear," Smith said. "I was to totally surrender my life to the service of the kingdom of God."
The Old Frontier was incorporated that October and held its first day camp the next spring.
Since its founding, the camp has put on rodeos, barrel horse racing and youth revivals and created a corn maze and pumpkin patch. By next summer, Smith hopes to build teepees and wagons that will sleep 160 people.
Last year, he sat down and drew a circle on a map, with Thomson at its center. The circle encompassed every inner city within an eight-hour drive of The Old Frontier.
The kids in those cities are the ones he aims to serve with the love of Jesus.
"Inner-city kids have never rode a horse, never played paint ball, never breathed fresh air," Smith said.
He has owned the Old Frontier property, complete with seven ponds, which he plans to stock, since 1999. It was only natural that Smith, a Thomson native, would place his ministry there.
He graduated from Briarwood Academy in Warrenton, Ga., and attended Augusta State University for a year before he decided Georgia Military College was a better fit. After college, Smith became a Burke County firefighter and emergency medical technician.
He grew up Baptist and in the late 1980s and early '90s volunteered his time advising the Southern Baptist Convention's Disaster Relief Program.
Now, at The Old Frontier, Smith's days are busy juggling ministries and outreaches.
There's the Jabez Academy, a therapeutic riding program; and Matthew 25 Ministries, which Smith named after Matthew 25:40: "And the King shall answer and say unto them, 'Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.' "
Three days a week, at about 6 a.m., an Old Frontier van drives 45 minutes to homeless shelters in Augusta.
"We pick up anyone who wants to work," Smith said.
The men receive on-the-job training, learning carpentry, landscaping or cooking. Each day begins with a discussion of their goals and the choices they'll need to make to accomplish their objectives, for the day and in life.
This Christmas, members of Smith's cowboy church adopted 43 children in the community. Early one Saturday morning this month, they met mothers and sisters and grandmothers at Walmart to go shopping.
The women were given $50 and were encouraged to spend it on coats and shoes. Upon leaving the store, they were surprised with Bibles and boxes containing an additional $50 worth of toys.
"We've got to love kids. We've got to get in there with boots on the ground and love them, right where they are without any condemnation," Smith said. "If they need shoes, Jesus says to get them shoes."
The next Saturday, members of the church dropped off care baskets with hand lotion, socks and sugar-free candies for 130 nursing home residents.
"There's no doubt that living your life like this, to the sacrifice of others, is uncomfortable," said Ed DeLong, who joined the cowboy church a year ago. He wears a broad-brimmed hat and embroidered vest with "COWBOYS IN CHRIST" written across his back.
"God is at work, and that pushes me outside my comfort zone, you know?" he said outside Walmart, after helping women with carts of Christmas gifts to their cars.
"I wouldn't normally do stuff like this. But at The Old Frontier, you get hit with the Holy Spirit. "He's all over the place out there."
In warm months, the church meets in an open pavilion set atop the campground's high point. In the cool months, it meets inside a simple metal building.
Smith and his wife, Kristy, live just down the road.
"There's nothing trendy about our church building," Chris Smith said with a laugh.
Two years ago, six pastors laid hands on Smith and ordained him for service. He preaches on Sunday to the 20 or so members of the cowboy church and whoever else shows up.
"We put our heads down and get to work. We've created something different for the kids to do, but the day it stops bringing kids to Christ, we stop doing it," Smith said.
"It's just wild how God works, bringing something from nothing."
The cowboy church at The Old Frontier meets at 11 a.m. Sundays at 1965 Old Milledgeville Road, Thomson.
Learn more about Chris Smith's ministry, youth camp and the church at theoldfrontier.com or call (706) 533-2544.
The Augusta Chronicle ©2012. All Rights Reserved.
![Smith helps a special-needs rider. He says he will continue the work as long as it brings children to know Christ. "We've got to love kids," he says. Corey Perrine/Staff](http://chronicle.augusta.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/superphoto/editorial/images/feed/msms/photos/4574539.jpg "Smith helps a special-needs rider. He says he will continue the work as long as it brings children to know Christ. "We've got to love kids," he says. Corey Perrine/Staff")
![Smith and his wife, Kristy, worship at The Old Frontier. The podium is fashioned with a cross made of horseshoes. "There's nothing trendy about our church building," Chris Smith says. Corey Perrine/Staff](http://chronicle.augusta.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/superphoto/editorial/images/feed/msms/photos/4574541.jpg "Smith and his wife, Kristy, worship at The Old Frontier. The podium is fashioned with a cross made of horseshoes. "There's nothing trendy about our church building," Chris Smith says. Corey Perrine/Staff")
