May 12, 2003
TWO YEARS AGO, the men's fellowship near Colmesneil started meeting in this new facility, called "The Gathering Place." Breakfast is served at each meeting before a devotional message. Area pastors and laymen serve as singers and speakers for the meetings, all with the intent of sharing how God is at work in their lives. The monthly fellowship was begun in 1995 by a layman, Doyle Cowart. It has grown to reach about 100 men. (Randy Kinsey/BP Photos)
Men's fellowship grows tall in piney woods
___By Erin Curry
___Baptist Press
___COLMESNEIL (BP)--Deep in the piney woods of East Texas, nearly 100 men from a variety of backgrounds gather once a month in a log cabin overlooking a catfish pond to share breakfast and celebrate their common bond of love for God.
___The original group of men started meeting in 1995 when Doyle Cowart, known as "Colonel Kornbread," retired from his work at an oil rig and started looking for an opportunity to reach more men for Jesus.
___"I realized there was no place for men to get together for any kind of fellowship," Cowart said. "I conceived an idea about starting a breakfast, and I started it on my back porch with my Sunday School class. There were 16 of us."
___Within a couple of months, the group had doubled and moved to the barn behind Cowart's home. About two years ago, with numbers still growing, they decided to build a new 40-by-80-foot facility specifically for the meetings.
___Now all sorts of men--log haulers, politicians, lawyers, FBI personnel, policemen and Christians of several denominations--travel as far as an hour and a half from all directions to meet at "The Gathering Place" each month.
___Men start arriving around 6 a.m. to visit, and then by 7 breakfast is served, consisting of sausage and biscuits, scrambled eggs and bacon or pancakes. As the men eat, someone usually sings a song and then someone gives a devotional message. Area pastors and laymen alike serve as singers and speakers, all to give testimony of God's work in their lives.
___"Lots of men come and don't go to church anywhere," Cowart said. "They're getting a good witness just being around these men."
___While the men are together, they make a point to mention those they know who are sick so others can pray for them. The breakfast wraps up by 8 a.m.
___"It's just my thinking that if you can get men together that have a strong compassion for folks around them, then it just has to make the community stronger and better," Cowart said. "People come from every walk of life, but they all match together because the single common denominator of the whole thing is that Christ is the center."
___Once a year, Cowart said, they have a pancake supper on Saturday night and invite all the women. But it's the men who attend every month who make The Gathering Place so special.
___"The whole thing is successful because of all the people that come," Cowart said. "They can come and fellowship and leave knowing they've been to a place where the atmosphere is very country, very simple."
___And most of all, centered on God.
___
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