On a Sunday morning, churchgoers park along a gravel driveway at a Harrison County farm. Some carry coolers and food into a red and white barn. Farm owners Kassie and Jason Bennett greet the families with hugs and welcoming smiles.
Welcome to Royal Ranch Church & Ministries, a nonprofit that is not your traditional place of worship.
Jason works in construction and has transformed the barn into a four-thousand-square-foot showplace with an eighteen-foot ceiling, concrete floor, and crafted woodwork.
Jason says, “All the doors are custom. I built them, hand-built them with the crosses inset, and on the walls, you see all the tongue and groove.”
Long tables are set up for the lunch line on both sides inside the barn. Rows of chairs fill the middle of the barn facing a stage with pews in the rear. As people arrive, they can enjoy donuts. Several dogs roam inside and attract children who pet them.
The dogs are among a hundred or so rescued animals that make up the Bennetts’ other nonprofit, Royal Ranch Rescue.
The animals are also part of the welcoming, relaxed atmosphere the Bennetts have created. Jason explains, “I think that's that comfort zone that keeps bringing people back. There is no judgment here, as you can see, I'm in a very simple pair of jeans, and when it comes to the animals just kind of laying around this, that, and other, I think, as a newcomer, you see that it's like, well, this is different. They're not lying on that one, so it brings peace. It brings peace and comfort.”
Kassie works in real estate and is an ordained minister. She leads the church service with passion.
“I grew up, my daddy was a deacon, mom's Sunday school teacher. If the doors were open, we were there. And I grew up in man-made religion, so it's the opposite of what we do here. Religion is actually the polar opposite of what we try to do; religion is look like this, act like this, walk like this. We'll call you a Christian, and we just say, "Come, like Jesus loves you, and let Jesus do the job that only He can do, and change you from the inside out.” So, we just love people. Our job isn't to judge. We built this, and we do this to build a community.”
Dozens of people show up for Sunday service, but Kassie says when they started holding church on their farm five years ago, it was a much smaller group. Fourteen people, mostly family, attended that first worship service on Easter Sunday.
The barn was not yet finished. Kassie remembers, “We went many winters with no heat, so like everybody would have their own little furnaces and their own little heaters, and everybody had blankets and gloves.”
She says every Sunday they worshipped, no matter how few people came.
“We have service when it's been really, really bad, and we couldn't get people up the lane. In winter, we did do it online a couple times, but no, every Sunday you can count on, and it's not about just coming to a place that looks different than a normal church. It's about community, it's about family. Our vision was to create a place that feels like Sunday coming home to the farm.”
Now not only is the barn full of people, but there’s also a lot going on outside.
Children play on an inflatable bouncy house. Others tour the farm to meet and touch horses. A young boy holds a chicken and pets it. There’s a basketball court where teenagers are playing.
And nearby sits a black motor coach. Its side is covered by a large painting of the Bennetts and their five children next to the face of Jesus. Words on the bus proclaim, “This guy loves you more than anyone else can.”
The Bennetts take their ministry on the road. Also, outside near the barn is a small stage with a large tub of water for baptisms after the worship service. When asked how the couple pays for all this, which includes a hot lunch on Sundays in the barn, Kassie explains they don’t pass the offering plate like a traditional church, but they do accept donations.
“I'm just gonna be honest with you, Sam. It's a sense of pride that I didn't want to ask for help, like people see what we're doing, they see how I mean, we feed everyone every Sunday, like the cost of that is not, and then the things that you don't see behind the scenes, and you know, we hire an outside bookkeeping service that does nothing but nonprofits, just because I don't want anyone to think that there's any crazy thing going on, so they're not one person here gets paid. There's no salary, there's no funding, there's none of that, but there's a lot of money that it costs just to keep it running, insurance and all that stuff.”
The sense of community the Bennetts have created appeals to people like Dillon and Tessa Price.
Tessa says, “It doesn't feel like the brick-and-mortar church that we had been going to, and it just felt so welcoming, and I mean, I could go on about things that it's just been one week after another, there's something that just keeps making us come back.”
McKenzie Etienne, who is dating one of the Bennetts’ sons, explains the appeal of church on the farm. “It's almost freeing, it's very different. It's just, it's like a gathering place, and for it not being like a traditional setting, I feel like it just allows people to be themselves, it's kind of... it's different, so they're like, oh, you know, they come into it with like an open mind and just… I feel like it allows people to take their masks off and just be themselves.”
The Bennetts say people of all faith backgrounds are welcome. Jason says, “It's not our job to judge them, we love them, we just want to show them some Jesus, and then you know, let Jesus work on their heart on whatever you know they need worked on, and whatever avenue they need worked on. We all need work.”
This Fall, Royal Ranch Church & Ministries will host women’s, men’s, and couples’ conferences. More information is available on the church’s Facebook page.
