{"id":8766,"date":"2011-10-19T19:58:08","date_gmt":"2011-10-19T23:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/?p=8766"},"modified":"2011-10-20T10:00:22","modified_gmt":"2011-10-20T14:00:22","slug":"96-year-old-man-joins-church-even-though-it-meant-full-immersion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/10\/96-year-old-man-joins-church-even-though-it-meant-full-immersion","title":{"rendered":"96-year-old gets baptized at Cowboy church"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s never too late for salvation, reports Debbie Denmon for <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wfaa.com\/news\/local\/Cowboy-Church-inspires-96-year-old-to-be-baptized-131964138.html\" target=\"_blank\">Dallas-Fort Worth&#8217;s KFAA-TV<\/a> &#8212; and 96-year-old Bert Devers is living proof. After almost a century of refusing to go to church, he&#8217;s found a home at the Dallas County Cowboy Church.<\/p>\n<p>Given their Baptist background, after Devers reconciled with the Almighty, it was time to follow Jesus&#8217; example in baptism. And at the Cowboy Church, they dunk. Full immersion &#8212; in a cattle tank.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"http:\/\/www.wfaa.com\/templates\/belo_embedWrapper.js?storyid=131964138&amp;pos=top&amp;swfw=470\"><\/script><object id=\"bimvidplayer0\" width=\"470\" height=\"264\" classid=\"clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000\" codebase=\"http:\/\/download.macromedia.com\/pub\/shockwave\/cabs\/flash\/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0\"><param name=\"allowfullscreen\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"allowscriptaccess\" value=\"always\" \/><param name=\"quality\" value=\"high\" \/><param name=\"cachebusting\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"flashvars\" value=\"config=http%3A\/\/www.wfaa.com\/%3Fj%3D131964138%26ref%3Dhttp%3A\/\/www.wfaa.com\/news\/local\/Cowboy-Church-inspires-96-year-old-to-be-baptized-131964138.html\" \/><param name=\"src\" value=\"http:\/\/swfs.bimvid.com\/bimvid_player-3_2_7.swf?x-bim-callletters=WFAA\" \/><embed id=\"bimvidplayer0\" width=\"470\" height=\"264\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" src=\"http:\/\/swfs.bimvid.com\/bimvid_player-3_2_7.swf?x-bim-callletters=WFAA\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\" quality=\"high\" cachebusting=\"true\" flashvars=\"config=http%3A\/\/www.wfaa.com\/%3Fj%3D131964138%26ref%3Dhttp%3A\/\/www.wfaa.com\/news\/local\/Cowboy-Church-inspires-96-year-old-to-be-baptized-131964138.html\" \/><\/object><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"http:\/\/www.wfaa.com\/templates\/belo_embedWrapper.js?storyid=131964138&amp;pos=bottom\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s never too late,&#8221; reports Denmon. &#8220;That&#8217;s what one family is saying after their 96-year-old father did something they never thought he&#8217;d do.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>They credit the Western-styled church in Balch Springs for helping Devers realize he needed to repent of his sins, confess his faith and become a Christian. What&#8217;s remarkable, says Denmon, is that Devers\u00a0&#8220;never really wanted to go to church at all \u2014 until he saw folks worshiping &#8216;Western-style.'&#8221;<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_8804\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-8804\" style=\"width: 511px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/files\/2011\/10\/cowboy-church.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-8804  \" title=\"cowboy church\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/140\/2011\/10\/cowboy-church-811x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"511\" height=\"645\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-8804\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">It&#39;s a boot-stomping good time at Cowboy Church<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Christians have a boot-stomping good time at the Cowboy Church, says\u00a0Pastor Mike McKinney, who wears boots, jeans and a string tie to preach the Gospel in a distinctive Texas drawl. &#8220;Being baptized don&#8217;t save you,&#8221; he told his congregation on the morning that Bert was set to be baptized. &#8220;It&#8217;s just water &#8212; and on top of that, it&#8217;s Balch Springs water!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Nope, he explains, salvation is a gift from God, freely offered to all. That&#8217;s the message Devers started taking personally after visiting the congregation. His son,\u00a0Gary Devers, told KFAA he sensed something was up when his dad suddenly took an interest in life.\u00a0&#8220;He tells me, &#8216;When I show up at the Cowboy Church with my straw hat, everybody there&#8217;s gonna think there&#8217;s a new sheriff in town!'&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;A man who just survived congestive heart failure now has a healed heart \u2014 for more than one reason,&#8221; reports Denmon. &#8220;Despite two broken hips, this 96-year-old is now walking in faith, something he&#8217;d never done his whole life.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s very exciting today because we&#8217;ve prayed many years for this to happen,&#8221; his tearful daughter Sandra Devers told KFAA.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Before he became a Christian, he had lost his will to live,&#8221; Gary Devers added. Now, he has &#8220;told one of my neighbors now he wants to make it to 100, and I think that will happen now.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s never too late for salvation, reports Debbie Denmon for Dallas-Fort Worth&#8217;s KFAA-TV &#8212; and 96-year-old Bert Devers is living proof. After almost a century of refusing to go to church, he&#8217;s found a home at the Dallas County Cowboy Church. Given their Baptist background, after Devers reconciled with the Almighty, it was time to&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":270,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[1660,1749],"class_list":["post-8766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christian","tag-christian-news","tag-cowboy-church"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>96-year-old gets baptized at Cowboy church<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/10\/96-year-old-man-joins-church-even-though-it-meant-full-immersion\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"96-year-old gets baptized at Cowboy church\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It&#8217;s never too late for salvation, reports Debbie Denmon for Dallas-Fort Worth&#8217;s KFAA-TV &#8212; and 96-year-old Bert Devers is living proof. After almost a century of refusing to go to church, he&#8217;s found a home at the Dallas County Cowboy Church. Given their Baptist background, after Devers reconciled with the Almighty, it was time to&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/10\/96-year-old-man-joins-church-even-though-it-meant-full-immersion\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-10-19T23:58:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-10-20T14:00:22+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/files\/2011\/10\/cowboy-church-811x1024.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"96-year-old gets baptized at Cowboy church","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/10\/96-year-old-man-joins-church-even-though-it-meant-full-immersion","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"96-year-old gets baptized at Cowboy church","og_description":"It&#8217;s never too late for salvation, reports Debbie Denmon for Dallas-Fort Worth&#8217;s KFAA-TV &#8212; and 96-year-old Bert Devers is living proof. After almost a century of refusing to go to church, he&#8217;s found a home at the Dallas County Cowboy Church. Given their Baptist background, after Devers reconciled with the Almighty, it was time to&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/10\/96-year-old-man-joins-church-even-though-it-meant-full-immersion","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2011-10-19T23:58:08+00:00","article_modified_time":"2011-10-20T14:00:22+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/files\/2011\/10\/cowboy-church-811x1024.jpg"}],"twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/10\/96-year-old-man-joins-church-even-though-it-meant-full-immersion","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/10\/96-year-old-man-joins-church-even-though-it-meant-full-immersion","name":"96-year-old gets baptized at Cowboy church","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/10\/96-year-old-man-joins-church-even-though-it-meant-full-immersion#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/10\/96-year-old-man-joins-church-even-though-it-meant-full-immersion#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/files\/2011\/10\/cowboy-church-811x1024.jpg","datePublished":"2011-10-19T23:58:08+00:00","dateModified":"2011-10-20T14:00:22+00:00","author":{"@id":""},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/10\/96-year-old-man-joins-church-even-though-it-meant-full-immersion#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/10\/96-year-old-man-joins-church-even-though-it-meant-full-immersion"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/10\/96-year-old-man-joins-church-even-though-it-meant-full-immersion#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/files\/2011\/10\/cowboy-church-811x1024.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/files\/2011\/10\/cowboy-church-811x1024.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/10\/96-year-old-man-joins-church-even-though-it-meant-full-immersion#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"96-year-old gets baptized at Cowboy church"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/author"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/270"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8766"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8766\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8783,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8766\/revisions\/8783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}