Fishing for Souls: Wyoming Church Takes Ministry to the River

Duke Edwards literally fishes for souls. Several times a month during warm weather, the pastor of Wilderness Church takes the church’s drift boat and one to three people fishing on a nearby river to have serious discussions about life.

The best ones end with a visitor making a decision to follow Jesus as Lord and Savior.

“It’s turned into a counseling tool for us,” says the Pinedale, Wyoming, pastor. “A lot of times people out here don’t want to come to church or to an office for formal counseling.

“But I can get them to go fishing with me. Everyone’s okay with that. I can ask questions about what’s going on and how things are going and they have a good day. ‘Going fishing’ almost turns into a code phrase for ‘I need to talk.’”

The results can be seen in the conversions since Wilderness Church’s launch. The pastor and his core group started the western Wyoming church in 2013. Since then, Edwards says approximately 200 people have prayed to receive Christ.

More than 100 have been baptized, including an all-time single-day high of nine on a Sunday in June.

Even though he doesn’t go fishing, retired private investigator Dale “Butch” Johnson admires the efforts his pastor makes to reach out.

“When you talk with Duke, you can see there’s a great deal of passion for him with this,” says Johnson, 78. “Duke is a great listener. He listens to others’ problems—their good times and bad times. His ability to listen is what’s so important. And this isn’t just for church members; it’s for people in the community and any visitors to the area.”

Nineteen-year-old Mason B. Orm, who has grown up at Wilderness, credits Edwards with teaching him the foundations of love for people and the outdoors.

Orm, who recently completed an associate’s degree in outdoor education and leadership at Central Wyoming College, sees young people as the pastor’s leading target.

“He’s really good at making his sermons fun and lively,” Orm says. “He holds plenty of events at church that are good for everybody, no matter what your age.”

Spiritual breakthroughs are significant in a place like Sublette County, home to fewer than 8,800 people (about 2,000 live in Pinedale). A former rodeo chaplain and cowboy church pastor, Edwards says many residents struggle with cultural isolation and alcoholism.

According to the Sublette Prevention Coalition, the area has the highest per-capita alcohol use and suicide rate in the continental U.S. However, Edwards learned from the coalition that 2023 marked the county’s first decline in suicide in a decade.

“That’s what we deal with ministry-wise,” says Edwards, 45. “How do we lower that rate? What ends up happening a lot of times is people go looking for a way to numb the pain. They can’t find a solution, so alcohol does that for a while.”

Interestingly, Wilderness—which averages 50 in Sunday attendance—didn’t have the money for a boat. It acquired one thanks to a $10,000 grant in 2018 from Element Church in Cheyenne. It was one of 16 awarded that year by the congregation, a member of the Evangelical Church, a small denomination based in Billings, Montana.

Executive Director Kristen C. Spiker, 51, says the 1,000-member church started making “I Heart Wyoming” grants in 2017 as a way of strengthening congregations’ ministries in the nation’s ninth-most unchurched state. She says recipients have sponsored everything from back-to-school bashes to community festivals and purchasing school clothes for needy children.

“Our focus has always been on outreach,” Spiker says. “We wanted to help other churches do that if they didn’t have the money to love on their community. It’s hard to know how communities have been impacted, but serving them is important.”

That is true, says Alan H. Schaberg, 61, superintendent of the Wyoming Ministry Network. A pastor in the state for 13 years before joining the network in 2012, Schaberg says it is a challenge to maintain healthy churches in a small population.

There are presently 35 AG congregations in Wyoming, with a historic high of 42. In the same way, Wilderness Church has had its ebbs and flows but has remained relatively strong, Schaberg says.

“Our numbers are always going to be small compared to other districts and networks,” says the Iowa native. “We only have 600,000 people in Wyoming. I’m happy that Duke and his family came back (from a two-year sabbatical) and are re-establishing things.”

While his job at a ski resort allows him the flexibility to take time off when needed, Edwards envisions the day when Wilderness Church can hire a fulltime “pastor of fishing.”

“We’d love to have a year-round gig with ice fishing,” Edwards says. “We can offer housing but we can’t pay anybody yet. If we get established, we might be able to get some grant money to pay a fulltime salary, but it could take 18 to 24 months to get it fully funded.”

In the meantime, the memory that keeps this dream alive is the 2016 convert who hesitated about getting baptized. However, when he found a job in another state the next winter, he declared he had to get baptized before leaving.

“We had to break the ice on the river, but it was a cool thing to do,” Edwards recalls. “He wanted his family and his church family to be there. I have so many stories of what God’s done. It’s been amazing.”