At his SBH horse stable business near rural Grove, Oklahoma, former Pastor Steven Dyer is very active on YouTube. Video topics include “Wild Mustang Challenge” and “Teaching a Pony to Not be Afraid.” With deep experience and plenty of patience, Steve demonstrates various ways to befriend and train a horse. But as he works with horses, he is constantly reminded of God. “The more I’m around horses, I see the beauty of how they are created and how we interact with them. And one of my little personal theories is that I believe God created the horse just for us to ride. They are perfectly suited, as no other animal is in creation, to carry us from place to place,” he marvels.
Because of that, some of his YouTube videos are in a series called “Sermon by Horse.” One teaching is called “Boundaries: This mustang needs boundaries, even if he doesn't want them. So do we.”
There’s a definite backstory to that video teaching. “I guess I got the idea for that from when I was a teenager and people would say, ‘God says don’t do this…and God says don’t do that.’ And I remember thinking, ‘God must not want me to have any fun’ (he laughs) … And then as I matured and began to serve the Lord, I realized that those boundaries are there for our protection and other peoples’ protection as well.” So, when Steve was training a horse recently, he thought, “You know, he’d really like to get out of this pen and run away and be free, but if he did, something bad would happen. So, I just saw the connection, the analogy, between boundaries we give to the horse to the boundaries that God gives us,” and that inspired the bible teaching video on Boundaries, which we feature further below.
And here's our podcast interview:
Over the years, Steve has trained horses and taught people to ride in such diverse places as the Navajo Reservation and Saudi Arabia. And he consistently found by way or horses he was able to share faith in Christ with others.
Steve has always been fond of horses. “The first time my parents put me on a horse, I was about five years old and I grabbed the reigns, whacked the horse, and said ‘ya!,’ and the horse took off running…and my mom started screaming… and I had the time of my life, loved it!”
