Bedford County officials are working with area clergy to stress that county zoning only regulates land use, not the right to worship, though some feel otherwise.

The county is updating its 10-year-old zoning ordinance and religious land use is ripe for change, said George Nester, the county’s chief zoning administrator.

“It does touch a lot of people,” he said. “There may be ways to do things smarter and better.”

Following a year-and-a-half debate with the Cowboy Church of Moneta, a nondenominational church that used to meet in a barn, county officials are re-examining religious land-use policies, which include requiring a special-use permit for religious assemblies on agricultural land.

Ray Bell, the Cowboy Church’s pastor, has challenged the county’s regulations, saying it infringes on people’s rights to worship God how they want to, though he has said he doesn’t consider the county his enemy.

Nester said the county’s only intent is to make sure buildings on agricultural-zoned land, such as a barn, adequately meet safety standards to avert emergencies.

Nester and two members of the Bedford County Planning Commission sat down this week with Bell to begin dialogue on religious land use.

Bill Moore, pastor of Bedford Christian Church and a local ministerial association leader, also attended the discussion - along with Bob Adams, who leads a Catholic parish in Moneta, and Bob Nixon, who plans to build a new church on Turkey Foot Road in Forest.

In an e-mail to church supporters and media, Bell wrote that the meeting was “a mighty day for the citizens of Bedford County.”

“God has changed the hearts and minds of the men and women in government,” Bell stated in the e-mail. “The Satanic hold over Bedford County has been broken.”

Nester said Friday that he felt the dialogue went well. There is another meeting scheduled March 11 to discuss possible changes to permitted land uses.

This week’s discussion dealt mainly with zoning terms used - such as “religious assemblies,” “outdoor gatherings” and “church” that Nester said often overlap each other.

“One of the goals is to perhaps reclassify and use one definition,” he said.

Though special-use permits are required for church buildings on agricultural land, Nester said in most cases the planning commission and county board of supervisors are lenient in approving them.

Nester said a permit wasn’t granted in one case, and that was when an applicant proposed a campground that Nester said would change the area’s nature to

industrial.

The county is expected to hold public hearings later this year on the update in zoning laws, Nester said.

Bell encouraged his church members, who now meet in a tent, to attend the hearings.

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