GREENWOOD, TEXAS - My dad preaches at a little country church in this unincorporated ranching community about 55 miles north of Fort Worth.

He drives up every Sunday from my parents’ home in Keller, a Fort Worth suburb.

I make it down to Greenwood from Oklahoma City every few months and always insist on lunch at Catfish O’Harlie’s in nearby Decatur. But I won’t bore you with details of the salad bar, the pinto beans or even the giant baskets of catfish and fries.

(Note to Dad: I’m suddenly hungry. How about I meet you this weekend?)

In the afternoon, Dad studies and naps on a church pew. Then he preaches again that night.

It amounts to a long day for what is technically his day off. Dad works full time at a Walgreen’s drug store.

On a typical Sunday, about 17 to 20 people — including four elders — gather at the Greenwood church.

As we pulled into the gravel parking lot on a recent Sunday, though, visitors filled the sidewalk. When everyone finished exchanging greetings and handshakes, there must have been 40 people in the auditorium.

Why all the hullabaloo?

The Sojourners were in town.

In case you’re not familiar with the Sojourners, they are retired Christians who own R.V.’s. — recreational vehicles, that is.

They travel to smaller congregations across the country to help them grow spiritually and physically. (Their Web site at www.sojourning.org tells all about their history and organization.)

In all, about 800 Sojourners help out at congregations, church camps and Christian schools.

They knock doors, lead parenting seminars, conduct gospel meetings and organize Vacation Bible Schools. They paint, trim weeds, remodel, fix whatever’s broken and even sew. The Eastern Hills church, Marshall, Texas, oversees their work. Sojourners go only where invited, and before leaving town, they put enough money in the collection plate to cover any utility expenses incurred by their stay, such as electricity and water usage.

Six R.V.’s were parked outside the Greenwood church building when we arrived that morning. At least two more were on the way. The Sojourners were here to meet people in the community, set up Bible studies and invite folks to a four-night gospel meeting.

Before Bible study, all the Sojourners were invited to introduce themselves and tell where they were from. Most gave their hometown, but a few of their responses made me laugh.

“We’re from wherever our motor home is parked,” Charles Hickerson said when he and his wife, Linda, stood up.

“We’re from Greenwood, Texas,” Luther Whitfield said, pausing for effect. “For the next two weeks.”

Whitfield and his wife, Peggy, have been on the road since 1998. He retired after 20 years as a firefighter and decided he wanted to preach — but not at the same place every week.

“I told my wife, “If we don’t see some country, we never will,” Whitfield recalled. “So we just sold everything and bought a fifth wheel and a pickup and went on the road.”

When they want to stop somewhere for more than a few weeks, they park their R.V. at their daughters’ houses, one in St. Louis and one near Shreveport, La.

Many Sojourners own permanent residences along with their R.V.’s. But Whitfield jokes that they also have something else he doesn’t: Yards to mow and property taxes to pay.

Sporting blue suspenders, a maroon shirt, jeans and tennis shoes, Whitfield delivered the guest sermon that morning — and in a style that anyone could understand.

He recalled the old country song, “I’m Gonna Hire a Wino To Decorate Our Home,” and suggested that it might not hurt to have a wino assess our churches occasionally, to see how we might better reach the lost.

He reminded the congregation of the theme song from the Cheers TV show and pointed out, “It tells about a beer joint. Everybody likes to go to a beer joint because everybody’s got the same problems and they sit around talking about their problems.”

I don’t think his point was that we should all go to beer joints, but that our congregations should be places where everybody is somebody and everybody can get help navigating the bumpy road to heaven.

Alas, I detoured into Sermonland. Back to the Sojourners.

This was their third visit to Greenwood. The first time they came a few years ago, they focused on hard labor — putting in plasterboard, paneling, doing woodwork. “We had little old ladies up on scaffolds cleaning those lights,” elder Jerry Myers said.

The next time, the Sojourners worked on building projects and led a gospel meeting. This time, their visit was totally spiritual.

“The Sojourners just pump a lot of enthusiasm into our congregation,” said Myers, a 67-year-old retired airline pilot. “We sit here and complain about our aches and pains, and then we see these people come in here who are 10 years older than us, and it’s very inspiring.”

John Townley, the 78-year-old leader of the group that came to Greenwood, has been a Sojourner for 23 years.

I asked him why he keeps doing it.

“It’s kind of like being a Christian,” he replied. “Why do you keep on being a Christian?”