I'll Take A Bible With A Beer Back!

[Miranda]

New church holds service in bar to reach new people

Mon Apr 21, 2008

Another round and amen! Beer was on tap and a mechanical bull inspired the sermon as a new church held its inaugural service in a western Ohio bar.

The Country Rock Church drew about 100 people to Sunday night's meeting at the Pub Lounge in Sidney, 35 miles north of Dayton.

The barroom church is an offshoot of Sidney United First Methodist Church, whose head pastor says he's been looking for creative ways to reach people in unconventional places.

The church's Web site for its new branch advertises "Top regional bands, pizza, wings, rowdy fun & a short message."

The Rev. Chris Heckaman says people really seemed to enjoy themselves so he expects the Country Rock Church will meet weekly.

Heckaman's sermon compared staying on the bar's mechanical bull to learning how to get along in life.

On the Net:

Sidney United First Methodist: http://www.sidneyfirst.com/

Associated Press 2008

[sass_in_the_pants]

I love when smart marketing and religion intersect.

I used to go to this thing called Theology on Tap. There's a discussion on some theological topic, and $2 drafts.

Nice.

[Rev.Reverence]

Hillarious... seriously.. ( wrong thread).....

[Troy Spiral (13)]

Various religious orders have a long history of brewing beer. The Trappist monks being the most famous.

This sort of show business "this'll bring em in!" type stuff has been part and parcel of the way to get more converts since time immemorial. Mixing popular pagan rituals with christian rites, building pretty buildings, melding formerly "godless" types of music with christian lyrics, giving out free stuff and so on goes back as far as Christianity.

Not to say it isn't well intentioned.

[hunhee]

I think this calls for a road trip.. seriously.. this is the type of stuff I love to go see/do. I don't know if many of you know how fascinated I am with religion/lack of religion. This is right up my alley.

I was going to go to church last Sunday, and then go to an Atheist meeting.. I kinda decided that the church thing wasn't a good idea, for different reasons, but the Atheist thing was actually very interesting.

This is definitely not fundamentalist Christian.. it almost seems like they're kinda selling out. *shrugs*

I would be curious as to see what the rest of our Christian public thinks about this. Is this selling out? Or is this another home run for the JC?