Churches turning to be beer to get congregants
By John Burnett, NPR
With mainline religious congregations dwindling across America, a scattering of churches is trying to attract new members by creating a different sort of Christian community. They are gathering around craft beer.
Some church groups are brewing it themselves, while others are bring the Holy Mysteries to a taproom. The result is not sloshed congregants; rather, it’s an exploratory approach to do church differently.
Leah Stanfield stands at a microphone across the room from the beer taps and reads this evening’s gospel message.
She’s a 28-year-old leasing agent who’s been coming to Church-in-a-Pub here in Fort Worth for a year and occasionally leads worship.
“I find the love, I find the support, I find the non-judgmental eyes when I come here,” she says. “And I find friends that love God, love craft beer.”
Beer and Hymns is an event at the annual Greenbelt Festival in London. Since 1974, Greenbelt has brought people together to explore faith, arts and justice issues.
Every Sunday evening, 30 to 40 people gather at Zio Carlo brewpub to order pizza and pints of beer, to have fellowship, and have church — including communion.
Leah Stanfield, a leasing agent in Fort Worth and regular attendee of Church-in-a Pub, hands out bread during communion at the tavern.
Pastor Philip Heinze and his Calvary Lutheran Church sponsor Church-in-a-Pub, whose formal name is the Greek word, Kyrie.
Some patrons are understandably confused. They come in for a brew and there’s a religious service going on in their bar. They expected Trivia Night and they get the Holy Eucharist.
God and grog?
Nothing new. The Catholics have been doing it for a couple thousand years.
Amen Bigger. Kinda like Messiah and a meal, eh? I am sure the beer comes at a “donation” though. As a craft brewer myself and always in search of the local pilsner, I might just tolerate a few words of god to earn my grog.
It appears as though the proofreader was turning to beer as well.
The photo shows the Fallen Leaf Chapel. (St. Francis of the Mountains) Please note that the chapel is closed until June and there are currently no plans to start serving beer there. All are welcome to visit the chapel and memorial garden to pray, worship, or just have a look around in the midst of God’s awesome creation.
The legal age for indoctrinating a person with religion should be the same as consuming alcohol.
caso, if we follow that logic we should also not teach children what is right, moral or legal until they are of an age to drink. Also then they should also not indoctrinate children with evolution until they are allowed to drink. (I am not religious but I still believe people have a constitutionaly right to raise their children the way they want otherwise why dont we just let the state take them and make them think the way the state wants
“Beer. Proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy”-Benjamin Franklin
‘caso, if we follow that logic we should also not teach children what is right, moral or legal until they are of an age to drink’
You can learn morality without religion. And be just as moral, if not more so. Teaching kids ‘do this, or else angry sky man will punish you and send you to underground fire land’ is not morality.
And evolution is real and teaching it to children strengthens their fact based worldview. More people should accept evolution. And the main reason people don’t is that they were brain washed by Angry Sky Mantians. When they were kids.
Why do churches try to get the people when they are young?
Give the kids a choice. There are 100s of gods to choose from.
Caso, you obviously have a real problem with any religon, you must have had a very strict nun in school. Most religons dont really preach the hell and brimstone dogma any longer. A good many people think their religon grounds them and comforts them. If that works for them who are we judge them. As long as they are not pushing their religon on me I am fine. Also evolution is not fact it is a theory, a good one but still considered a theory a very good one, but still no proven within a shadow of a doubt.
I’m pretty sure these people meeting for fellowship and a couple brews at Church-in-a-Pub are decent folks. However, it’s a different kind of extremist dominionist wackos that are infesting American politics that everybody ought to be aware of:
http://www.talk2action.org/story/2013/10/11/173533/73/front_page/video_ted_cruz_anointed_by_pro_religious_war_anti_gay_pastors
“Also evolution is not fact it is a theory,”
Thanks for explaining that.
Now I no longer have to take anything you type seriously. Your understanding of science is elementary. Yes, it a theory…. just like all of the other complicated matters of science. And it is surrounded by volumes of corroborative evidence and as a working theory it has opened to doors to countless other discoveries.
For all intents and purposes, evolution by natural selection, using DNA, is a fact.
You might be surprised, but there are people who comment here who will tell you that evolution happened, except that humans did not descend from lower primates. And insist that they don’t deny evolution.
No joke.
And they are bible bangers.
Go figure.
So yeah, religion is a problem. They are all completely made up. They all insist that they are right. They can’t all be right. And some of them think that the people who don’t believe in their god, are all going to die horribly. As if an omniscient being is that simple minded and petty.
If there is a god, it isn’t a total a-hole.
Caso, Caso, Caso. You seem to be as closed minded as the right wing religious nuts that want to control the way people think, or as much as the left wing fanatics that wnat to control everything people do. If religon gives people comfort who are we to judge them(as long as they are not pushing it on me). I know you will hate this saying as it is a religious one but “Judge not least you be Judged”
The people who are Religious nuts if they did not have religion would probably be trying to control people in some other way as that is their nature. The problem is that not the religon it is people who want power.
I’m with you pesacado. They have to get people drunk to buy the crap they are selling. One point, the definition of theory as it relates to science is different then the vernacular meaning. Scientific theories are the most reliable, rigorous, and comprehensive form of scientific knowledge. This is significantly different from the word “theory” in common usage, which implies that something is unsubstantiated or speculative.