When a church walks into a bar...

A church walks into a bar...

We just had one Easter service at the bar yesterday. We met a little early because our Baptist preacher friend was going to baptize a guy from his church. Before we knew what was happening the bar was filling up with members of his little Baptist church. Moms, dads, kids, and babies all dressed in their Easter best filled our little smoky bar.

We panicked to be honest.

We started serving drinks...non-alcoholic of course. Cokes and Dr. Peppers to the kids. Coffee for the adults. Serving, pouring, and leading was the owner of the bar who knows these people talk bad about her establishment because a few of them told her once when she visited their church. Everything was on the house and served with a smile. She even gave free refills.

One of us had a guitar and decided to play "Amazing Grace" as everyone was seated and just staring at us. Then we took them outside on our patio for more room. We stood and cheered as the preacher and his friend came out of the water. A few of my Catholic friends had no idea what they had just seen...they asked if that could be on next week's agenda.

We invited everyone inside for communion with us...only because they didn't leave and we didn't know what to do with them all. Our friend served bread and grape juice to anyone who wanted to join us. She's overcoming drugs and is trying to put her life back together. She's not always great at it. She lost her kids and desperately wants to get them back. She can't wait to tell her son that she served communion.

We shook hands and invited people back for a meal sometime. When everyone was gone, we laughed.

Nine people...a cook, a bar owner, a recovering addict, a hospice patient and her boyfriend, a chaplain, a bartender and husband, and one great friend of mine all laughed. We had just hosted a baptism and served communion to about 40 people on Easter...in a bar.

I promise we never planned any of it. Funny what God will do with a little space...

...and the bar served the church.

The New Normal

I like to think I try to be open to new.

My normal got new about 6 weeks ago. Each Sunday morning I drive 20 or so miles out to a little dive bar on Eagle Mountain Lake. Six to ten of us gather around coffee, doughnuts, and cigarettes and we talk about Jesus. A few of us know each other and others are meeting for the first time. We are Church of Christ, Catholic, Baptist, and mostly unknown. Some of us wear typical Sunday clothes and others wear pajama pants. Most of us come sober, but occasionally one or two arrive differently.

Each Sunday we read the Bible. The exact same Bible I've been reading for 33yrs. And each time has showed me that WHERE we read the Bible matters...

Want to see the creation story different? Read it with a group of people who can't imagine being created in the image of God because they've been told forever they aren't "good enough".

The fall of man? Way different story when everyone sitting there knows the dirt of everyone else. Something about our own equality makes reading God that much more real.

Discussing the 10 Commandments is totally different in a bar. Trust me.

Communion, complete with Welch's and official crackers, is special each Sunday because each time is a new experience for someone in the circle.

Most importantly we don't approach the Bible...there in that place...with right or wrong in mind. We don't have time for that. We get maybe 30-45mins and we try hard to spend it finding ways to interact with each other and Jesus through scripture.

We have no idea what we are doing or if you would call it right, acceptable, good, holy, or even orthodox. But we keep showing up each week and trying.

This is my new normal and any reader's prayers would be greatly appreciated.