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.
A little bit of everything from a sometimes frantic mind trying to find peace everyday.
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1 comment:
Awesome. I mean that. This inspires awe.
You need to read Sara Miles, Take This Bread. It's her spiritual autobiography and this is exactly the kind of stuff she talks about. She is a FANTASTIC writer and an even better theologian. Oh, and she is a lesbian, episcopalian, who spent most of her life as a war journalist and atheist. ya, awesome.
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