Worship in a bar? It’s become commonplace to hear of congregations holding meetings or bible study groups in coffee shop, but Sunday service in working bar? While the bar is still open?
Two congregations in Brooklyn are doing that regularly now. Church goers pick up their drinks and move to the back of the room for worship. They take their smartphone bibles with them in one hand and hold their libations in another. They refill as necessary.
One of the congregations meets in the Trash Bar:
“Mr. Turrigiano and Trash Bar came together in the way of many Brooklyn odd couples –through the website Craigslist. The pastor had posted an ad under the heading “Unconventional Church Needs Bar,” and Trash Bar was one of the few to respond.
“We said we will give you business at a time when you don’t have business,” Mr. Turrigiano said.
It was the same sort of negotiation Revolution NYC pastor Jay Bakker, the 36-year-old son of televangelists Jim Bakker and Tammy Faye Bakker Messner, made to secure space for his flock at Pete’s Candy Store. The bar’s owners get a nominal fee, Mr. Bakker said, and in return his congregants bolster the bar’s till before, during and after the service.
“We opened an hour early just for them,” said bartender Dave Thrasher. “So it is business we wouldn’t normally have.””
The other congregation, named “Revolution” meets in Pete’s Candy Store and is headed by Jay Bakker, the son of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker.
“My whole life I have gone to Catholic church and hated it because it was boring and miserable,” said Will Zucconi, 27, who has been attending Revolution services for a year. “I like to drink and I like to go to church, and if I can do both at the same time and that’s cool.”
More here in the Wall Street Journal.
I checked by the way. This is dated 3/30/12 and not written on April 1.