FCM News Blog

Tell me, is this not the logical next step if you’re taking a seeker sensitive approach to marketing your church? Why let a few beers be a barrier when you already have a Rock & Roll band?
I recall a time, back when I was not saved sitting in a bar and having lengthy discussions about Christianity while drinking beer and not for a minute did I think we were having church! And if someone came in and told us we were going to have church by continuing what we were doing, would I have been convicted to change my ways?

(Luk 13:3) I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.

Alcohol, Acts 29 and the Southern Baptist Convention
Published March 29, 2007
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NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)—”How about beer with your Bible?”
That’s the question NBC’s “Today” show host Campbell Brown asked March 4 on national television to introduce a report titled “Beer and Bibles: New Churches Lure Young Members.”
Featured in the two-and-a-half minute segment was Darrin Patrick, founder and senior pastor of The Journey in St. Louis—a Southern Baptist church with ties to the emerging church movement, the North American Mission Board and the Missouri Baptist Convention, which loaned the church $200,000 to help start a church planting center.
The emerging church movement is diverse and difficult to generalize. NBC spotlighted The Journey’s “Theology at the Bottleworks,” a church-sponsored discussion group in a bar where alcohol is available to attendees.
“This isn’t just a brew pub, it’s a church,” NBC reporter Jennifer London said, describing the room where the meeting is held. The “church” in reality is the Schlafly Bottleworks where The Journey reaches out to younger adults who might not consider going to a traditional church setting.
Patrick told Baptist Press he abstains from alcohol and that The Journey “doesn’t personally encourage nor corporately promote the use of alcohol.”
However, the reporter emphasized the link.
“Followers say they may come for the beer, but they stay for the Bible,” London said. “And back at the brew pub, it’s about saving souls, one beer at a time.”
Some attending the Theology at the Bottleworks gathering also made the connection between alcohol and the outreach effort. Erin Ryan, who accepted Christ at one of the meetings, told the NBC crew, “You sit down over a glass of wine or a pint of ale or something like that, and you can connect with people more.”
NBC’s focus on the novelty of the methodology obscured the apparent serious approach The Journey has taken in reaching a cultural-generational demographic group. The Journey’s strategy has helped the congregation grow from 30 to almost 2,000 since its 2002 beginning. Last fall it planted the Refuge Church in St. Charles, Mo. and it is assessing church start possibilities in Illinois.

Now is this the American Dream Church or what? Sadly, this is about as much church as a lot of people want these days. It would be funny if it wasn’t such a serious matter. But this type of “church” will do nothing more than dull the conscience of those attending, allowing them to feel good that they “go to church”. Even most social clubs will require more commitment than this.
If Christianity was for sale, this would be a pretty easy sell, only 1 hour a month, attending a rock & roll concert on a Saturday night, (won’t even interfere with Sun.morning tee time) and you get to call yourself a Christian. This is called, marketing God to an entertainment starved generation. What a contrast to the Christianity that is recorded in the Acts of the Apostles.

(Gal 6:7) Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.

FOXNews.com - Florida ‘Church for Men’ Features Rock Band, One-Hour In-and-Out Guarantee
“Florida ‘Church for Men’ Features Rock Band, One-Hour In-and-Out Guarantee
Saturday, April 07, 2007DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — No hymnals. No pews. No steeple. No stained glass windows. And no women.
This ain’t your grandma’s church.
Organizers of the Church For Men say that guys are ‘bored stiff’ in many churches today.
The Church For Men meets one Saturday evening a month, drawing about 70 guys dressed in everything but straight-laced shirts and neckties. The service features a rock band, a shot clock to time the preacher’s message and a one-hour in-and-out guarantee.
The church is part of a national movement to reverse what many Christian pastors and ministers are calling a troubling trend.
Studies show that men are less likely than women to show up on Sunday mornings, and the reaction has been an emerging testosterone theology of sorts. Churches nationwide are now reaching out to men.”