1001 New Worshiping Communities
Faith on tap
Bars open their doors to casual ministries.
by Karen Bosc and Rachel Shussett
The Beer & Hymns gatherings bring together both faithful Presbyterians and many who would never think to show up at church on Sunday morning.
When Jeff Ferguson and Cameron Highsmith began brewing beer, they envisioned it as a centering practice while they attended San Francisco Theological Seminary. But the friends soon realized that their hobby could be much more.
“We realized that there’s obviously a disconnect [between Christians and non-Christians],” Ferguson says. “So we asked, ‘How can we build a relationship with people outside the walls of the church so that they understand we’re flawed too?’ ”
The answer, he says, was to organize small groups of people once a week to go to a bar in Boston—their new home after seminary—where they could sip beer and talk about faith. The get-togethers are part of a growing movement to bring various facets of faith to bars, coffeehouses, and other informal gathering places.
Their plan is to host these get-togethers at their own brewery, which they hope to open in Boston by next summer.
“The goal is that as we build the brewery itself, it will become sustainable and will help sustain the ministry,” Ferguson says. “All of our profits will go to ministries and missions.” He says those ministries will include Presbyterian World Mission and Young Adult Volunteers, as well as local food banks and a program that trains companion animals.
In April Ferguson and Highsmith received a $7,500 grant from the 1001 New Worshiping Communities initiative for expenses such as marketing, social media, a website, and travel to conferences.
“We’re really happy to be part of the 1001 New Worshiping Communities movement,” Ferguson says. “They’ve been really helpful to let us look outside the box. It’s really nice to be a part of a church that embraces that idea.”
Presbyterians and Alcohol
The Presbyterian view of alcohol has changed over the years. The colonial era’s general acceptance of drinking transitioned in the 1800s and early 1900s to a wide-scale temperance movement. The church again changed its position in the latter half of the 1900s, when it began to view moderate drinking as acceptable and concentrated its focus instead on the public health issue of alcoholism.
The general position of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) today is to support those Presbyterians (including our magazine’s own editor) who choose to abstain from drinking, not to oppose moderate drinking in low-risk situations, and to support efforts to reduce alcoholism. That’s one reason why unfermented grape juice must be available for use in the Lord’s Supper—because there are some for whom even a taste of alcohol can do great harm. Today, the PC(USA), through ministries like those in this story, continues to follow the Great Commission to reach all people while ensuring that ministries create safe, healthy, and ethical environments.
A thousand miles away, in Nashville, beer plays a part in another laid-back ministry.
Geoff Little, a member of Downtown Presbyterian Church, organizes Beer & Hymns, a gathering held every few months. About 100 people—sometimes more—show up for a chance to sing centuries-old hymns a cappella. There’s no praying, no preaching, no laying on of hands—except for the hands around cold brews.
The point, Little says, is “to gather in a nonreligious, spirited space—for us, this has meant bars—to eat and drink, including non-alcoholic beverages, and to sing old hymns together.”
“If it works right,” he adds, laughing, “no one, including me as leader, knows exactly what is going on or what the number one unifying factor is.”
But the popularity of the gatherings is clear. The group’s first three gatherings filled a barroom that holds nearly 100 people. Anticipating a bigger crowd, the group held a gathering this summer in a brewery’s taproom. When more than 100 people showed up, the owner had, reluctantly, to turn people away at the door.
“Interest has blossomed considerably,” says Little, who planned to hold the next gathering in an even bigger space.
The Beer & Hymns gatherings are publicized largely through email, Facebook, and Twitter. On any given night, the crowd represents a demographic mix, says Little, 38.
He credits the popularity of the gatherings in part to their laid-back nature. “This is a safe place,” he says. “There’s not a pitch, a talk, a passing of a plate, or appeal to ‘do something.’ . . . We don’t try to explain the hymns; they are what they are. I think two people might sing the same hymn and get two different things out of what it means, and that’s fine. . . . The hymns belong to us, individually and collectively.”
Karen Bosc is the associate editor of Presbyterians Today. Rachel Shussett is an intern for the magazine.
