Going Down the Pub
Action ideas - Going Down the Pub
Going Down the Pub - select here for a PDF
Starting a church in your “local”
“…if two or three people come together in my name, I am there with them" (Matthew 18 v 20).
Question: could the word “there” in this verse include a pub?
When people say, “I’m just going out for a bit”, more often than not this means that they’re off to pay a visit to their “local”. So, as we look at different ways that Christians can “Get Out More”, why not consider doing the same? Stephen Plumb, a Church Army evangelist working in the Malin Bridge area of Sheffield, did just that.
With the blessing of his parish church, St Polycarp’s, Stephen and more than a dozen others formed a Community Based Church (or CBC) in Easter 2005. They wanted a “go to” model of church rather than a “come to us” one, and the ideal place for them to meet was The Malin Bridge Inn.
Stephen Plumb explains: “The landlords, Jill and Steve, were married at St. Polycarp’s a number of years ago and had hit it off with the vicar. They were delighted when the suggestion was put to them for a church to meet in their pub.”
Unfortunately, what normally happens at regular Sunday church is so often hidden away from view by the four walls of the building. It was brave, then, for Stephen and his colleagues to decide to “do church” in full view of everyone in the pub: “We have two small groups (cells) which meet in the main bar of the pub on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings. So we are - and do - church while the regulars are watching footie and drinking a pint. In the small group a typical evening would be structured around the 4 ‘w’s - ‘welcome’, ‘word’, ‘worship’ and ‘witness’ - with different group members facilitating each week.”
The group’s activities have encouraged locals to join in and talk about spiritual things. Stephen adds: “We see the pub as ‘church’ and wait to see what will emerge there as time goes by.”
Stephen says they are still learning valuable lessons through what they are doing. “God continually calls us ‘out the boat’,” he says, referring to Peter taking a risky step of faith as he climbed out of the boat to join Jesus on the water. They are also learning how to make faith and worship relevant to the people around them, that “a fresh expression of church is vulnerable” and that “it takes a high level of motivation and commitment of time”.
But it is worth it for the fruit they see in their ministry. Stephen says that: “In our circumstance, we now regularly have Christians in a ‘local’, praying, worshipping, reading the Bible and sharing faith/lives with others, something that was not happening in that ‘local’ 12 months ago. I am convinced that most churches that have a ‘local’ could do something similar, when they ‘Get Out More’.”
Action points:
- Choose a venue that is appropriate to what you aim to do – ie, discussion is difficult if there is live music every night.
- Get involved in the pub’s life – ie, quizzes and events. Make it your local, not just a venue for your meetings.
- Be prepared for the long haul.
Stephen Plumb has been a Church Army evangelist for 16 years and is committed to discovering ways to enable himself with others to “Get Out More”. He is currently based in Malin Bridge in Sheffield, South Yorkshire.
