Church in a bar?
SC churches are thinking outside the steeple to reach new members
New Brookland Tavern is as different on Saturday nights and Sunday mornings as, well, night and day.
Once a month, the gritty West Columbia venue known for its metal and punk bands transforms from a Saturday night house of rock to a Sunday morning house of worship.
With ears still ringing from late-night jams, late-morning brunch-goers pass by the open bar door while, inside, a few dozen people ranging from kids to senior citizens sip coffee and play pool before gathering in front of the band stage for worship singing, prayer and preaching.
When people hear about having church in a bar, “Everybody just goes, ‘What?’” said Jody Ratcliffe, pastor of the two-yearold Church at West Vista. “And then they think and go, ‘Wait a minute, that’s really cool . ... Our model meets the needs of folks who have ever been hurt in the past and they just don’t want to go to church ever again.”
At a time when traditional Protestant churches are losing thousands of members each year and dozens of them are closing their doors across South Carolina, some churches like West Vista are meeting in unconventional places and taking new tacks to continue their age-old mission: to reach people with the Christian gospel.
Ratcliffe had been a Southern Baptist preacher who sensed a desperate need for change in the church he led. But by the time he drew up his ideas for what he’d like to see change, Ratcliffe realized he was dreaming of a whole new church.
“The traditional church has the mentality that everyone knows we’re here, and if we just open our doors, people will come if they want,” he said. “Millennials don’t value legacy . ... A lot of our older churches, they’ve been relying on legacy for decades.”
Once a month, the church meets at West Columbia’s New Brookland Tavern to worship together. The rest of the month, members meet in smaller groups in several homes across Columbia and Lexington County.
When it’s in house-church mode, a dozen or so West Vista congregants share a meal together at someone’s home and study and discuss Bible-based teaching and life application.
When it’s in bar-church mode, several dozen members gather at New Brookland and sing along with a small band, hear Ratcliffe preach a message and spend time mingling in the bar.
The house/bar church is a place “for people who have had negative religious experiences who are looking for a place to search and explore and doubt,” Ratcliffe said.
“No one gets lost in the crowd, and during the week, we’re able to keep up with one another as needs arise,” Ratcliffe said. “There’s room for lots of different sizes of churches and kinds of churches. There’s room for everybody.”
Since it began meeting once a month at New Brookland this spring, the church hasn’t yet seen much of a bump in attendance from people walking in off the street, Ratcliffe said. Its growth model continues to rely on building relationships with people the members already have connections with — friends, neighbours, coworkers, family members.
“What we fail to realize sometimes is that God has placed us where he wants us already,” Ratcliffe said. “There’s a lot of people in our circles that don’t know who Jesus is and don’t attend church . ... We tend to overlook these folks, maybe, and go after the masses.”
•••
The plush reclining chairs at the Columbiana Grand movie theatre are, arguably, a step up from the hockey locker room at a nearby indoor sports complex — smell-wise, at least.
OneLife Community Church moved its weekly meetings from the local gym to the movie theatre two years ago.
“You’ve never been to a church with a more comfortable chair,” joked Derrick Boatwright, a member of the church’s leadership team. “We feel like it’s a safe space . ... You’re less intimidated than you’d be walking into a typical cathedral building . ... It fit the culture of our church.”
If someone’s comfortable going to the movies, they should feel comfortable walking into OneLife, Boatwright said. (They even have popcorn!)
The church has worked to create an environment that offers the comfort of a high-quality experience with the intimacy of close-knit relationships. Those are two things that don’t always go together in a church, Boatwright said.
For now, the church relies on video preaching from the national Life. Church network. But OneLife is searching for a fulltime pastor who will preach onsite every Sunday. “I think people are looking for authenticity, and I think you have an advantage of being authentic when you are in person,” Boatwright said.
On a “good” Sunday, more than 100 people might come to worship, Boatwright said.
They range from newborns to grandparents. They include people who have come from other churches who were looking for a different church experience as well as “people who have stepped away from the church, maybe been hurt by the church,” Boatwright said. “We want to show them what the church is supposed to be like.
••• Surrounded by beachgoers, fishermen and the Atlantic Ocean, Cat Baynes happily hands out church bulletins as more than 100 vacationers and residents look for seats under the awning on Myrtle Beach’s Apache Pier.
Worshippers can be spotted wearing sunglasses, hats, flipflops and Hawaiian shirts as the chaplain delivers his sermon.
Baynes has been living on the Apache Family Campground and attending these weekly services for more than two years, and her mother was one of the ministry’s first members.
The setting allows her to see and feel God’s wonder while she prays, she said, such as the waves and occasional breeze.
On this particular Sunday, she was able to enjoy the warmth of the sun, but she always feels the warmth of her fellow churchgoers, she said, and the ministry’s longtime chaplain, Richard Jenkins, is like family to her.
Jenkins calls the congregation the Church of the Bad Sheep because people are all wandering, but God comes to get us, he said.
Services average about 250 attendees in the summertime and 125 during the off season.
The history behind campground ministries stems from local churches sending out lay people to perform services because they found that vacationers often didn’t bring dress clothes to the beach, Jenkins said.