What’s Different? Church vs. Bar

photo: ukdenners

Overheard recently: “I’m wondering what’s the difference between church and the bar?”

In church you pray for the Spirit. In a bar you pay for the spirits? (Sorry, couldn’t resist!)

Anyways…

Everybody knows your name…

When Jennifer and I lived in Springfield, MO, and worked at the Assemblies of God headquarters, our friendly pagan neighbors invited us to join them at a neighborhood bar for lunch. We were on our way back home from church where we had invited them, so we figured a little tit for tat was probably in order.

photo: Rich Tatum

When I write “neighborhood,” I mean, it was 1.5 miles from our home (plus, incidentally, 1.3 miles from the A/G HQ). And when I write “bar,” I mean it was one of those windowless, pre-fabricated metal buildings that you always imagine when the words “biker bar” appear in news print. And, yes, there were occasional twisted-iron road gators resting out front.

Never having been a regular customer of neighborhood bars before (or since), we were a little nervous about going inside, but our young urban neighbors encouraged me to “man up” and bragged that this was the best place in Springfield to get a good, cheap, dinner of steak and potatoes … and boy were they right! The steaks tasted so good that Jennifer and I made Dan’s Place a regular stop on our way home from work.

photo: amir_yunus

Now, Dan’s Place had two coin-operated pool tables in the crowded center floor. After a few visits Jennifer and I joined in the fun. Really, we couldn’t resist. Before long, we’d eschewed the banged up house cues and we went and bought our own sticks from a pro-shop, just so we wouldn’t have to keep hunting down the one or two decent pieces of wood in the bar.

After a couple years of eating regularly at Dan’s place — competing against the neighborhood pool sharks (who, interestingly, shot better “under the influence” than sober), sipping her tea and my diet Cokes — we became part of the family. Whenever we’d enter, the patrons would shout our names: “Hey, Jennifer! Hey, Rich!” Our friends would sit with us during dinner and regale us with their tales of woe and victory. They’d show us their latest photos, and talk of the last trip they took to Arkansas, or Silver Dollar City. They’d talk about their children, their jobs, their spouses and their divorces. They became our friends.

On our last night in Springfield, we announced our departure to Chicago.

They bought us shots. They hugged us. And told us to stop by — any time.

We drank the shots. We embraced, and we promised to visit. “We drank the shots.”
You are free to criticize me for drinking the shots. I was not a credentialled minister, I hadn’t taken a vow of abstinence, and I wasn’t working at the A/G headquarters at the time. But while we did work there, we certainly never told anyone we ate at Dan’s place: it would have been a job-ending offense for frequenting a place of “ill repute.”

My point

During the time Jennifer and I haunted that smoky old joint, I frequently found occasion to compare the neighborhood bar with my local church. Unfortunately, I noted some differences where I wished our churches were more like bars.

photo: thereisnocat

I’ll leave it to you to determine how your local church does or does not reflect those differences. But in my opinion, most churches could afford to be a little bit more like a bar.

Sure, there are differences that set church apart from any bar — notably the sacraments, the preaching of the Gospel, the fellowship of the saints and the power of the Spirit. But, if your church is doing its job, you should also have a few drunks in attendance, you should need a few ashtrays out front, and you know when your regulars are missing.

And everybody should know your name.