Sunday 5th June 2011 - Down the pub.

Time for another visit to a SWBA church – in fact I went to two today: Woodville (Road) in the morning and Solace in the evening.
Woody (as it is known) is a large church with a relatively new building in Cathays. A large part of the congregation is made up of students, so I would be interested to know what it is like in the middle of the holidays! The service included the baptism of two young people, both of whom (I think) are students.
The worship (music) at Woody is more lively than I have seen at most churches on my sabbatical tour, with the possible exception of King’s Newport.
David Morrell, the senior pastor, preached on Acts 8: 26 – 38, and went on to expand on Isaiah 53, which I thought was interesting, because I have used exactly the same readings and basic outline in a baptismal sermon quite a few years ago!

In the evening I went with Dean to Solace, which is a church that meets in a pub. It is run by James Karran, who is the associate pastor at Ararat, Whitchurch. Solace has been running for a few years now, but only recently moved to O’Neill’s in Trinity Street, Cardiff.
The idea is really good, and it is developing well. Inevitably it is like a cell group, and attempting outreach to the other people in the pub is very difficult… partly because there were very few other customers in the pub on a Sunday evening.
There was a prayer time in an upstairs room, and some equipment was set up. Then we went to the bar downstairs for some food and drink, and it was decided to stay downstairs for the talk (on forgiveness), a discussion, prayer time and communion. There were eight of us altogether, including Dean and me and a visitor from Ararat. Apparently some of the regulars were missing.
This kind of thing is definitely an important way of developing church and trying new ways of worship. It fits exactly with the way Jesus went about teaching and preaching. The difficulty in today’s setting is being clear exactly where it is going and what it is for. Is it outreach with the intention of getting other people in the pub to join in? Is it a church to which it is easier to invite friends? Is it a church that some ‘fringe’ people find it easier to join because it is a small group and not in a church building? Will it be a combination of these things? Probably!