What do you think about churches reaching out to those who won’t come to a church and having their worship services in bars and pubs? Read the following stories and let me know your thoughts.

Hal and Mal’s in Jackson Mississippi is famous for a beer after work, but on Sunday nights at 6 — when the alcohol is locked up — the back room of the bar is transformed into a different sort of watering hole, where members of The Journey Church said they meet to quench their thirst for Jesus Christ.

Steve’s Cape Cod, a seafood restaurant and bar outside Tampa Bay FL, known for all-you-can-eat snow crab on Monday and ladies-drink-free night on Wednesday, is reborn each Sunday morning as the Salvation Saloon. Worshippers who go by names like Curly Joe and Wild Bill file in by the dozen — many holding plastic foam cups of coffee, some biting at doughnuts — for a service they say is unlike any other.”This is not your parents’ church,” Paul White, who created the service and serves as the pastor, tells those gathered. “This is going to bless your socks off.”

A Cardiff (Wales UK) nightclub is the chosen venue for a church minister to address his congregation in an attempt to engage with young parishioners. The Reverend James Karran, 26, from Cardiff’s Ararat Baptist Church will hold “services” at Clwb Ifor Bach in the city centre. And his flock will be able to buy alcohol at the bar and listen to live bands as part of the experience. The ‘Solace – church in a bar’ nights will be held every Sunday from April. According to the Ararat Baptist church website, the idea of the services, which is being run by the Baptist Union church branch Solace, is to “make church relevant and accessible to a 21st Century, post-Christendom society”.

On March 4, 2007, NBC’s “Today” show looked at this issue which separates and confuses many.. In their report, “Beer and Bibles: New Churches Lure Young Members,” they interviewed an Southern Baptist pastor, Darrin Patrick, founder and senior pastor of The Journey in St. Louis. Although Patrick said that his church does not condone the use of alcohol, they do sponsor a discussion group, “Theology at the Bottleworks,” that meets in a bar where alcohol is available to participants. In a back room at Schlafly Bottleworks in Maplewood, about 50 people gathered on a recent Wednesday night to talk rock ’n’ roll. Why are Bob Marley and Kurt Cobain considered by some to be messiahs? When did rock music lose its edge and become another product manufactured and marketed by huge conglomerates such as Viacom?

It was a conversation perfectly suited to the setting. Beer-stained wooden tables and the smell of hops complemented a free-flowing, spirited debate among hip young people in scruffy beards and T-shirts. Theology at the Bottleworks is run by a wildly successful congregation of young St. Louisans called The Journey. The program is part of the church’s outreach ministry. And it works.

Every month, dozens show up at the brewpub to drink beer and talk about issues ranging from racism in St. Louis to modern-art controversies to the debate about embryonic stem cell research. First-timers are invited to check out the church on Sunday, and Journey leaders say many have. Theology at the Bottleworks is just one of The Journey’s ministries, but it has helped the church grow from 30 members in late 2002 to 1,300 today.

Christians have long sought to bring their faith to places outside the traditional church, from the rapid growth of skateboarding ministries to smaller-scale outreach to circus and carnival workers. Roman Catholics have also organized spiritual discussions called “Theology on Tap” in bars across the country.

Randall Balmer, a professor of American religious history at Columbia University, said churches in bars and pubs are one of countless endeavors seeking to attract congregants who otherwise might not be reached. “It strikes me as a fairly good illustration of the ability of evangelicals to speak the idiom of the culture no matter where they find themselves,” he said. “I see this kind of thing as the successor to the megachurch, which is trying to be all things to all people.”

What do you think?