Since starting up our church’s Theology Pub, there have been a few folks who have asked how it’s gone and what we’ve talked about. We’ve only had it two weeks, but I think both weeks have been successes and so I’ll share about them briefly, as well as some additional thoughts.
Advertising
I tried to go with a dual-approach for advertising about our Theology Pub. I had hoped that this would be something that young adults in our congregation would be interested in. However, it’s something that we open up to all people in the congregation. Partially because I really enjoy it, but also because I wanted to put up some posters around town, I designed a different poster for each week (see below). I put up posters in Starbucks, Peet’s and Panama Red (a local coffeehouse that is right across the street from the First Street Alehouse). The first week I asked people if I could put up the posters, but after that, I just walked in and put them up.
I also created a Facebook Event sponsored by the Asbury Young Adults group. However, that caused some confusion because there were still some folks in our church who showed up and “apologized” for not being young adults. Next time I’m going to have our church’s Facebook group create the event.
Format
I definitely see my role at Theology Pub as a facilitator. I come each time with a handout that can help provide some fodder for conversation. To see an example of the handout, you can view the one I created for our discussion on pluralism. On these handouts, I try and put some quotes and some questions that people can look through during the night. I think they work pretty well; last week there were quite a few times when people referenced quotes from the sheet and used them as springboards for their own thoughts during the conversation.
June: Evangelism
Our first Theology Pub topic was evangelism. We had 3 people show up and while the group was smaller than I had initially hoped, we had some really good conversation. However, I had also scheduled it on the night of our Church Council meeting (after it was that group that voted on the approval of Theology Pub – oops), and there were some other things going on.
Evangelism seemed like a pretty good topic to start off with: we all had different experiences with evangelism, both positive and negative experiences. I had some questions prepared that started to get the conversation going. Some of them were:
- What are some of your previous experiences with evangelism?
- Why have mainline churches been so afraid of evangelism?
- Is there a definition of evangelism we can embrace that is both faithful to scripture and is something that we won’t want to run away from?
Somehow we ended up veering off track and talked about homosexuality for quite awhile – however, we got back around to the topic toward the end. I think everyone felt as though it was a really good conversation in which everyone was able to listen and feel heard. Also – the beers were very good.
July: Pluralism
Our second Theology Pub was held again at the First Street Alehouse and the topic for the night was pluralism. We had a really good group show up – a few college-aged young adults, some adults from our church and a couple who saw the poster across the street at the coffeehouse and came over and joined us. About twelve people in all were there for about two hours.
Again – this topic seemed to be a pretty easy topic for people to get into. To start off the evening, I just told them briefly what was on the pluralism sheet, and then read a quote about exclusivism, inclusivism and pluralism from Leslie Newbigin’s “The Gospel in a Pluralist Society.” This served as a good opening and then people pretty much carried the whole conversation for the night.
We could have gone on for much longer, I suspect, but I wanted to honor people’s time and so we ended right at around 9.30pm. I’ve been in touch with the local rabbi and he’s interested in joining us for a Theology Pub focused on interfaith issues. So it will be a good follow-up to the discussion of pluralism.
As I was leaving, our waiter asked how the theology pub was and we talked a little about the group and why we did it. I’m really excited about the future of this ministry of our church and the way it could be a cool outreach possibility and connection to the community. If any of you have done a theology pub (or…dare I mention it – “Theology on Tap”), I’d love to hear how this sounds similar or different from what you’ve experienced.
Related posts:
- Starting up a Theology on Tap in Livermore
- Is Theology on Tap Supporting or Limiting Ministry
- A Theology of Play in Youth Ministry: What About Youth Group Games?
- Theology After Google #tag10
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Thanks for sharing, Adam. I have an intense love of beer (to go along with my love of God…not sure which is stronger…hehe), and recently a church asked me if I’d be interested in putting together a “theology on tap” — an event that would combine my interests. We haven’t got our act together yet, but it’s encouraging to read your positive thoughts about your fledgling group.
Best of luck!
Thanks for this post … I’m hosting a Theology Pub-like event for a local campus ministry in the Fall. It’s nice to see what you’re doing.
My question is this: For you, what is the point of the Theology Pub? To talk about God while drinking? To show that you don’t need stained glass windows and 19th century hymns to be religious? Evangelism? (It seems that you have largely attracted to these events folks who are already committed to church) Education? Formation?
Truly, it sounds like a good program, but in the Big Picture, what is the purpose? Thanks.
Hey man – thanks for the comment. And thanks for joining the conversation here on Pomomusings.
What’s the point of Theology Pub? I think there are a few different points:
Those are a few of our goals I think – as I see it…
I have been considering doing something similar in our church. Did you have to get the pub onboard in order to use their name in the posters? What was their reaction?
Thanks for the comment Don. Yes, I went in to the First Street Alehouse and told them that we’d be having some folks gather together to talk about religion, politics, theology. A woman from our church is good friends with the owner, so I mentioned that connection, but…they seemed pretty interested otherwise.
We are very friendly and polite when we’re there…we tip REALLY well (to try and make up for the way many Christians tip…) and they seem to like us, so…it’s been a good relationship. I had thought we’d move around but this has been a very good location for us – even when it’s busy we can get a large space together.
Hey Adam,
I love your hand out on Pluralism. I am about to start a MeetUp in my area to discuss theology and philosophy and I was wondering if I could steal your hand out? Let me know, I’ll track this comment section or you can email me.
Thanks,
jason
PS. we met once up at Princeton, I was a Wesley student at the time, if that helps.
Jason – no problem man – go for it. Use whatever you want. I just threw that together…
thanks for posting on this, adam. we’re going to get a similar program started in the fall in detroit area with my church. i’ll let you know how it goes… one question… of the ppl who showed up the first week, were any of them folks who had no previous interaction with the church before?
i appreciate hearing about this, and look forward to future posts.
as i mentioned before, i really like the design of your posters, and think you could have success doing package designs for churches. churches often have a hard time doing design.
Just wanting to make sure I’m understanding you correctly. It’s conversation around a topic, no open-eyed prayer, Bible study etc. as some others do in this setting.
We have just done topical conversations so far…no Bible study, prayer, etc. Although, people do bring up stuff about the Bible all throughout our time of conversation.
Adam,
Thanks so much for sharing both the publicity and framework you’ve developed for Theology Pub. We’re starting a new community of faith in Sacramento and we’ll be experimenting with Theology on Tap this fall. At this point, we imagine starting with a series of four weekly evening gatherings (pluralism and health care will be two of our topics for conversation). We’re just beginning to work on publicity and I love your poster designs — just want to check to make sure you’re okay with us building on your poster design as we develop our own. Thanks again, Matt