I went down to the local watering hole for the first time since Thanksgiving, courtesy of midweek Advent services which fall on the same night as the weekly tournament.  Every bar has it's group of regulars, and this bar is no exception.  I recognized half a dozen people scattered between the bar and the pool tables.  And while the tournament had been cancelled, I was warmly greeted by a former teammate from the pool league I joined when we arrived in Carpinteria in 2010.  

I was shocked when his response to my query about how life has been in the three months since I last saw him included the tidbit that his mother died around Thanksgiving time.  More details came out over the span of a couple of hours, and a few beers.  At the end of the evening I was happy to give him a ride home.  

I was surprised when he bluntly talked about not having any real friends that he could talk to.  He asked for my business card and phone number.  He talked about wanting to come to worship.  Granted, he was pretty drunk.  But my experience with alcohol, both first and secondhand, is that it doesn't lead you to lie, but rather to say things you might not ordinarily say or admit to.  We exchanged phone numbers with the agreement that we needed to get together to talk.  I wanted to let him know that, not having a church background, worship wasn't necessarily the most logical place for him to start off at.  

He was pretty clear that he had no religious persuasion, and that he didn't anticipate wanting one (see my last blog entry).  But what he wanted was community.  A place to belong.  A place to be known.  Perhaps his workplace and the bar provided some form of that belonging, or at least mimicked it enough for him to spend his time there.  But he seemed to recognize that perhaps there was a difference between the community of the local watering hole, and what he might find in a church.  

At first glance, it would seem like an odd match.  He's young, single, and not religious.  My congregation is older, mostly married or widow(er)s, and pretty religious.  It might seem like a strange match, but it seems so perfect to me.  This is who we need to be reaching out to.  These are the people that churches and congregations need to be welcoming and inviting in.  People who are lonely and empty.  People who don't think that they want religion, but they want some of the things religious people have - like community.  And in pursuing those things, my prayer is that they'll end up with much more than community.  They'll end up with Jesus.  

But one step at a time.  Without expectations or judgments.  That's how things work  more or less at the bar.  But it costs you at the bar.  You pay your money to sit with a beer and fit in, to forget whatever loneliness or pain you've attempted to leave at the door.  To feed the juke box to keep the music loud.  It all costs, this sense of belonging.  But at church, hopefully it doesn't cost anything.  Rather, I pray my friend comes away with so much more than he came in with, and without any of the regrets or hangovers or lingering health concerns that spending too many evenings at the bar can create.  

I'm looking forward to tomorrow, and the chance to make a phone call and extend an invitation and see where the Holy Spirit takes it from there.  And I'm grateful for the opportunity that playing pool has created where I never would have expected it.  Thank you, Lord.