2024-05-07

Today church will be at Buffalo Wild Wings. You read that correctly. A youth pastor in Birmingham, Alabama will be holding church services at the grill to reach people who don’t normally attend church. Riverchase United Methodist Church will hold Sunday morning services at the grill for a more laid back atmosphere in a modern era.

With church attendance dipping, Rev. Wesley Savage will keep the service under an hour, there won’t be a worship band, and people will meet while the staff sets up for the opening for the day.

There won’t be beer or alcohol allowed, but people are encouraged to remain for lunch.

“We believe there's a population that would attend a service there that wouldn't go to a church. “We hope it's going to be a more inviting atmosphere,” Savage told AL.com.”

Topics covered will be the reasons why we need God, the church, and the Bible.

The McMass Project is another idea to engage modern culture. Paul Di Lucca is working on raising funds to start a McDonald’s franchise and having it in a church.

According to the site an estimated 3 million people leave the church every year, while 10,000 churches closed its doors in 2013. About 70 million go to McDonald’s every day, which are profitable drawing constant crowds, but need great, centrally-located spaces, the site explains. It takes one million dollars to start a McDonald’s franchise in New Jersey or Philadelphia.

Savage believes this new platform will also benefit business as well as connecting faith and the community. “We're going to encourage people to stay for lunch, stay for sports. This is part of the partnership. We'll help them with their business because they're helping us.”

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