Crossroads Church is starting a Tuesday night outreach church service at The Loft on November 11th. This ministry will be called The Upper Room. The Loft a 2nd floor nightclub/concert venue in Lansing that Crossroads will be renting out and will be “the show” for every Tuesday night. It is the premier concert venue in the Lansing area for local and traveling music shows. We will do our church service at 7pm followed be a free concert each week. The bar will be open as usual at The Loft and The Upper Room’s planning team will be purchasing a drink of choice (well drinks, beers, Red Bull, soda or water) for all first timers every Tuesday.
Church and alcohol can be a murky subject. Typically Christians hate murkiness so wildly swing to one extreme or another, without really taking into account what the Bible actually says and doesn’t say about alcohol. We have attempted to thoroughly dig into Scripture to find out exactly this. I’d love your feedback on what we can do to strengthen our document to make it even more biblical; please feel free to comment below or message me. If you’re interested in this topic or have objections, I strongly encourage you to read the entire document, which you can download here and at the bottom of the page. I was going to lay out the entire thing on this blog post but the length of it was pretty daunting in this blog format. Reminded me of one of my friend Jeremy Dowsett’s blog posts. So below I’ve included some bullet points that summarize what the longer document says. I hope they are helpful for you.
Also feel free to “like” The Upper Room on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. We also have an event page on Facebook for our November 11th Grand Opening if you’d like to RSVP. We’d love to have you there. And our website is www.ChurchAtTheLoft.com if you’d like to check it out.
(Scripture reference for all of the following points can be found in the full document)
- The Bible never says that drinking alcohol is a sin. We have several examples of Jesus and his disciples drinking alcohol. There are several other Bible verses that reference alcohol in a positive context. These passages indicate the alcohol Jesus associated with was indeed alcoholic and recreational and not simply medicinal or an antiseptic.
- The Bible is very clear that getting drunk from alcohol is a sin.
- The Bible tells us to follow the laws of our land so underage drinking of any kind is a sin.
- We do not expect anyone who is not a Christian to follow the Bible, whether that be in the area of alcohol, sex, or any other area. In fact, we are specifically told in the Bible not to judge non-Christians in any of these areas. If you don’t follow Jesus, there is no reason you would follow the Bible, and we don’t expect you to. We expect non-Christians to drink at the Loft on Tuesdays nights as they would any other time.
- We do hope to model responsible, biblical drinking. We hope to redeem the concept of alcohol and show how it can be used in a way that honors God. We want to remove the divide between “sacred” and “secular” by showing that if something isn’t sinful, Christians can partake in it and bring God glory in it, whatever it is.
- The Upper Room is not designed to be an event for Christians. If you are a Christian where being around alcohol would cause you to be tempted to abuse it or if you only associate alcohol with previous bad experiences with it, we are specifically asking you not to come to The Upper Room. We do not want to be a stumbling block to your faith or your walk with Christ. If this is you please join us at Crossroads Church on Sunday mornings, as that is an environment designed for everyone.
- We respect that the playing field is different for every person when it comes to alcohol as we have all had different life experiences with it. We ask those who need to avoid it (for risk of getting drunk or risk of judging Christians who are using it appropriately) to follow this conviction and not come to The Upper Room, while also respecting the biblical freedom Christians have who do partake in drinking alcohol.
Click to Download the full version of Crossroads Church’s Biblical View of Alcohol Document
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Excellent article. Nice to see reason expressed clearly. Many Christians cannot distinguish between use and abuse, and don’t seem to mind when other things, such as food, are abused. Beverage alcohol is a good gift from God and can and should be used to HIs glory.
Thanks a lot Jerry!
Hi Noah,
I really like this balanced, level-headed view of alcohol and the church, especially the Biblical View of alcohol document.
I especially appreciate your point on bullet 4 –
–We do not expect anyone who is not a Christian to follow the Bible
and the implications. I remember making this “discovery” in college, living with non-Christians at a secular school. It would be easy to become frustrated with them
One quick question. You mentioned that this was an outreach service and not intended for Christians (bullet 6).
It’s entirely probable that the more missional minded in your conversation may/will come to help to minister to the seekers who will come to the outreach service.
But, due to the fact that there will be little true Christian community (defined as community BETWEEN believers), do you have a plan to incorporate new believers from this service into the wider church community?
This is something that our church has struggled with. There are two “01” services (in a separate attached building, starting at 9:01 and 11:01, with the traditional services going on during 9:00 and 11:00) with contemporary music and video sermons.
The music and “non-church feel” appeal to the millenial crowd, though the services are populated by people of all ages.
There is a disconnect, however, between those in the 01 community and those in the traditional church community.
As our church expands to a third location (Building #3 is going through renovations after the second church restart/merger) this is a big concern… that there won’t be community between the entire body within the larger church.
Thoughts?
Hi John, thanks for the comment and the encouragement. Our two situations sound a bit different, I’ll talk first about what we’re doing at the Loft and how we might develop community there for believers. My short answer is: I see Christian community developing effectively in our small groups and classes rather than in our large group gatherings, whether that be Sunday morning or Tue night. My hope will be that Tue night will serve as a funnel to get the believers who attend into our small groups and classes. Some of those might be Loft-crowd specific, i.e. a small group Bible study that is only open to those who attend the Loft. (Though I think most people at the Loft will be a longways away from being ready for a small group or a class) Or they might be mixed in with our normal Crossroads small groups. For example, I know we will offer our same classes to the Loft crowd that we do the Sunday crowd. One thing I am doing is intentionally not branding this as a separate church plant or congregation, while also not branding it as an altogether joined entity to our Crossroads community the way a 9am and 11am service would see each other as the same congregation. I think for some people who attend, this will be their church and they will know very little about Crossroads. For others, they will attend both, and for some they will start at the Loft and eventually move into Sundays at Crossroads only.
The reason I say your scenario is different than ours is that I assume your “01” services are filled with mostly church people–or at least at minimum they know they are “coming to church”. You have praise and worship songs, etc. Whereas on Tuesdays at the Loft we are intentionally not doing any singalong praise and worship and intentionally not even doing any public praying (we will have a conversation room afterward where people can pray if they’d like to). I’m glad to explain our reasoning for both if you’re interested, but will save time on this particular reply. But it sounds like you and your church leadership have the goal of keeping your “00’s” and your “01’s” in community together as one congregation. It seems like providing the same small groups and the same classes to both groups would help, as would sharing in volunteer duties, i.e. working the kids ministry or the coffee area in the opposite venue. All-church social events and all-church serving events seem like they would also help with this. You may have tried all this, just thinking off the top of my head.
I’m curious about your 3rd building. Is that on the same campus and will be running another simultaneous service or is that in another part of town?
Looks like you’ve got a clear direction and vision here. Don’t let the critics bring you down. I know I’d be tempted to argue, but there’s probably not much of a chance of changing any minds.
Noah,
I’ll admit I was a bit hesitant at first when I heard of this idea. However I admire your willingness to engage the culture without compromising. I pray the Holy Spirit would continue to guide you. I know it’s been a while since we chatted, but know that I am following your blog from Korea!
Thanks Derek!!