Sunday@thepub is a new way of ‘doing spirituality’. Organised by a local Methodist outreach worker (find them here: Beachcomber FX), they say “It’s church but not as you might recognise it! Our aim is to create community and grow the faith of those who join us either here in our various social media platforms or through being with us as we congregate around a beer, wine, or soft drink. It’s a chance to chat about life, faith, and anything else that is going on around our community or around the world. Our focus is on those who are eighteen and over, and we have a wide range of ages who join us.”

They meet every Sunday evening, and I joined them at the Tavern and Galley near Whitley Bay to discuss ‘Light, Dark, and the Incarnation.’ A friendly group of mixed ages, they very much practice our Unitarian approach – ‘All are welcome here.’

As a worship leader, I was interested in how this could work in such a different setting. Clearly, picking the right pub is key! It needs to be a big enough pub to host a large group having a discussion without intruding on other patrons, with an atmosphere that would welcome such discussions (your local sports bar is probably not an ideal choice), and ideally have a table not near a big screen, or be willing to turn the screen off. The Tavern and Galley was pretty good in this respect, and they have a very nice choice of ales, for those who like that sort of thing.

Naturally, the discussion is unstructured and flows inspired by the facilitator’s choice of topic and discussion points. You can read the discussion points for this gathering on Facebook here: ‘Light, Dark and the Incarnation. It requires some skill in facilitating; friendly and informal is the key to this type of gathering, but you do also want to keep it reasonably on-topic so it’s not purely a social gathering, and make sure that everyone gets the same chance to speak.

As such, there are necessarily some limits to how deep the discussion can go, but in many ways, that’s the point; it’s a great way of reaching out to people and giving them the chance to take part in a spiritual discussion in a non-church setting. Definitely one to think about, and many thanks to the group for making me so welcome!