Church Opens In Springs Bar
How would you like to hear a sermon while sitting in a bar? That is now the reality of pastor Dan MacFadyen.
“I can’t stand going to church. Ijust can’t stand it andI want a place for me and people like me.” says MacFadyen.
Enter Amplify, better known as The Thirsty Parrot to most in Colorado springs, but on Sunday nights it’s newly incarnated asMacFadyen and his upstart congregation’s church.
“We run things different from any church you’ve ever seen.” says MacFadyen.
No, alcohol is not served, the intoxicant of choice is coffee, but MacFadyen is hoping to attract an audience who feels more comfortable outside church walls.
“We don’t want the average church person. We want to reach people that can’t stay in church, don’t like going to church, but that want to give God a chance.” he says.
Before starting the churchMacFadyen says he and his wife felt stifled by tradition, “We began to feel we wanted to head this direction but that wasn’t acceptable to dress like this to go to church and listen to rock music at church, and as we began to head in that direction we were completely shunned and everyone turned their backs on us.”
TheU.S. Census Bureau reports that about a thousand churches like Amplify open each year but 4000 churches close annually. While our population increases, membership in all protestant denominations is declining by about ten percent.
“People in their twenties and thirties they hate politics period. We’re seeing a turn away from ‘I’m a republican, I’m a democrat’, and people are just frustrated with it and Ithink the same thing is being seen inside of church.” says MacFadyen.
But the hopeful congregation attracts controversy, many wondering about the venue, “Man, a building is a building.” says MacFadyen.
Macfadyen said he exhausted many other options before settling on the bar, “We couldn’t find anywhere else and we were kind of getting desperate. Ijust want to make a difference. God’s done great things in my life and i just want to help other people get to the same spot without all the church baggage that’s come with it for so long.”
