Toward the end of 2016, Pastor Steve from San Marco Church invited me, Thomas Garrett, and a few others to participate in a Sunday night bible study at Aardwolf Brewing Company. While this study has continued to grow and evolve over time (having become Brews & Hebrews and now Hops & Hosea), Thomas and I wanted to find a way to bring in more viewpoints. After all, the participants in a bible study tend to be predominantly Christian, and there are a lot of other religions and philosophies out there. We started brainstorming.
In July of 2017, Jessi and I attended the Wild Goose Festival and met Ryan Miller, Janel Apps Ramsey, and some other members of the Brew Theology team based out of Denver, CO. We were immediately interested in the program, so we started kicking around ideas with the Brew Theology folks and Tim Kerr of Bold City Beer & Hymns. When we got back to Jacksonville, Thomas and I started “pray-drinking” around to a few different breweries, but all of these evenings ended with, “I don’t know, do you want to just go back to Aardwolf?” With our venue selected, we started preparing.
As we moved into the fall months of 2017, San Marco Church became our official sponsor following an additional donation from Jessi (for which we started referring to her as the “patroness”). I still remember when Jessi made that initial payment. She and I were visiting Thomas at his work and talking about remaining hurdles before we could get started. Jessi interjected, “Wait, have you guys been dragging your feet for a month because you didn’t have $25?” She pulled out her debit card, and we were officially a Brew Theology chapter.
Thomas, Jessi, and I talked with friends on staff at Aardwolf and learned that Tuesdays were typically the slowest weeknights, and after consulting with Pastor Steve, we settled on the second and fourth Tuesdays of each month with a quarterly “community night” which would feature no set agenda. Our first community night was a year ago this week. Since then, we’ve hosted conversations about holiday origins, free will and determinism, creation, civil religion, prayer, and (no surprise here) beer.
We’ve gone through a couple of signs. We’ve had two dozen giveaways. We’ve had as few as eight attendees and as many as twenty-five, and the conversations have always been awesome. Our group has taken on its own unique flavor, but we’ve stuck with our ground rules. Most importantly, we’ve focused on listening and learning from one another, and that spirit has carried us far. Thank you to everyone who’s made this possible. It’s been an awesome year, and I’m looking forward to the next!
