Coast Downtown - Church in a Bar?

People ask me all the time... How is Coast Downtown doing?  The simple answer... it's amazing!

It was an unusual idea, church in a bar... but it was a God idea.  A while back, I began to get a burden for the downtown area of Pensacola, and so any time that I was downtown, I would pray. If you are not from the Pensacola area, for a long time, our downtown was dead. Over the years shopping malls, and mega movie theaters had moved everything away from downtown, and only a few businesses survived and limped along.

But a few years ago, life began to spring up downtown...  new businesses and trendy restaurants and coffee shops began to inhabit Palafox Street. The old dilapidated Bay Front Auditorium was torn down and a park was built in its place.  Placed like "The Vinyl" began to bring in Indie Artists and different types of music groups downtown... Lots of cool new shops sprang up... and then came baseball.  We got a minor league baseball team called "The Bule Wahoos."

Suddenly there was life again downtown. It was a new world.  People were everywhere. Events like Gallery night and our New Year's Eve event, the Pelican drop  would draw hundreds and hundreds people into the streets of Pensacola. 

And all of a sudden I felt in my heart that God said, "Now is the time." So I began to look for venues, a place where we could do a church service downtown. Truthfully, at this point I wasn't sure how to do it, when to do it, what it would like, or what it would feel like, I simply knew that God said "Go for it." So we looked and looked.

And one day I was driving I was thinking about a church in Los Angeles called Mosaic  which was led by Erwin McManus. They had several locations and one of them, at that time was in a bar called The Mayan and they met there at night.  An idea was born.

So we began to look at bars, and we found one called Bedlam.  A strange name for a church location. But a little research revealed that the word Bedlam came from a mispronounced word Bethlem. And the Cockney accent would change it to, "Hey, we are going over to Bedlam." In Bedlam there was a facility for people who who were mentally ill... and the word began to be associated with chaos, uproar and confusion.  Sounded like just the kind of place or situation that Jesus might wander into.

So we met with the owners... and they liked the idea... so we met with our elders... and they liked the idea. Honestly, I thought everyone would be a hard sell, but they got it!  They understood.

So Coast Downtown was started. The original idea was to be a nightime version of what we do on Sunday mornings at Coast Community Church. We would have maybe a different worship band, but we would do the same message from Sunday morning.

So we launched. And it was awesome! God showed up... in of all places, a bar called Bedlam in downtown Pensacola. 

Every Sunday night we would arrive at Bedlam and set up our sound and lights, the worship team would begin to rehearse, our prayer team would be praying, our set up teams would set up chairs and get the building ready, cleaning rest rooms, etc.  Our first impressions teams would brew coffee and set up our welcome area... and people would come, and they would feel the presence of a God who loved them no matter their circumstances.  And we would love them.

So we began doing outreaches downtown... things like passing out our postcards...

and things like getting sandwiches and water and passing them out at 1:30 in the morning as people were coming out of the bars... or feeding the homeless. By the way, we are expanding at a rapid pace with the ways that want to reach the Pensacola area with outreach... and using our base at Downtown, we will soon be doing ministry to fight against Human Trafficking... but that's another blog post.

Recently we began to shift our format.  We have so felt God's presence in our services downtown, that we stopped doing the sermon from Sunday morning and felt that Coast Downtown was to be a time of refreshing. So we would do extended worship with our band...

And then there would be a short thought from the Word of God and we began praying for people. And we have seen God begin to move in the hearts of people in a huge way.  Someone asked, "Is it revival?" Maybe not yet, but we are feeling a supernatural stirring of God that cannot be denied... and I am excited to see where it ends up.  Will it always be in a bar?  I don't know.  But I do know I feel a Holy Spirit wave, and we are going to ride it and see what God does.

Its all still new to us... and we are still getting our feet under us... but God is showing up and people are being touched supernaturally... and Coast Downtown is happening.

 

 

Comments

[Bob Holmes]

Robert,
Ever since I first met you in that coffeehouse in Winston Salem, where we (Face To Face) were playing, I knew you were a different kind of Christian. One who got out of their comfort zone to go into the uncomfortable places where God goes to bring hope to the hopeless, help to the helpless, and healing to the broken and forgotten. Keep bringing on the Awesome!

[Margie Carter]

Wow, this is so exciting. One of my FB friends posted. I go to Harvest & we're really excited about what God wants to do downtown. My heart leapt when I read this. Keep on keeping on! This must be the next wave of what he wants to do & where he wants to do it! So many of us are feeling stirred for the downtown area!

Margie C

[Art Lopez]

This looks great! I love to see a city come alive especially when its sanctified. Bringing it to the streets. I would love to see Pensacola bring back Grace Fest to the way it used to be...in the streets, not behind a fence or in a building. Bring it to the people where they hang out. I personally connect with music and hearing contemporary Christian music in the streets, brings me to my knees....it changes people...common Mayor you can bring it back.

[Rob-coast]

Thanks guys... we are excited and believe we are seeing the birth of something new that God is doing in our city... Keep us in prayer... and Art, I loved Gracefest... I worked on the prayer team for the artists... looked forward to it every year.