Church in a bar? It’s happening on the west side – and they say it works

It’s Thursday night, around 6:30 p.m., and the crowd is starting to build at Shenanigans Sports Bar & Grill.

That includes in a backroom of the west-side establishment, where Erica Varcoe is surveying a crowd of dozens.

They’re eating, they’re drinking and – thanks to her unconventional approach – they’re worshipping.

“I really just wanted faith to be part of people’s lives, instead of something else they did on the weekends,” she said.

“If we can give them Jesus while they’re eating and drinking beer … win-win. Definitely.”

This all started just a few weeks ago, when Shenanigans owner Don Rose gave Varcoe the OK to start bringing the Bible into the bar.

“He planted a Presbyterian church years and years ago and had a soft spot in his heart for what I was doing, and we said, let’s just try it.”

He asked her how many people she expected might show up that first night.

“Ten maybe,” she answered. “At least my friends. I told my friends you have to come.”

Try 88.

“It was just crazy,” Varcoe said. “I think it’s that comfort level of having no rules. So often when I worked in the church, we would get guests and visitors. One sign would say ‘All are welcome here,’ but I don’t think there’s always a lot of walk with our talk in a church world. This is reaching people who were not really on my radar.”

Since then, a core group has formed. Local musicians have heard about it and offered to perform.

A group of Lutheran churches in Minnesota is supporting the effort financially, making it possible to serve free dinner and soft drinks.

It starts at 6:30 p.m., with a message at 7 p.m.

“Very simple,” Varcoe said of the focus. “Jesus is for you no matter what you’re walking through. Jesus is in the junk right along with you.”

Before this all started, Varcoe was a special education teacher at Memorial Middle School when the family’s church was going through a tough time and needed help.

She left teaching “on a whim” and discovered “how much I loved ministry,” she said. “I felt the call to do more.”

That led her to Sioux Falls Seminary, when she took on her chaplain residency during the pandemic at the VA Medical Center while her three kids and husband were working and schooling at home.

“The constant throughout the pandemic for our family was our table,” she said. “My husband was working, my kids were doing school, and we shared so many meals, which was a beautiful silver lining. And I felt called to meet people where they’re at. Through the year of being away from church, it became so glaringly obvious the church is not a building.”

Her new ministry, called The Table Ministry, is designed around that belief. Assisted by Jennifer Neitzert, whom she calls “the creative genius behind the scenes,” Varcoe is using what she learned in teaching to reach people in a new way.

“The teacher in me knows people retain more if they’re engaged in the learning,” she said. “So we started Church in a Bar bingo. We’ve done all these different things so people are energized and engaged and excited.”

The Harrisburg Event Center hosted events for the ministry during Easter week. The hope is to find a more permanent place to worship as a congregation is formed.

In the meantime, the bar is where it’s at – an unconventional approach that likely will continue.

“It’s just crazy and growing and beautiful,” Varcoe said. “I never want this to replace the beauty of a traditional church building and what that means to people, but I think my hope is to meet the people that maybe don’t feel like they belong anywhere else. They can pull up a seat and join us at the table.”