OK, so the title of this piece may sound a bit religious, especially for a blog that started out discussing cutting holes in kegs, but stay with me.  The season of Lent has arrived in the church calendar. For those who may not know, Lent is a 40 day long season during which Christians prepare ourselves for Jesus' crucifixion, death, and eventual resurrection. Individuals do this by "fasting" from things, like meat, sugar, and Facebook. Others abstain from beer! Some others "add" something to their lives - like giving more to food banks, more devotional time, or the like. Many churches add extra worship services. We're in that boat, and the theme we're using for our worship series is Jesus' Dinner Table. It's a fun idea where we get to explore more about Jesus' interactions with food and, more important, with whom Jesus ate. And while this could easily go down the pathway of Jesus' community and the craft beer and brewery communi...

Full disclosure: I'm a pastor. Yeah, like, at a church. In particular, I'm a Lutheran pastor, and so beer kind of comes with the territory. ( Check out this NPR article if you want to read into that. ) The reason I lay this out there is pastors usually have a lot on their mind. And for me, what has been on my mind a lot lately is community. Churches used to be the center of the community. It was where one went to socialize and see friends on a regular basis. People would ask how your mother was doing. You could be fed on multiple levels: literally with pot-lucks, spiritually with worship, socially by being with those in your community. It's not news that the Church's central place in the community has slipped from what it was just a few decades ago. There are lots of reasons for this, but that's another post for another time. But even for those who do participate in worship on regular occasion, rarely does sitting in a church for an hour enhance community amo...