Lent has traditionally been a time for examining our lives, making changes and giving up things.

So, I guess you’d expect the local clergy to be holed up in the church drinking cold ditch-water and eating dry bread for the entire 40 days. After all, we have to set an example. You’d probably be surprised to see your local vicar in the pub, sipping a G&T and talking about the great mysteries of life in a lent study course. But that’s exactly what I’ve been doing. And it’s not as strange as you might think.

The pub has always been the centre of community life. It’s the pub where people have the big conversations. It’s the pub where people gather and spend time getting to know each other and building community. It’s in the pub where we put the world to rights and talk about how we can make it a better place. That actually sounds to me like the sort of things a church should be doing.

Jesus spent little of his time in the temples. Most of his time was meeting people where they were; the market place, the shores of the lake, the well. You see, Jesus wasn’t concerned with those who thought they had it all sorted. He wanted to be with the people who had the big questions. He wanted to spend time talking things through, discovering new ways of being in community and caring for each other. Church isn’t a building. It’s a group of people with a desire to live better, more whole lives. This lent, church has been happening in the pub. Jesus would have approved.