Everybody be on your best behavior. There’s a pastor in the house!

A pastor who drinks home brews and jams rock ballads on the axe shouldn’t be so intimidating, actually, so everyone just relax. Welcome to “In The Narrative” - the Wi family continues to grow and rejoices at our new arrival. Pretty soon we’ll have half the bloggers on the Internet, if not half the traffic. Now on to the post!

I’ve been surprised by two things since I started brewing my own beer. First, I’m surprised that pretty good results can be achieved by an amateur. Granted, I’m not going to be threatening the Busch family any time soon, but my brews have been judged pretty tasty by those who’ve tried them. This leads me to the second surprise, which is how social brewing can be.

That’s not to say that I’ve got 14 dudes hanging out in the kitchen when I’m brewing, trying to lend a hand in scrubbing out the pots - simply that drinking beers becomes a profoundly different activity when the beers are homemade rather than store bought. There’s a level of interest in and enthusasim for craft that emerges when the product being consumed isn’t of the mass-produced variety. People will make it a point to come over for home brews - not so much for a six-pack of Busch Lite.

Given the ability of home brewed beer to be a magnet for social activity, it makes me sad therefore that the modern Protestant church in America has tried to distance itself from beer, beer making and other such crafts. All caveats about the evils of alcohol considered (and rejected, so long as a reasonable amount of moderation is exercised), there is a vast amount of untapped potential for the church in beer, if exercised judiciously.

The monks of Europe figured this out. Throughout the Middle Ages monasteries made a fortune for themselves and became focal points in the community because they produced tasty, high quality brews. A little reliability, in the Middle Ages, went a long way. Now, I’m not saying that the Protestant church in America should seek to fund itself through the sale of alcohol (though that might be pretty cool). Rather, the church could do itself a service by recognizing the role that “domestic” production of a popular beverage could have in the general population, and it could exploit it. As the monks became focal points in the community as a result of their craft’s excellence, why not so in our modern age?

So here’s my vision: I foresee a future with Protestant bachelor monks (not bachelors forever, mind you, cause that’s for the birds - but for a time, like maybe in college or something), living several dudes in a house, making brews. That would be awesome, and would no doubt result in some tasty brews.