Openness to new ideas revealed itself in the rebranding of a stalled church the Corona congregation had begun as an overflow service in a nearby high school. To help revive it, a team led by 33-year-old Pastor Adam Smith re-opened it last year in a nightclub called Marquee 15.
“We thought, ‘What would it look like to have a different type of church experience in a very non-traditional environment, and hopefully attract people who would never feel comfortable in a church environment?’” Smith says.
Not yet 18 months later, it looks like a mix of young and old, married and single, of various races, sitting around bar-top tables sharing a fellowship that most of them could never have imagined. During altar calls, those who raise their hands might be asked to meet for prayer under the Coors Light sign. It also looks like 315 adults—60 to 70 percent of them new Christians—attending two Sunday morning services and involved in 14 Growth Groups.
One of the nightclub owners, 59-year-old Ernie Lewis, is a Christian who had not found the authenticity he sought in a church. He found it the day South Hills’ Venue 2 opened in his nightclub; he has been attending ever since.
“It was nice to have my place of business, which is very non-Christian in orientation, have God worshipped on a Sunday,” Lewis says. “God’s really moved in to smile on them, and to say, ‘I’m blessed with that, man—you’re giving to people.’”
Smith says the congregation includes 68 children that the “church in a bar” had to accommodate.
“We leased an office space behind the place and redid it into a kind of kids building,” the pastor says. “We don’t just throw them behind the bar and give them some toys.”
Such ventures do meet with some resistance, Sonksen says.
“I had two or three families get very upset with me—one family emailed me and said, ‘If you don’t get out of that bar, we’re leaving the church,’” Sonksen says. “And so they left, and I said, ‘Well then, you need to go and find another place, because if we think we can reach people, then that’s what we’re going to do.’”
SOUTH HILLS CHURCH
Corona, Calif.
Lead Pastor: Chris Sonksen
Twitter: @ChrisSonksen
Website: SouthHills.org
Founded: 1998
Affiliation: Assemblies of God
Locations: 7
Attendance: 1,771
Growth in 2012: +373 (27%)
Fastest-Growing: 62
