Act 27: Theology, Beer, and Going Solo

A few weeks ago my friend who works in church ministry invited me and a few others to go to Theology on Tap. I hadn’t heard of this before but it is a national ministry for young adult Christians (mostly Catholics) in their 20s and 30s. Each month the group meets at a bar and listens to a different speaker on issues of faith. They provide snacks, pop, and beer and give time to mingle before the speaker and discuss afterwards. Sounded pretty awesome to me!
We all agreed to go until about 2:30 in the afternoon the day of the event, when the friend that initially invited us had to back out because of a work meeting. This caused a domino effect. The two guys in the group decided to golf instead. The other girl had other plans within 30 minutes of the original person backing out. And then there was me. I still wanted to go so I talked to a few other friends about it that afternoon. One had to work, one had other plans, and one was uncomfortable with the idea of religious conversations (the topic was controversial). Thus the dilemma: go by myself or not at all? Some people are very comfortable going to events, movies, etc by themselves. I fall somewhere in the middle. I didn’t actually make the decision until about a half hour before it started and I decided to go. Why? Because otherwise I’d be sitting at home watching TV. If I had something else I could have done that night I might not have gone, but I didn’t. And I’m glad.

I drove to the bar and arrived about 10 minutes early. I went inside and was told to go upstairs for the speaker. There were already about 10 people there when I showed up and I introduced myself to a few of them, took part in the snacks, and got myself a drink. It seemed wrong not to imbibe at an event called Theology on TAP. I chatted with one of the organizing committee members and signed up for email updates on future events. Awfully bold considering I didn’t know if I would like it yet but hey, I’m an optimist!

I chatted before things got started with a girl named April, who just moved to Iowa from California. Talk about culture shock! We found a table with a couple others and kept up the chatting until the speaker was ready.

The topic of the night was something along the lines of “Matters of Life and Death” and covered big ticket issues like abortion, stem cell research, and contraception. Rather controversial, but so interesting! The speaker talked about the scientific facts some, the Catholic Church’s official stance on each, and the conflicting arguments. I definitely learned things I didn’t know, but I won’t get into the guts of that stuff here. If you’re interested, we can have a good conversation on it in person sometime.

After the speaker was finished there was Q&A and then table discussions. These were surprising calm, though some good debates took place. After we’d had enough of that kind of talk, April asked if I wanted to stick around downstairs and get a drink. Instead I invited her to Old Chicago since I was already planning on meeting some friends there. We shared some of our new knowledge with them and I have to say that I’m more confident talking about these subjects now that I’ve got more information.

April and I have hung out a few times since then and she’s even joining my volleyball team, so not only did I find a new activity (because I definitely plan on hitting up more Theology on Tap events), but I made a new friend. (All together now… “awwwwww” :-P ). I’d like to think I’d have been just as interested in striking up conversations with strangers if I’d had all my own friends there, but I’m not sure if that’s the case. Sometimes it’s not so bad to go solo.