Kentucky Congregation Turns Former Bar into Church and Worship Center

Click to read full story from WLWT News 5

FLORENCE, Ky. --

A local congregation that holds services at a motel and another church has decided to settle down and find a bar to worship in.

MISSION of God Church, which stands for "Mobilizing Ignited Selfless Servants In Obedience Now," is converting the former TJ's Sports Bar Café into a worship space after months of moving around.

Video: Go Inside Bar, Place Of Worship

The congregation had been holding services at Quality Inn in Florence and renting space at Open Door Church in Erlanger, but now they are clearing out the pool tables and barstools at the one-time Tanners Lane watering hole.

"The stripper's pole was over here, we had to take that down," said Pastor Wayne Guilliams. "A couple members did not want that to stay."

Two congregants who now counsel young people at the church recalled their own wild times at TJ's, before they found God.

"Lots of times you'd leave here and think, how did I make it home?" said Scott Lowe. "I mean, why am I not dead? I've lost a younger brother to a drunk driver and two weeks later my father-in-law the same way."

His longtime friend, Matt Morgan, described the path that led them away from the bar, to church – and then back again.

"Me and him both (realized), talking to one another, going, wow, you know, this can't be all there is, just wasting our lives in bars and doing stuff like that," Morgan said. "You know, where do we go? So here we are now turning the bar into a church."

The church still hasn't obtained all the necessary permits to turn the bar into a sanctuary, but they have a lease on the property.

"We're slowly building our finances up, too, but the Lord's providing," Guilliams said. "We're thankful for this."

While the location may be unusual, the building's past just might serve as a drawing card for potential congregants, the pastor's wife said.

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JMC Ministries Response

This is just a prime example of taking a place that Satan used and make into a place that is now used to Worship our Lord and Savior and also Help the Community. Instead of Lives being destroyed in this place that people went to drink, party and drown their sorrows. Now can be used to help save lives and restore them.

We can only pray that more Christians stand up and start taking their communities back like this church is. One bar at a time.