Jeff Finley
By Jeff Finley
It also may not seem likely for an atheist-owned brewery to be a key ministry site.
But these seemingly unlikely things are happening as revealed by Jeff Bellinger, Light + Life’s pastor of outreach and discipleship, in an interview with Brett Heintzman on a new episode of “The Light + Life Podcast.”
_
“We began meeting together, praying together for the manifest presence of Christ to come into that place …” – Jeff Bellinger
_m `
“This started back in 2019. Pastor Chuck Frankenfeld, who is the senior pastor at Light and Life, approached me about coming on staff here at the church full-time, and I was a little resistant at first, but he had this vision of hiring me to go out and begin planting church plants or small house church-type movements throughout our community and further into Lakeland and Polk County, Central Florida,” Bellinger said. “It’s been a really interesting ride ever since then. We started off with a house church, just about a half a mile outside of the gate of Light & Life Park, and we called it Gather. It started off with two or three people. We began meeting together, praying together for the manifest presence of Christ to come into that place and begin to do the work in us that we that He wanted to do.”
The house church soon attracted other Christians who wanted to go deeper in their relationship with Jesus Christ.
“Gather went from just becoming an outreach to becoming kind of a greenhouse of discipleship — or an incubator of discipleship — and people started to grow in their faith,” Bellinger said.
A couple of women decided to multiply Gather, which had grown to approximately 20 people, by starting a group on Tuesday evenings.
_
“They weren’t too sure where to go, and I wasn’t too sure where to send them …” – Jeff Bellinger
_m `
“They were meeting in the same place where Gather met on Saturday nights, and I began to encourage them to take their group and move out somewhere in the community where it would be visible,” Bellinger said. “They weren’t too sure where to go, and I wasn’t too sure where to send them, so I started to look.”
Meanwhile, Bellinger began noticing a microbrewery — Swan Brewing — that had recently opened in downtown Lakeland.
“They have this really great venue where they have a huge tent outside of their brewery, and there’s a dozen or more picnic tables, and, every time I’d go by this place, it would be packed, or you’d see families sitting together. There were children. It’s pet-friendly, so people would bring their pets,” Bellinger said. “I went in, and I talked to the owner — who is an atheist, by the way, which I found out soon after. I asked him if he would be willing to allow us to do a Bible study or to start a church group in his tent.”
The owner replied, “Yeah, why not?”
The group began meeting each week at Swan Brewing for “Gather at the Swan.” The group began with five or six people, and they took a sign with their group name and the message “What does the Bible say about that?”
“We thought, ‘We could have a Bible study. We could have a time of fellowship. We could pray in this particular space and open up the conversation for anybody who wanted to come in and ask a question,’” Bellinger said. “We’ve had some really interesting conversations with people.”
Music Bingo Meets Bible Study
While the Gather group studied the Bible, other Swan patrons played live music bingo, which was led by musician S.G. Wood. Bellinger described Wood as “a very talented man. He plays guitar, and he can sing everything from Johnny Cash to Cyndi Lauper. This guy is amazing.”
The Swan divide eventually disappeared.
“One night my wife said, ‘Why don’t we just close our Bibles and engage what’s going on here and begin to form relationships with the people who are actually present?’” Bellinger recalled. “We began to play live music bingo with the people who were there, and we began to interact with S.G. Wood and a lot of the other people that were under the tent.”
In 2021, Bellinger gave Wood a Christmas card with a $100 bill and a note: “S.G., thank you so much for being willing to use your gifts. You are a blessing to us, and thank you for making our Tuesday night special.”
_
“He started getting into the Word, and we became his church.” – Jeff Bellinger
_m `
Wood approached Bellinger and shared some personal challenges, and the Gather group prayed for Wood and encouraged him. A few weeks later, Bellinger said, Wood “came to this place of surrender where he just gave his life to Christ. He had been raised in the church and had walked away from God in his 20s. … He started getting into the Word, and we became his church.”
Then the initial Gather group, which meets on Saturdays, decided to engage the community by hosting a Christmas barbecue and inviting people who are not part of Gather. Wood was hired to perform, and he played a mix of classic rock and Christmas music.
“He’s got tattoos up and down his arm. He’s got long hair. He’s a great guy, but he does not look like he’s somebody who would be declaring the gospel, but he certainly does,” Bellinger said.
In introducing a new song he had written, Wood shared a powerful story of what happened when he visited a drummer bandmate, Joe, in the hospital. Joe, who had no religious background, told Wood that he saw a person sitting in a chair next to Wood and asked who it was. Wood, who saw no one in the neighboring chair, replied, “Joe, it’s probably Jesus,” and then led Joe in praying to accept Jesus as his Lord and Savior.
_
“It was truly of the Holy Spirit.” – Jeff Bellinger
_m
“Here’s S.G. Wood telling the story about leading his friend to Christ in front of a roomful of people who don’t know Jesus, and these people are hanging on absolutely every single word that he said, because the Lord had just so disarmed them to this man. He was so engaging with them, and he began to talk to them about their need for Jesus,” Bellinger said. “It was truly of the Holy Spirit, and I remember just standing back in the background praying and saying, ‘Lord, how did you do this?”
Making Places Holy
Some people may have concerns about the location of Gather at the Swan, but Bellinger said he has “been very intentional about inviting people from Light & Life Park there, and here’s why: I think for a long time in the church, we’ve kind of created the mentality like the Pharisees were. We were so afraid to do something that would make us unclean or unholy that we would avoid situations, and we’d avoid people, and we would avoid being in a place that might defile us somehow or cause us to compromise or make a bad decision.”
_
“We take that light with us so we can walk into a place that’s perhaps a little dark or very worldly.” – Jeff Bellinger
_m `
He said he understands that concern but noted, “We have the Holy Spirit, and Jesus was willing to walk into unclean places, because when He walked into an unclean place, He made it holy. We take that light with us so we can walk into a place that’s perhaps a little dark or very worldly. When we gather, there is the body of Christ, and we begin to pray for the manifest presence of Christ to come into that place. And now the holiness of Christ accompanies us, and we begin to change that [place].”
Click here for the full conversation on the “The Light + Life Podcast.”
+
