Beer and hymns. The two words are rarely seen together, but one group in Morgantown has found a sense of community in the combination.
In 2017, Rich Chaffins was attending a festival with friends in southern California when he first experienced a Beer and Hymns group.
“It was 300-400 people just belting out hymns — it was super-cool,” he said.
Chaffins said he discovered the beer and hymns concept got started in England and there are several chapters across the United States. In 2017, he started the Beer and Hymns Morgantown chapter.
“What it does is cut church out of hymns. A lot of people don’t go to church now for whatever reason — trauma, people treat them wrong, all kinds of things can happen,” he explained. “So, doing it in a bar, there’s no sermons or no offerings or anything like that for us — we just get together and sing, which is fun. Music is so intrinsic to memory, so providing that good part of it, while taking the bad part out is healing for a lot a people.”
At its core, Chaffins said Beer and Hymns is “a place where anybody who’s been told they are not welcome in a church or don’t feel like they are, can show up and just sing songs we all know.”
According to Chaffins, the group’s events typically draw around 50-60 people, but attendance for its Christmas event, aptly named Beer and Carols, is usually double or triple that number.
This year’s Beer and Carols will be held tonight, Sunday, Dec. 9, at 123 Pleasant Street. The doors will open at 6 p.m. with the singing to begin between 6:30-6:45 p.m. and last about an hour. All ages are welcome to attend — there are no age restrictions.
While members do not collect offerings in the traditional religious sense, the group does raise money for a local charity or organization every time they meet through donations for admission.
Project Rainbow, which aims to help un-housed members of the LGBTQ+ community in West Virginia find safety, shelter, and resources, will be the recipient of the money collected at this year’s Beer and Carols.
Project Rainbow is currently working toward opening Rainbow House, which would serve as West Virginia’s first LGBTQ+ shelter and safe haven.
During past events, the Beer and Hymns group has raised funds for such causes as the Morgantown warming shelter, M.T. Pockets Theatre, Holler Health Justice, Morgantown Pride, Women’s Health Center of West Virginia and others.
Chaffins said songs performed during the sing-along will be a mix of sacred and secular music.
“We do some fun things, like we have a ska version of ‘The First Noel,’” he said. “We also encourage people to bring smaller musical instruments. We have a drum circle for ‘Little Drummer Boy,’ and we all try to do a really bad ‘Hallelujah’ chorus.”
Those in attendance are typically a motley mix, attracting people from all different backgrounds and beliefs. Chaffins said they always have several LGBTQ+ people there as well as atheists and others.
“Everybody is welcome because we are just singing songs,” Chaffins said. “Everybody should be welcome everywhere anyway.
“We’ve had so many people come up to us after a show and just tell us how relieved they were or it felt like coming home to a place they weren’t welcome anymore,” he said.
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