Church to Hold Weekly Service Inside a Buffalo Wild Wings Location

Churches in chain restaurants are officially a trend: Just weeks after a NJ religious group launched an online campaign to open a McDonald's franchise inside a church, an Alabama pastor has taken his church to a hot wing franchise. The Birmingham News reports a youth pastor for the Riverchase United Methodist Church plans to hold weekly services inside a Buffalo Wild Wings location. Reverend Wesley Savage tells the newspaper that the abridged 45-minute service is targeted to the "a population that would attend a service there that wouldn't go to a church."

Savage's Sunday service will begin before the restaurant officially opens for lunch, and the pastor hopes the restaurant will double a as community gathering place, with church-goers encouraged to stay for lunch and catch a game. (In their "McMass Project," the founders behind NJ's in-church McDonald's also argue that combining a fast-food location with a church could help "capture modern audiences" and re-purpose spaces as gathering places.) Savage's inaugural Buffalo Wild Wings mass — called "The Stream" — will take place this Sunday, promising "wings. prayer. sports."