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From Dave Tomlinson, writer and Vicar of St Luke’s Holloway in London:

 After preaching in a nearby church, I joined a dozen people for a drink in the pub. While pulling a couple of tables together to sit around, a voice called out from the other side of the room: ‘Oi! Are you a priest?’ (Oops, still wearing my dog-collar). The woman who looked like she’d been there for a while motioned vigorously for me to join her and her two companions. My friends looked concerned but I went across.

 After hugging me (also very vigorously) and telling me how wonderful I was for coming to her pub, the woman went outside for a smoke while her soberer pals asked me to join them. One told me that her mother was gravely ill and about to die, and asked if I would say a prayer for her. The other asked if she could make a confession. I smiled mischievously - ‘I think this may cost you a whisky!’

 Re-joined by the inebriated woman, we sat in the corner of the pub talking, then saying a prayer or two – me and my motley little congregation!

 One of my favourite things about Jesus is that he frequented the equivalent of pubs befriending those regarded as ‘sinners’ by the religious establishment. Jesus had no ‘us’ and ‘them’ – religious and non-religious, churchgoers and non-churchgoers. If anything, he showed a preference for the black sheep, the misfits, the prodigals.

 Don’t get me wrong, I’m a vicar; I love people coming to church, but if I thought for a moment that God categorised people as ‘innies’ or ‘outies’, believers and non-believers, I’d be an atheist overnight. Who we are as people must matter much more than what we do on Sunday mornings!  

 Gandhi who struggled for non-violent independence for India, constantly pointed people to a faith that transcended religion. For him, it wasn’t religious beliefs or practices that mattered, but the way we treated people. Our religion or the lack of it does not make us decent human beings; it's our choices that make us who we are.

 The three women in the pub promised faithfully to appear in church. They didn’t. I never thought they would. But actually, that night, church happened right there….in a north London pub where four people shared the lurve…