We got to D-Note, Connected Life’s twice-monthly home since last August, at 7 O’clock and were greeted at the door by Shepherd and a coterie of fellow Gen-X Jesus freaks in spotless, mall-bought clothing, all of them nursing pints of expensive microbrew like it had to last them the entire summer. That was strike one.

Strike two occurred a minute later, when “music director” John, an Abercrombie jock with a backwards hat and boom-bang-boom girlfriend, lead his modern Christian “alternative” rock band through a string of bland originals and oddly ironic covers (including “Banditos” by The Refreshments, the one with the chorus that goes: “Everybody knows / That the world is full of stupid people”).

Now, the intent of Connected Life is a good one: to bring some fun back into the church, and to rebel against the shame and finger-pointing of more traditional approaches. Lord knows Christianity in this country could use some liberalization, and to his credit, Shepherd drew a great crowd for a Tuesday night, with over two dozen twenty- and thirty-somethings filling the spacious club’s stage-side tables.

But strike three proves why, try as they may, modern Christians will forever fail to shake this culture up in a way that doesn’t lead to Abu Ghurayb, Kirk Cameron, and back-alley abortions: they don’t get pop culture. Strike three came when Shepherd’s wife, in a cringe-inducing “icebreaker” meant to get congregants talking to each other at their little tables before the sermon, mispronounced Pépé LePew’s first name as “PeePee.” The response was blank stares, and it was obvious the audience was too distracted congratulating themselves for being at a way-cool “church at the bar” to heckle her off the stage.

Shepherd himself then lit into a well-intentioned sermon centered on the story from Chapter Nine of the Book of John wherein Jesus restores a blind man’s vision through the use of a saliva-laced facial made of mud. This miracle proved Shepherd’s essential point: you do not have to understand everything to believe in something.

What this author didn’t understand was why the leading figure of the Western world’s only known “church at the bar” was himself devoid of an alcoholic beverage of any sort, and then the fourth and final strike against Connected Life dawned on me: they don’t give a shit about alcohol at all!

It was the pivotal scene from Fight Club all over again, like a vast conspiracy was coming to light: I was not sitting amongst fellow alcoholics seeking a direct taste of the Transcendent, but white bread Christian literalists looking for—and failing to find—a genuine way to Look Cool.

The rest of the service was an angry blur: there was a church regular named Jen who gave a “Connected Life changed my life” testimonial (followed by a gushing boast by Shepherd on how Jen had driven “all the way!” from Fort Carson to be there that night, a brutal ;) hour-and-a-half pilgrimage up the I-25), some more vague remarks by Shepherd on how “you are free to disagree here,” and another set by John and the Alterna-Prudes, who could barely elicit a dull murmur of approval from the audience as they tore through bland Creed send-up after bland Creed send-up.

When it all ended, Shepherd returned to our table and thanked us for coming, made sure we got our “Join the Party!” key chains, and went on to spread the good word of fake hedonism.

It was only then that we remembered another religious obligation, this one actually worth dying for: the Flames were about to enter the third period of their semi-final match with the San Jose Sharks, and D-Note had not a TV in sight.

“Let’s get out of here!” said Rollie, our resident Canadian, no stranger to either beer or mysticism.

I sipped the last of my Fat Tire and followed him out the door.