As soon as I pull into the parking lot, next to a row of Harley-Davidson motorcycles, I can tell the church service at the Salvation Saloon will be no ordinary experience.
Outside of Steve's Cape Cod seafood restaurant and bar in Ozona, a small community next to Palm Harbor, dozens of men and women decked-out in black leather vests, cross patches and blue jeans chat and smoke cigarettes. Inside, other members of the congregation are gathered around a long wooden bar — drinking coffee and eating donuts. Instead of pews, members sit on chairs and barstools. And in the far corner of the room, musicians plug electric guitars into half-stacks and set up microphones. There's not an organ in sight.
I tell the woman greeting visitors at the door that I'm looking for the pastor, and she leads me to a group of burly, tattooed men holding cups of coffee. One of them — sleeveless black shirt, blue jeans, soul patch — introduces himself as Paul White, Salvation Saloon's founder and pastor. (He's also the lead guitarist in the church's Posse Band.)
This is definitely not your grandmother's church, White tells me. And that's how he likes it.
"I think a lot of people don't go to church because they look inside at these people who are self-righteous, and they feel out of place," says the 42-year-old motorcycle enthusiast, an ordained minister in several Christian denominations who started the Salvation Saloon four years ago with his wife Suzanne. "But church isn't just for the righteous."
And neither is the congregation at Salvation Saloon. White proudly talks about the "outcasts and misfits" in his congregation: convicted murderers, former drug dealers and heroin addicts who worship next to 80-year-old grandmothers and disaffected Catholics.
"I've always been involved in kind of unique ministries that [preached] to people with alternative lives," he says, describing the rock 'n' roll revivals he organized in cities throughout Florida in the 1980s. "Church population is dwindling, and I think everybody knows we have to do something different."
Salvation Saloon first started as a traveling revival that met in Tampa Bay bars every couple months, but demand for a low-key, nondenominational place to worship — the Saloon is loosely affiliated with several churches including the Florida Southern Baptist Convention, but doesn't follow its tenets, um, religiously — prompted White to start renting out this bar in Ozona for weekly Sunday services. Now attendance hangs around 100 every week. And includes more than just bikers.
"I don't even have a bike," says Jim Goodman, sitting next to his wife Gail, who convinced him to come to the Salvation Saloon earlier this year.
"At first I said to her, 'Aw, man, I don't want to go to a saloon. But the first Sunday I came, I thought, 'Wow, finally a ministry who can minister to the disenfranchised.'"
The Salvation Saloon's service begins like most others, with inspirational music, but that's where the similarity ends. Instead of an organ and hymnbook, parishioners are given a dose of the Posse Band — a six-piece band made up of two guitarists, a bassist, drummer and two female singers. They play covers and originals, alternating between soft rock, country and folk. And though it could be defined as Christian rock, somehow the music seems more sincere than that of, say, Creed.
"Is there any forgiveness for the things that I've done," the women croon as White strums an acoustic guitar. "Is there pardon for sinners, because I know I am one."
After the music, a projection screen lights up. Stock metal riffs introduce the announcements and trivia games, like "Name That Saloonatic," a childhood picture guessing game. There's even a comedy routine, performed by Lou Angelwolf, a well-traveled performer (Dangerfield's, The Improv, Comedy Central) who says he was steered toward the Lord after a 2001 motorcycle crash.
"There's a lot of banks popping up around town," he says, beginning his routine. "Like the Fifth Third Bank up the road. But I don't think I'd put my money in there: They can't even reduce a fraction. It should be the bank of one and two-thirds!"
The joke sends a round of guffaws through the congregation.
After Angelwolf leaves the stage, Nelson "Buzzo" Kowalczyk, a former biker gang member who has served time for murder, belts out a mean blues harmonica solo as Brothers Wolfgang and Curly Joe pass around a motorcycle helmet for the offering.
"These are the people God has brought to this ministry," White tells me. "Jesus didn't just die for the good people of the world. He died for everyone."
A large part of White's ministry involves testimonials from these life-hardened congregants. Stories range from harrowing tales of bank robberies and heroin addiction to the more "ordinary" woes of alcoholism and failed marriages.
"We're walking and talking examples of how God changes lives," says "Wild" Bill Spellman, a hulking biker and former drug addict who discovered the Salvation Saloon in 2004. "We're the church. Not the building. Not the stain glass windows. Not the crosses or crucifixes."
That's an ongoing theme with the Salvation Saloon, down to the Bible verse sewn on the bikers' jackets: "For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them." Most of the people attending on this Sunday had been going to church for years, but never felt comfortable in brick-and-mortar churches.
"[Other churches] were more about the building and functions than people," says Catholic-raised Mary Jean Agliano, a "Saloonatic" since November. "Here, it's about love."
Dave Ralya, who is heading to Laconia, New Hampshire's Bike Week this month to minister to other bikers, agrees.
"Most of these people would be turned away at another church," he says. "It's sad but true."
After a tearful testimonial by Diane Leadbeater, chronicling the former Weeki Wachee mermaid's denial of God for most of her life, White returns to the microphone to challenge those who haven't been "saved."
"If life just sucks, man, and you need a change, God is just a prayer away," he preaches and closes the service with a prayer.
The congregation files outside and revs up their hogs. White and his wife hop onto their motorcycle, and a group of bikers, each with T-shirts or jackets emblazoned with the Salvation Saloon's red Iron Cross logo, line up beside him.
They'll be back again next week, White says from his bike. God willing, of course.
This article appears in Jun 6-12, 2007.