Honestly I think one of the greatest Christian innovations was the sabbatarian idea of weekly services, basically serving as a community homeroom cum variety show. It’s a great device for keeping a community together without getting too ridiculous.

I tend to have a structuralist understanding of religion and coming from that I think if you want to found a new religion you could do worse than syncretize the modern urban secular tradition of sabbatarian communion, the weekend brunch. Maybe put a few three-minute sermons into the music playlist so that people who stay for a typical length will hear two during their stay? Maybe go more with the “variety show” aspect and have them performed live in the rotation on a kind of dinner theater stage?

Actually up here in Portland we’ve got a lot of great church buildings without a congregation to fill them, a demand for brunch places without a ridiculous line, and there’s always cooks and performers looking for a gig. That’s an opportunity if I ever saw one.

The only drawback I can see is that both “chunch” and “brurch” are terrible portmanteaus. “Brunchurch”, duh.