Coffee and music combine Friday at The Bridge

A room is flooded with the smell of fresh coffee, painted in warm tones with soft lighting and the sound of acoustic music lifting throughout the room.

Jill Pickett

The Bridge Community church is holding a Bridge Acoustic Café tomorrow featuring Louisville artist Dave Moisan.

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Jill Pickett

The Bridge Community church worship and arts pastor Matt Black talks about the Bridge Acoustic Café events held by the church during a recent interview.

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No, you’re not in a coffee shop on Bardstown Road in Louisville. You’re at the Bridge Acoustic Café at the Nexus building of The Bridge Community Church on Wilson Road near Elizabethtown.

The Bridge Acoustic Cafe is a place where any music lover in the community can gather for coffee and music once a month.

The idea for the Bridge Acoustic Café started before current worship and arts pastor Matt Black arrived. It started with Wayne Cox, pastor, and other church members who wanted to provide a night of good fellowship and music. 

The two church staff members get to put two things they enjoy together for one purpose.

“My love of music and his love of coffee are kind of joined together for the café,” Black said.

Black said the monthly event provides something people cannot get in Elizabethtown on a regular basis — something people drive to Louisville to find.

The coffee for the cafe comes from a micro roaster in Muncie, Ind., who is a church planter.  Cox is in charge of the coffee team and makes professional looking latte art in the cup.

“Our pastor Wayne has always been a bit of a coffee geek,” Black joked.

It’s high quality coffee made with professional machines and served by trained baristas, Black said. The coffee is also sold at a good price, he added — espressos at $2 and brewed coffee at $1.

Homemade desserts made by church members are sold to enjoy with the coffee and music.

Most of the time funds from the café kitchen go towards the church's art ministry. For Friday's event proceeds will go to the Blood: Water Mission campaign that helps bring clean drinking water and wells in places such as Uganda.

There are a couple of different café musical series featured. The artist series brings indie artists from other areas and opens with a local artist.

Black said when people know the local artist performing they get a chance to discover a new artist as well.

So far the artist series has featured a couple artists out of Nashville. Eric Peters is a folk artist with what Black calls an interesting sound. He’s in Nashville via Louisiana and has a folk sound with a Cajun twist using a 12-string guitar and harmonica, Black said.

“He has some thought provoking songs,” Black said.

The other performer from Nashville was Andy Gullahorn who has a fingerpicking and witty style to his music, Black said.

“We try to bring in people who are very entertaining, even if you haven’t seen them before,” Black said.

The church has tried to build a reputation of inviting artists people will enjoy the first time so they’ll come back to see who the next artist is.

Friday night, local artist Tara Steele will open the event with a 20-minute set. Then Dave Moisan from Louisville will headline the event. Black said Moisan has a modern voice with a lot of folk instruments and Moisan considers his genre “jubilant folk pop.”

The cafes will alternate from the artist series, musicians from the Bridge worship team and possibly sets with local Christian artists who come from different churches in the area.

Black has an interest in getting independent artists together so they can play with other artists and learn from each other. He hopes he can offer a venue for the artists that isn’t the typical contemporary Christian scene. Many of the artist they feature probably play outside their church venues more than inside, Black said.

Black prefers the coffeehouse-intimate setting of the café. If they used rowed seating for the event they’d call it a concert not a café, Black said.

He hopes it becomes something bigger than just listening to music and drinking coffee — a connecting point for artists in the community and a place to hear something new.

“We’re providing something that I really feel anyone in the community can come into whether they are a part of a church or not and really just have a good evening,” Black said.

The cover charge for the acoustic café is $5. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. and the music begins at 7 p.m. For more information about the café, go to the events tab at www.facebook.com/bridgecommunity. There are also videos of Moisan on the events page.

For more information on the Blood: Water Mission, go to www.bloodwatermission.com.

Becca Owsley can be reached at (270) 505-1741 or bowsley@thenewsenterprise.com.

IF YOU GO

Doors open 6:30 p.m. for the artist series of the Bridge Acoustic Café featuring Dave Moisan. Music begins 7 p.m. at The Nexus Building, 6746 S. Wilson Road, Elizabethtown. There is a $5 cover charge. For more information find The Bridge Community on Facebook.