​A church leader is using a Cheltenham bar for prayers instead of pints.

Howard Kellett has set up the Godfirst Church, which meets every Wednesday at D-Fly.

He says it is the only way to save religious worship because churches are closing at the rate of one a fortnight in the UK.

Instead of kneeling at the altar, the congregation sits in the bar while the service is projected on a big screen.

Since it was launched four months ago, Godfirst has attracted 15 members.

If more join, Mr Kellett is hoping to set up a Sunday morning meeting too.

He says the new scheme is nothing unusual and the Latin for church actually translates as “a crowd”.

But he admits the word is still strongly associated with buildings, spires, towers and stained glass windows.

Mr Kellett has already set up similar churches in Teeside and Manchester.

Godfirst, which is part of the mainstream Christian network New Frontiers – a member of the evangelical alliance, meets in the upper room of the bar and restaurant in Crescent Place.

Mr Kellett said: “It’s a perfect place for a church meeting. It takes the church back to its roots. An upper room is where Jesus would meet with his followers, long before Christians built buildings and drew parish boundaries around them.”

While he admires the “magnificent” architecture of Gloucester Cathedral, Mr Kellett firmly believes a church is not about the building.

He added: “When I was a student in the early 1980s at the University of Gloucestershire, Holy Trinity was a church of 15 people and was in danger of closing and North Place Church across the car park was a community of almost a 100 members.

“On returning to Cheltenham the exterior of both buildings remains almost unchanged but Trinity is now a thriving church of around a 1,000 people and North Place is now Chapel Health Spa.”

Bishop’s Cleeve vicar, The Rev Mike Holloway, said he approved of worshipping outside of the church.

“It is great when Christianity and its message gets out there and meeting where they are is good,” he said.

“When Jesus was on the Earth he did not turn up in the places people expected him and quite often got in trouble for it – so if going to a club is wrong that might well have been where he would go.”

Lucy Taylor, spokeswoman for the Diocese of Gloucester, said the diocese had started the unusual manner of worship four years ago with the group Fresh Expressions.

It meets in bars, pubs and at people’s homes and it has more than 70 followers. “It is a way of introducing people to the church without having the Sunday worship in a church which does not relate to many young people,” she said.

“This is really emerging and it something that has become quite popular.”

Godfirst will hold its next meeting at D-Fly on February 17 at 7.45pm.

For more details, go to www.godfirst.org.uk.