Telling bible stories in the local pub

Pastor Flemming Kloster Poulsen on a beer-crate surprises the locals

His website says it all:

“I’m a pastor and I’ve been telling stories for many years – in vicarages, libraries, festivals, and schools. Since 2003 I’ve run the Storytelling Cafe in Randers.”

And during his last three months’ leave,  Pastor Flemming Kloster Poulsen has been visiting all kinds of localities in and around Randers to tell his bible stories, in hospital and prison, to business leaders, politicians, and the mentally disabled, and then on a video link on his website.

The following episode, originally reported in the Christian Daily, gives an idea of his style;

“They were all for basements”
There’s a full house in the pub, beer on every table – and Flemming is well-known in these parts. He gets up on a beer crate, bangs two empty bottles together and the crowd quietens down. He starts off by voicing a complaint from one of his parishioners: “You ought to stand on a squash crate, not a beer crate.” This goes down well with the audience and immediately Flemming is into his stride. He takes out a paper-cutting of a ladder – the sort you put on Christmas trees. And he starts in on the story of Jacob’s dream and the ladder that climbs up to heaven.  It’s good to dream about heaven, he says. And suddenly he’s back in the present, with an anecdote from a pastoral colleague who was sitting with an old blacksmith once, a man who had made many a stairway. “If you put them all end to end,” said the colleague, “they might reach up to heaven!” “No way,” said the smith, “they were all for basements.”

Pastor Poulsen wants his project, “The story behind the word – bible stories on all levels”, to bring the biblical stories into people’s everyday life. He has 42 stories lined up – “one for each kilometre of the marathon! You run better with stories in your head. And you live life better with stories in your suitcase.”


Edward Broadbridge