Family-owned pizza joint open about Christian faith

Jenn Fields, For the Camera
Saturday, November 11, 2006

LONGMONT — When they opened Luc’s Pizza in Longmont eight years ago, Jim and Marie Lucarelli hoped to serve plenty of pizza. They also wanted to serve the community and God.

The walls and menus at Luc’s serve as a constant reminder of that. A plaque near some old family photos, to the side of the cash register, bears Luc’s Pizza’s unofficial motto, from 1 Corinthians 10:31: “So whatever you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” The front of their menu carries the same scripture quote, and each section leads with scripture and the ichthys symbol — Lunch, Matthew 4:4; Pizzas, John 7:37.

The Lucarellis agree that the ubiquitous scripture, which even graces their company van, keeps them accountable to God and the life-long process of learning and being a Christian.

“We view it as a ministry,” Marie Lucarelli said.

Sometimes the scripture will lead a customer to start a conversation about faith, but Marie said that as a business, they never bring it up first or proselytize to customers or employees. She also doesn’t think Luc’s success is a result of being Christian.

“I think our customers like our pizza, and that’s why they come back,” she said. “I don’t think God is like a good luck charm I can pull out of my pocket, rub and be successful.”

The idea for the pizzeria started when the couple noticed the unoccupied store front at Hover and 17th Streets in Longmont that would become Luc’s.

“So we’re having breakfast, and start making notes on a napkin, ‘What about a mom-and-pop pizza place?'” Jim Lucarelli said.

At the time, finances were already tight. The family had been living on Jim’s teaching salary alone for a few years so Marie, who also had been a teacher in the St. Vrain School District, could stay home to care for their four children. But they worked together well for church and school projects, and they enjoyed making pizzas from scratch with family recipes and an old church cookbook. The kids were getting older, and a family business seemed like a good idea.

“I wanted to be able to contribute something to my family, the community, society in general more than just…” Jim said, pausing to find the right word.

“Getting a paycheck,” Marie offered.

Jim nodded. “Or achieving some of those ideologies in what the world might perceive success is,” he said.

The children also encouraged them to open Luc’s, and the oldest three, who were in junior high and high school at the time, helped open and run the pizzeria. Rachael, the youngest, made dolls out of paper plates and coffee filters from a blanket near the phone. Now 13, she trains high schoolers who work at Luc’s.

Luc’s could not have opened without the right help at the right time, say the Lucarellis. Their church family from Rocky Mountain Christian Church blessed their opening — “I think they kept us in business for our first month and a half, honestly,” Jim said — and a random act of kindness from a stranger saved them trouble over the enormous hood for their ovens.

Long before they opened, a health inspector stopped by to see if they needed anything. The Lucarellis didn’t yet know much about health codes or regulations for the hood, but the stranger gladly helped them out. They weren’t expecting him, they hadn’t called or submitted paperwork, and they’re still not sure why he dropped in that day.

“To me, that was a God thing,” Marie said. “We needed him, and somebody knew that.”

When the Lucarellis had to figure out how to make many pizza crusts at once, their friends Mark and Dorothy D’Agostino, who run D’Agostino Mugg-n-Pye in Frederick, let them use their mixer.

Dorothy D’Agostino said they used to try to discourage Jim from getting into the restaurant business.

“We knew it was hard, but also because we knew him and his personality, we knew he would be successful,” she said.

Now, Jim encourages them to close Mugg-n-Pye on Sundays — like Luc’s — so they’ll have more family time, but that’s not easy, she said.

Later, Jimmy Welzig, a friend from church who runs a heating and cooling service, — and who also bears witness to his faith with the ichthys symbol on his fleet of vans — quickly took care of a broken compressor for their refrigerator just days before they opened.

Welzig said the Lucarellis demonstrate their faith in many ways.

“You wear it on your sleeve,” he said. “That’s what we’re called to do.”

“I truly believe it’s about people recognizing sincerity and who you are,” Jim said. “It’s about how you treat people, and how you’re supposed to treat people.”

Marie agrees. “Our pastor likes to say, the good you do will come back to you,” she said.

At a recent gathering of other local Christian business owners — a word-of-mouth gathering Jim learned about when he made a delivery to another business and suggested saying grace — Jim and others discussed the more than 700 references to the heart and love in the Bible. You can do a lot of outwardly kind things, but it’s about where your heart is, he said.

Story online at www.dailycamera.com

Church groups hit pubs to broaden appeal

By Jenn Fields, For the Camera
Wednesday, November 15, 2006

On a recent Thursday night, after the children had been put to bed, five men were engaged in a deep discussion around a table. They mulled over suffering and the meaning of an old hymn with the lyrics: “God moves in a mysterious way.”

“Like, it sucks that you’re hurting, but it’s part of life,” said one, who had “Ezekiel” emblazoned across his T-shirt.

The conversation had turned to providence when a server interrupted to tell the men not to let the next table over hog all of the fries. The fries were for everyone.

A swig of microbrew, dollar tacos and heady talk of faith and God add up to Doctrine on Draught, Cornerstone Church of Boulder Valley’s weekly gathering at Southern Sun Pub & Brewery. But one drink only, please.

Scott Kelly, Cornerstone’s associate pastor, was inspired to start the program by the priest that hung out at his fraternity parties back at Washington University in St. Louis.

“Not many other people were talking to the Sigma Alpha Epsilon people about Jesus,” Kelly said. “But this father was there.”

The priest also bought a keg and invited people over to the Catholic student center for something he called Theology-on-Tap, Kelly said.

“I got to thinking, that was really cool that this guy would just show up and live the life of Jesus among us,” Kelly said.

But according to Kelly, sometimes the priest would get drunk, so he instituted a one-drink limit when he started his own Theology-on-Tap for Cornerstone, which is a cooperating church in the Southern Baptist Convention.

Why not just abstain?

“Martin Luther was asked that same question,” Kelly said. “He said, ‘do not suppose the abuses are eliminated by destroying the object of abuse.'”

The twentysomething demographic is a notoriously difficult draw for many churches. A September study by the Barna Group reports that 61 percent of young adults “had been churched at one point during their teen years but they are now spiritually disengaged.”

“The old methods don’t work like they used to,” said Chris Steele, young adults minister at LifeBridge Christian Church in Longmont. “You don’t argue them into their faith. You do life with them, and they discover it.”

Steele helped LifeBridge develop The Bridge, a group for young adults in college and beyond.

“Part of it is frustrating at times, because you want to say, just do it and trust me,” Steele said. But this generation questions authority, he said.

“People aren’t going to come to your safe buildings anymore,” he said. “You have to earn the right to say, ‘Let’s talk about this.'”

The beginning

Theology-on-Tap began in the Archdiocese of Chicago in 1981 when a college student asked his priest for help with the “why” questions in life. By the time that student came home for the summer, the priest, Father Jack Wall, and youth minister Tom James had set up a six-week speaker and discussion series.

The program, which is now hosted in parishes or bars and restaurants, has spread to 46 states and six countries, according to their Web site, www.theologyontap.org.

Kelly changed the name of his new program to Doctrine on Draught after learning that Theology-on-Tap was so successful that the Chicago Archdiocese had trademarked the name.

The Archdiocese of Denver hosts a Theology-on-Tap series twice a year, timed with the college semesters, at Braun’s Bar and Grill near the Pepsi Center. Mercy Gutierrez, event coordinator for the Archdiocese, said the series typically pulls in 175 to 250 participants from up and down the Front Range, including University of Colorado students.

“The Archbishop is kicking off the spring series, and he’ll draw 300 people,” Gutierrez said.

Cornerstone’s crowd is around a dozen most weeks, Kelly said, and the format is different. Kelly usually shows up armed with blog entries, commentaries and tough questions to spark discussion in smaller groups throughout the evening.

Parker Eldredge, 25, is a member of Cornerstone and goes to Doctrine on Draught most weeks. He says that with his job, it’s much easier to get to than Kelly’s old 7 a.m. Dead Theologians Society. The society died, but the new pub gatherings already seem poised for success, he said.

Andrew Casey, 29, doesn’t go to Cornerstone Church, but he goes to Southern Sun on Thursdays because he misses the intellectual rigor of his religious studies classes at CU.

“It’s well worth it for me to go there,” Casey said. “Doctrine aside, the questions lead into bigger discussions.”

Sometimes those discussions can hit a personal note. When the discussion turned to the controversy of Universalism, Casey, who acknowledges that his beliefs are essentially Universalist, remained comfortable with the conversation.

“I think I could bring my Buddhist buddy,” he said, “and they could all sit down and talk just fine.”

Story online at www.dailycamera.com