The vision for Gainsborough Café Church came about four years ago, initially because of a need for something fresh and new for young people to come to. Circuit Mission Enabler, and Café Church minister, Liz Childs tells how that vision has developed along the way.
Some of the teens we were trying to reach already came along to the Gainsborough Methodist Church youth group but they had no other Christian contact. We talked to them about what sort of things they'd like to do and see if they were to get more involved and the result was the Café Church.
The idea was to see a congregation formed in which these young people, mainly 15 to 18-year-olds, could find faith, explore Christian discipleship and worship God and serve the local community. A small group of adults from the main church, who came and supported us, got a lot of out of it as well – and they still do.
Those in the youth group began to build up relationships with other local teenagers, some of them came along and this started to give rise to questions of God and faith. Café Church is informal, interactive and based around food, particularly pizza! At GCC we look at topics that are related to the life experiences of those we are trying to reach, namely young people who are totally unchurched.
We have a regular group of about 20 meeting together every fortnight. It's interesting that three of the young people have been baptised, made members of the church and now occasionally attend the traditional morning worship at Gainsborough Methodist Church. There are others who would never dream of setting foot inside a church for a service; instead they would see Café Church as their spiritual home.
The good thing we've found is that Café Church is much more than a one hour get-together on a Sunday night because the youth group continues in its own right, we have a Bible study every Monday evening and there are various activities at other times. We also operate a drop-in and that generates a lot of crossover in our ministry – some may come in via activities and then come along to Café Church, others are at Café Church and end up getting involved in the wider activities. Christian faith and discipleship is high on the agenda whatever we do; it is not an add-on but at the heart of Café Church and everything else.
Café Church aims to reflect God's love for all unconditionally, meaning everyone is welcome. It is a time for worship and exploration and is taken seriously by all involved – it is not another youth group!
Gainsborough is a market town in a rural setting but that description can conjure up a false image because this is quite a deprived area where there are not so many 'nice, middle class, churched people'. Instead it is a place where traditional industries, and employers, fell away – though the area is now designated as a growth town and is set to double in size. At the moment it's like being a tiny inner-city area in the middle of the countryside.
Café Church is supported by Gainsborough Methodist which provides the facilities. I oversee it for the majority of the time but a youth leader and a couple of local preachers led it while I was away for a three-month sabbatical. I didn't want to simply take the reins back when I returned because it's good for others to be part of that leadership if something is to be truly sustainable.
At the start it really was quite hard to do lead because some of the young people only came for the food we had on offer so they were rather disruptive. It can still be a challenge but the encouragement is that the young people we have now are really looking for something in more depth; they want to engage with it all. Another encouragement is that there always seems to be new people coming along.
Over the past 12 months, we have been looking at the Bible and working our way through from Genesis, using 'What's in the Bible' DVDs and YouTube clips to do so. At the request of the young people themselves, we have increased the worship aspect of the Café and now have live music. We have seen young people come to faith and even though they are in the early stages of their own Christian journeys, they are talking to others about what they've found and where they've found it. There seems to be a real thirst for understanding of what God is all about.
Rev Canon Sue Sheriff, vicar of Tadcaster, explains how Divine Divas replaced Hollywood with Yorkshire for A Night at the Oscars.
A docklands regeneration project in Glasgow is now home to hundreds of people – and The Glasgow Harbour initiative known as authentic (?). Church of Scotland minister Alex Smeed, one of the authentic (?) leaders, explains how churches in the area set it up in response to a call for new ways of 'doing' church.
The audit firstly focused on qualitative data which included us intentionally spending time in the area itself to try and ascertain who the residents were, what kind of culture they came from, what hours they kept and where they worked.
Some of our team moved into a flat in the harbour to have a place on site where people could be invited for a meal and generally practice hospitality. We continue to explore ways in which they can gather people together, including the launch of our authentic (?) curry house as a 'pop-up restaurant' and the development of a greater internet presence in order to promote online community.
As authentic (?) we're also looking at things like having a regular running community. We would also love to offer free, organic, fairly traded beautiful coffees to people as they leave for work in the morning. All these sorts of ideas are things that we are pursuing, we believe in a God who blesses and so we want to pursue that, we want to embody that in everything we do.
We are doing all of this hand in hand with other Christians in this area so that we can be as effective as possible, living out the unity of that body. Part of our vision is to see people reconnected with God, seeing that relationship restored and so we're going to be intentional about the way that we invite people to experience God, to live a life that is transformed by a relationship with him. It's about having the integrity to talk about that, to invite people into a place where they can explore in a contextually relevant way what it means to follow Jesus in this area.
Risky, messy, and a lot of ups and downs along the way. That sums up what has been happening at re:generation in Romford since its launch six years ago. So says Ruth Poch, who oversees the ministry of the fast-growing, fresh expression of church with her husband Jamie.
It's amazing now to think that the seeds of re:generation were sown as a Bible study around our dining room table. Our average Sunday evening attendance is now in the 80s, though 98 recently came through the door which was quite phenomenal.
The work began by listening to the young people and serving their needs. A drama group was set up, social events were organised and monthly youth services began. After a while, the young people were saying, 'look we don't go to any other church, this is our church. We want to have something that we can actually own and have other kinds of activities throughout the week.'
At the beginning we prayed for more adult volunteers but it never seemed that God really answered that prayer. In hindsight it has been a blessing because we had to use the young people in the work of the church, or take risks with them serving in ways that we wouldn't have done had we had more mature people coming along at that stage.
Since then we have had other people coming to re:generation, some of whom are quite vulnerable with mental health issues and so on. The church has become quite diverse, culturally, and in terms of age range – even though it is still predominantly young people. It keeps us on our toes all the time because we are constantly having to cater for an increasing number and a wider age range of people from very different backgrounds.
The vision for Tulloch NET came into being in 2004, three years before its official launch – and charitable status. Its Community Development Officer, Revd Richard Higginbottom, outlines Tulloch NET's development and future plans in north west Perth.
Our ethos is to have an innovative, creative and fluid relational approach to social and spiritual needs in Tulloch, listening always to God and engaging in a sustainable way with the community, especially the disadvantaged. Tulloch is classed as an Area Based Initiative; this is a local authority designated area for re-generation and help with deprivation. We do this through social action, prayer, liaison, visiting, listening, occasional events/Sunday activities, projects and hospitality. On our promotional material we say that Tulloch NET is a Christian network offering practical help and spiritual support to the people of Tulloch.
Starting with attempts at addressing perceived local needs through parenting seminars and partnerships with the local primary school and Council, we formed a team of volunteers and a small inter-denominational reference group. Some initial funding came from personal supporters and from the Church of Scotland, Baptist Union of Scotland and the Scottish Episcopal Church.
Since 2007, we've also organised 'spiritual events' such as a Christmas carol service, a Songs of Praise and Christian stalls at school celebrations. These have had limited effect but our big breakthrough in 2011 has been to secure – in partnership with other Christian agencies – former shop premises as an incarnational base in Tulloch which we're developing as a community drop-in for local needy folk, including addicts. We opened in May and have since attracted an average of 20 visitors per week; a part-time Welcomer has now been appointed there. We have maintained regular local prayer-walking throughout our project history and a prayer box for specific prayer requests is kept in our Hub.
Our core virtues remain Relationship, PRAYER, Creativity, Humility, Commitment, Bridging the Secular/Sacred Divide, Restoration, and of course… Jesus. Creativity under God is not based on strategies, but depends on moves of God. Our project is all about Jesus and Kingdom: it involves patience and God's timing.
Mark Broomhead has been licensed by the Bishop of Derby, Rt Rev Dr Alastair Redfern, as full time minister to The Order of the Black Sheep – a fresh expression of church for those who feel like the 'black sheep' of society. 
It was made a Bishop's Mission Order on 18 July which enables it to take its place officially alongside traditional parishes in the CofE. Mark, an Ordained Pioneer Minister, said,
A few days after Bishop Alastair signed the BMO, Mark took on the lease for premises in Chesterfield town centre. Following renovation work during the summer, the space will become The Gates and include a chapel, cafe/bar and media suite.
The story of Tas Valley Cell Church in south Norfolk was first told on expressions: the dvd – 2. Its leader, Sally Gaze, tells what has been happening since the cameras rolled.
Tas Valley Team Ministry is a happy family of churches serving the villages of Newton Flotman, Swainsthorpe, Tasburgh, Tharston, Saxlingham and Shotesham. Congregations were very welcoming but the newcomers were being asked to join the flower rota or help out with the fete. They didn't have the opportunity to discuss issues such as how faith might help with their marriage, children or work. The new Christians found this quite difficult to cope with after having had the chance to do that every week at Alpha.
The numbers are still growing, though much more gradually than at the time of the DVD. Now there is more and more of a crossover with the Sunday congregations and we encourage the mixing and supporting of each other. The cell continues to meet weekly though the cell and traditional congregations will also get together three times a year – for instance, we recently came together for a Passover meal.
Some may question the role of the cell church but I think it can help to take the pressure off traditional congregations to do the things they can't do for all sorts of reasons. I've had discussions in the past where the focus has been on 'How to get young people in?' Simply including a modern song in the service really isn't going to do the trick. I believe that many churches, faced with this sort of challenge, would say that they were not able to change sufficiently to meet it.
Tas Valley Cell Church is currently seeking a Bishop's Mission Order and we are trying out various things as we develop and change. We now have cells with children as well as adults, that has seen mixed results and we continue to explore how we disciple people in families.
One friend, Rachel, and I met whilst we were at the checkout in the local supermarket one day. She wanted to pray about something and, out of that meeting, came an idea for a monthly breakfast at which people from all denominations would come to pray if they wanted. That group formed the basis 11 years later for Thirst. As we began to pray for the school, other people started coming to faith and getting healed and seeing answers to prayer in their families. We realised this was bigger than us and much bigger than anything we had anticipated up to that point.
My husband's Ridley friends kept asking me why I was not at Ridley training for ministry as well! I'd reply that there was no chance that I had been called to be a vicar. They used to encourage me to think about it, so much so, that I wondered if there was something that I should not be ignoring about ordination! There certainly was. I have just completed training as a mixed mode pioneer at Ridley, and I'm just about to be ordained with 50% of my time as OPM of Café Church from the Diocese of Ely and 50% spent at the local parish of St Philip's. Somehow God has combined my relationships, family life and calling to a place where he has already been at work. Like Moses, I felt that God asked me to take what was in my hand and use it in a wider setting.
I went through a phase of being concerned about the views that some people inside the traditional church have of people outside of the church family. The question was asked of us, 'Why don't some of these (unchurched) people come to church?' My response was to wonder why on earth they would! The church is an alien environment for many nowadays. We ask, even expect people to come and sit on a pew and sing songs, followed by a talk or lecture (as they view it). Both of these activities are unusual for many who have never been to church before. I wonder, what on earth possesses us in church to think that others outside of the church might want to do that? It is the Church that is alien in our culture, we are the unusual one, the minority.
We didn't begin straight away because I was too apprehensive of starting something that did not last once it became official. So, we prayed about it for about a year before we started meeting in the school lounge in November 2006. We served good coffee, food, fruit and juice. Everybody invited friends and we had about 30 people there at our first gathering.
We do now also have prayer time for those who are interested to pray. After a few months we started to offer one session a week where we have a meditation or devotion of some kind, during this time there is also a five minute talk and discussion on a biblical theme, followed by a spiritual exercise or activity of some type. Because of our relationship and growth together this is natural to people now.
We wanted people to feel comfortable around Eucharist so I told people, not to worry about it, but that if they wanted to participate they should do whatever seemed comfortable for them. I invited a visiting chaplain to lead and she explained the meaning of each part and action of the service and this helped people to understand the Eucharist. It is always a great time and we and we look forward to it and it's part of our regular worshipping life at Thirst.
We don't know how Thirst will develop; we don't know what's around the corner. We are wondering about our next step but we know that we need to be obedient to God and follow his leading. Two of the leaders lead an art group and some come to this group who do not feel comfortable in our Friday morning get-togethers. My vision from the start has been for a larger number of small groups, rather than one large group, although of course we are all connected through our relationship networks.