cafe Archives - Page 4 of 7

New Song Café

New Song Café has been running at Bold Street Methodist Church, Warrington, for three years. Jackie Bellfield traces its story as a fresh expression of church.

It's amazing to think back to how it all got started and what our intentions were with it. The whole point was for it to be a stepping stone to some sort of gathering in a local Costa.

We did not anticipate that people would come in the numbers they did and we still welcome new people every month to the Bold Street Mission's church hall but we're not in Costa… yet! We're currently up to 125 and we'd struggle to fit more people in at the moment. About 30% of regular attenders now see New Song Café as their church and that number is increasing all the time. It's because New Song Café is offering them vibrant Christianity while creating community, building relationship and providing opportunity to explore issues of faith in a friendly, non-threatening environment.

New Song Café meets on the 4th Sunday of the month from 7pm to 9pm. In saying that, it never starts on time… we have local preachers who come along and point at their watches because people are still chatting to each other and having coffee at 7pm. They say they're ready to start but we tell them that we have already started because the chatting and the coffee and the being together is all part and parcel of it. That's what community is.

In a way, we are a bit unusual as a fresh expression in that the whole thing for us is about focusing on worship as the heart of what we do. Many fresh expressions discern that introducing worship may be later down the line for them in their development because so many people have so little experience of what it means to worship. For us, in our context, it is different.

When people arrive they'll get a coffee or tea and select from what is normally a mountain of cake on offer! They'll have a chat, I'll welcome them in – particularly anyone new, we may have a short video clip or something but then a worship band will lead us in singing 12 songs during the evening. We'll have a giggle and I'll tell a few stories and have a joke with people as we go on because it's important to celebrate people's presence.

We recently welcomed a special guest – Wolfie, the mascot for the Warrington Wolves rugby league team. People queued up to get a photo taken with him. Everyone really enjoyed that – except for fans of the club's local rivals, the Widnes Vikings!

Our band comprises drums, trumpet, keyboard and guitar. They really get things going and it's fantastic to see all the ages taking part – our oldest regular is 89 and the youngest participant was six days old. We've now got every age in between. There's also a great denominational mix among those with current and previous church links – mind you, some of those links have been very fragile; some have mums or dads who go to church but they have been fringe members themselves. New Song Café has helped them to get engaged on their own terms because of its very open environment.

We'll sing six songs, including two new songs every month, and then we'll have a break of about 25 minutes before singing a further six. In the past three years we have learned over 300 songs. If people are not accustomed to singing in public with others around them, they can be a little puzzled at the start of it all – but that's OK, we'll just give people time and space to get used to what's happening. After just one song, I can guarantee that the feet will start tapping and there maybe tears or they will be singing. People are really responding to the worship and those not linked to traditional congregations or fellowships now see New Song Café as their church.

We need to consider what we do next with New Song Café because we are at the critical stage of thinking about how we move it forward. One thing that is going to happen is that we will grow the New Song network to include a New Song Breakfast to again offer a very different style of church – though still in the context of worship. There will also be New Song Pub Church.

Some of those who come along have been disenfranchised or hurt by traditional church but they are seeing New Song Café as their future. In feedback from them they say they know they can also bring their non-Christian friends along with them because they know it's going to be consistently good and it helps them to start having godly conversations along the way.

There's no doubt that New Song Café is becoming a very loving and caring church. A key decision as things unfold is whether to create New Song Church as a separate entity or continue to operate under the authority of Bold Street Methodist. At the moment we decided to continue with the latter. This has been great and has really enabled us to see mixed economy in action; the established church has been really fired up because they see New Song Café developing. As a result they see the future of Bold Street – now part of Sankey Valley Methodist Circuit – as being more secure because of what we are doing. It really is mixed economy in action.

I love the traditional, I love the inherited but that alone is not going to be sustainable in its present form for the next 50 years. What will carry Bold Street through is the network of church communities developing. New Song has grown beyond what we ever imagined. Thinking back to the original idea for it all, we might well end up going into Costa and we have an invitation to do so but the next thing is Pub Church in a local bar on a Sunday night.

There are still so many questions of course. How do we grow this? How do we nurture it bearing in mind that some of the people feel disenfranchised with institutional church? How can we adapt our denominational system so that we can be more flexible in structure when things are developing? Could worship leaders, for instance, be licensed to a circuit rather than to a church? At the moment there are quite a lot of challenges around these things and it can be quite frustrating at times.

Sankey Valley Circuit has brought together the former Warrington, Widnes, St Helens and Prescot, and Ashton and Makerfield circuits. Its purpose is to release us for mission and it's wonderful that New Song Café certainly does tell others about Jesus. However, we know that New Song Café is not for everybody and that will also be true when we start up the Pub Church but we're happy with that because we are simply looking to create opportunities for godly relationships.

We have also set up discipleship evenings and between 18 and 25 people now come to that. Thirty five people also came on an away day to explore more about faith. People are being transformed by singing worship to God and the tears of freedom and liberation are phenomenal.

New Song Breakfast is just about to start from 9am to 10.15am at Latchford Methodist Church followed by a traditional Communion service. There will be half hour of bacon butties and then there will be a couple of video clips to prompt a discussion time. The same theme will be used for the New Song Breakfast and the Communion that follows.

Looking ahead, we have been discussing our strategy for future development and 20 people have made a commitment to the New Song Network. We are now exploring the future and are developing a variety of roles in leadership. To be honest, I'm just trying to keep up with it all. We've just given out a New Song calendar detailing what we hope to achieve in 2012. It says, 'Keep calm and pray on!'

United Media Church

United Media Church in Kingswood recognises that people learn and engage in different ways. Adrian Wyatt explains why they describe themselves as 'the same, but different'.

In our Gloucestershire village, children and young people from the age of nine had become disenfranchised by the traditional Sunday church 'model' of doing things.

I became part-time pastor at Kingswood Congregational Church in May last year and I wanted to find out why the traditional Sunday School wasn't bringing in the children as it used to do. We are a church of about 30 adults and some research was urgently needed as to where all the children of that age group had gone. We found out by taking the remaining handful of youngsters to McDonalds and asked them, 'Why?', 'What sort of church would you like?' 'What do you like doing?' The answers revolved around eating, films and computer games.

In February we launched a Monday church just for them. United Media Church uses film clips and computer games to teach the gospel message fortnightly on Monday evenings. These meetings, which include a short prayer time and all-important food, take place in an informal 'café church' environment. A variety of films are used and the same format has encouraged some to return to Sunday church as well.

We started the Sunday venture by watching Shrek the movie. That gave us the opportunity to discuss things like Do appearances matter? What makes good friendships? What makes a good king? Other topics on a Monday include what we learned from sport, Finding Nemo, Avatar, The Simpsons, and Friends. It really helps to keep us on our toes because they can choose to stop the film at any point and we then step in to give 15 minutes of Biblical teaching based on what they've seen and heard.

Part of my professional background is as a drug educator and some of our discussions have tackled substance abuse, alcohol and smoking but there is also a lot of fun. Plans for the coming months include a technology 'fast' for 20 hours when they will go without mobile phones and iPods etc.

We now regularly attract up to 16 young people from the ages of 9 to 13, most of whom have been brought along by someone else in the group. That's very good news in that most of those children have not previously had a link with any sort of church at all but the challenge is that we outgrew our original room at Kingswood; it was simply too small for what we were doing.

We could have moved into the church hall but we felt that using the hall takes away from the special atmosphere of the place. In saying that we've now moved into the main church building because there is a big screen and a TV in the vestry room which means that some of the group can be watching a film while others are playing games or using the Nintendo Wii. We try to ensure that the film and the games reflect the same theme.

They are exploring their faith and the world around them in new ways and it includes things like supporting a youth project and families in Kenya, and sponsoring a child. They have raised quite a bit of money for their charity projects, a sleepover in the church raised more than £600. This is a way of being 'church' that our young people asked for. They also give into a collection every week because the adults do that in the main church and it's important to be reminded that we are part of something much bigger.

We have also started to develop a version of Messy Church and café church for those who would not come to inherited church and who are even put off by the word 'church' – if not what it stands for. We're looking to build on an event which uses craft to explore a Christian message but without the insistence that parents stay. As the model develops, the parents will be encouraged to do so.

We have always seen this as a fresh expression of church and not a church youth group and we need to keep that focus on being a different way of doing church. Otherwise it could easily become a youth club where you just come along and have a bit of a laugh.

In future I'd really like to see some of the older children coming through to become leaders themselves. It would also be good to see more people catch the vision and realise that this is far more than 'getting children and young people in'; it's about asking ourselves, 'What is their discipleship?', 'What is their Christian walk?', 'How is this Kingdom-building?'

St Paul’s Café Church, Dorking

It all started when St Paul's Church, Dorking, opened up its doors to a new 'audience'. As vicar Paul Bryer explains, the result is 'Café Church – church with a twist'.

Our monthly Café Church has been running for two years and it has had an enormous impact as it reaches so many people who would not otherwise come into St Paul's.

Members of our weekly congregation make up about half of those who come along but the rest just come to Café Church. Children's attendance figures have doubled as a result; we normally have about 40 children on a Sunday but at a recent Café Church we welcomed in the region of 80 with 175 adults.

The church building itself is on the way to a school so many parents walk past St Paul's during the week. Many mums and dads also drop their children off at our church nursery and, for quite a long time, we had seen people standing outside the church in the cold and the rain while on the school and nursery 'run'.

The thought came to us. Maybe we could give them coffee in the church instead of them having to wait outside? So we opened up the church doors, served coffee in one of our aisles and called it the Earlybird Café. People very quickly started to come in every morning.

The result was that we thought about how we could involve them a little more and invite them to our services. We also knew that if they came into church on a Sunday morning, it was possibly something they had never experienced before – we knew we needed to make it much more user-friendly. That's when we thought about making it a café based service, launched the Café Church on the first Sunday of the month and things have grown from there.

When people walk in they can go and get a tea or coffee, pick up something to eat from bacon rolls and croissants to waffles and homemade cake and take a look at the Sunday papers. Everything is set up around small tables, there's music in the background and it's all very informal. For the first 15 minutes, we just let them come in and 'be' and I then welcome them from the front – but it takes a while for people to settle down!

I explain the theme and tell them that everyone is free to come and go when they want and join in with everything or nothing. Our worship group then lead us in one or two songs which we try to ensure are familiar to those visiting us maybe for the first time.

Each Café Church is themed to run in parallel with the general teaching in the church that week but we make it accessible for this particular congregation. We have found that the only way to gather people together to focus on one thing is to use something highly visual so we usually make the most of a really powerful video clip to illustrate the teaching points.

I then explain that people can explore the theme in more detail in various ways. We have various 'stations' set up around the church to help people to do this. A small team got the whole idea of the different stations up and running but they have now grown their own teams to develop the work.

There are:

creation stations – to make or create something as an act of worship in response to the main key point for that particular session;

painting station – contributors paint an entire work of art during Café Church to have it ready by the end of the service;

exploration station – to engage with people in greater depth. That may involve looking at some questions around the theme of the day or getting together in buzz groups;

prayer station – to encourage various creative ways of praying such as a prayer graffiti wall and 'postcard' prayers as well as having a person available to pray with;

giving station – highlighting different ways in which people can give, whether time, money, talents, resources or whatever.

That all happens for about a quarter of an hour and at the end of that time we then gather everyone together again. Children who have made something show it on our big video screen and we have a final song and then a prayer. It runs from 10.30am for an hour though lots of people do hang around to chat. The response has been huge and it's teaching us a lot about church and being church because it really does attract people who wouldn't come along to the other services.

A big issue now for us is what do we do the week after a Café Church Sunday? Is it enough for these people to double our congregation on the first Sunday of the month and then disappear? If they come to one of our traditional services, they can feel like fish out of water. What about ongoing discipleship? We are dealing with all ages from little ones to teenagers as part of this and it's the kids who are bringing their parents in.

For some people in our main congregation it has been a bit of a challenge but they can see the difference it is making. Thinking about the popularity of this form of service with families made me wonder about our context. We are in a commuter belt and many parents work really hard during the week and don't get to see their children very much because they're travelling. If they came to a standard service they would be split up again after 40 minutes when the children go off to their own activities but to have church where the family can all be together within a loving worshipful environment is a different model that seems to fit more comfortably with them.

The introduction of Café Church was a bit of a shock to some in the church but from day one it had an impact on everyone. It's incredibly rewarding how people have been touched with some finding their first expression of faith as a family together. We are always aware of trying to reach those who wouldn't be reached through traditional ways of doing things but it's not something you would undertake lightly. For instance, it was very different for all of us when Café Church fell on Easter Day but we thought, 'Well this is great because it means we can tell more people than usual about Jesus rising from the dead!' We offered an opportunity for people to receive Communion at the prayer station and there was a very warm response to that. Interestingly, they didn't wait in a 'churchy' sort of line for Communion; they just drifted up to the prayer station at different times.

None of what we have done is rocket science; most churches have run holiday clubs where they have creative activities and we have done that sort of thing too. It's just putting some of these things together and creating an environment where you are willing to take risks. It's also about being prepared to have 'holy disorder' while keeping that dignity of worship somewhere in the midst of it because there is an element of control that is right and godly.

We are just at the point as a church of envisioning what we could look like in a couple of years time and the feeling is that we need to become a lot more like Café Church in our outlook if we are to continue to be missional.

Unlimited Church

James Grier explains how the Unlimited youth church begins to be seen in a new light as it becomes a BMO.

I was first appointed by the Diocese of Exeter to pioneer a youth church in the city and advise and encourage other expressions of youth church. Unlimited, which looks to reach young people who have no experience of church at all, tends to reach Sixth Form students – predominantly from Exeter College. It has been a far harder and slower task than I ever envisaged but I have been in post for four-and-a-half years now and it finally feels like we've made some headway.

We were clear from the start that we were not looking for any sort of transfer growth from other youth work in the city or even to reach non-Christian youth with existing church connections. The missional focus was, and is, unchurched youth – though ultimately we are also looking to include people of all ages.

Early in 2009 we started going out on the cathedral green where most Sixth Formers seem to spend their time, get into conversation with them and say, 'We are starting a church. What do you think about church and God?' Prayer is a very important component of what we do and our aim is to offer to pray for everyone we talk to. We ask whether we can pray for them and ask God to tell us about them. We estimate that about 9 out of 10 young people allow us to do this. Anything we sense might be from God is offered lightly and tentatively so that we are not putting anything on people unhelpfully or claiming we get infallible revelation! Nearly all whom we pray for are shocked by the accuracy of God's revelation. It means that the young people know what we're about from the outset; it may have limited the speed of growth of the fresh expression but – on the other hand – we build on relationship and that develops a strong foundation.

Two years ago we began renting an office at the back of Mary Arches church in the city centre to use as a café base. That's where we also have a worship service three Sundays a month now. We had decided that we would only start doing worship when we saw someone come to faith; now we have got two people who have been baptised and two further people also become Christians. Our worship time must be the world's most casual and informal because our aim is always to reach young people that don't do church. It's a 60-minute service, half of which involves eating toasted sandwiches! After that we have a video clip, some songs, an activity, prayer and response.

Our mission statement is 'Unlimited Church – young people encountering the God they've never met and living the difference' but ultimately we need to be church of all ages if we are to be genuinely church rather than some sort of monochrome Christian group. The young people need older people in their lives if we are into discipleship and not just conversion.

In everything we do as a church, we aim to be:

unlimited by church culture and tradition – where it is unhelpful, unnecessary or inappropriate;

unlimited in our openness to and love of people – treating them as unique and as God's made them to be;

unlimited in our faith and expectation of God – living by faith not inhibited by past experience or fears.

Soon we hope to have the freedom of being a Bishop's Mission Order with the continued aim of converting the young people to Christian culture, not church culture. Lots of churches say they want a youth church but what they really mean is a youth congregation. The BMO evolved when our new converts wanted to be baptised. I asked the Bishop, 'How does that work ecclesiastically?' He suggested becoming a BMO which was wonderful – other churches in the area had initially been rather suspicious of our motives; many were also fearful that we would whisk their young people away. They didn't know if we'd parachute in and then disappear without trace as some sort of parachurch organisation or an outreach. The BMO changes that because it establishes the formal structures needed for right leadership and accountability.

Up until now I have been serving as half time team vicar in five parishes as well as spearheading Unlimited. However, from the middle of December I will be going full time in this pioneering role. My prayer is that Unlimited becomes a viable church of people of all ages which exists to reach and disciple youth who've never really had anything to do with church before.

The main challenge has been to develop a team; some started out with us but have moved away or got stuck into established churches. Thankfully others are now coming through. In future, I'd love to see more radical conversions. We have prayed for 400 young people on the streets since we started but we don't see the fruit of that all the time. I don't want to become possessive but it would be great to see more of them. We'd love to see a turning of the tide as more and more young people in Exeter discover God for themselves and are changed by him and the city changed as a result!

The Lounge at Costa

The Lounge at Costa in Woodbridge, Suffolk, has changed 'shape' in recent months since it featured on expressions: making a difference. What does it mean for the future? Dave Gardner, vicar of St John's, Woodbridge, explains more.

The Lounge – based in Costa Coffee at Woodbridge, Suffolk – was not planned as a fresh expression of church but it came about as a result of the relationships that St John's had developed over the years with Costa staff.

It was a great success as it developed. People came and the events were of a good quality but then it became clear that many of those visitors were Christians fed up with their traditional churches. They wanted a community that seemed less structured and distant from the established church, even though The Lounge was born out of – and accountable to – a 'traditional' church.

During the Autumn of 2010 there were no meetings at Costa as we had no leadership in place to take on the work and we were also using J John's Just 10 series adapted for use in our congregations at 9am, 11am and especially at 7pm (Café Church). We let the Lounge take a break as it is sometimes right to cease or at least pause a ministry to allow the right time for it to be reborn in the Lord's timing.

The Just 10 series was strongly evangelistic and it is the Café Church Team that often provides the seedbed for a lot of the missional activity of St John's. At the end of the Just 10 series we felt it right to put on Alpha@Costa starting in January; two things were very important to that – relationships with the staff and seeking to listen rather than impose. The key person has been the assistant manager and she has recommitted her life to Christ and started to attend one of our congregations on a regular basis.

It was really exciting doing Alpha at Costa as various people would wander in alongside a core who attended most sessions. It was particularly pleasing to have some older teenagers attend. An important step we took was to have a very small tight team and to say to the rest of the Church not to come unless the person they invited would only come if they did. As a reasonable sized church for our area we can easily fill Costa with Christians so we had to be very clear about this!

A number made a prayer of commitment and recommitment (including the assistant manager) and out of these we had two baptisms and three confirmations in May. These took place at Café Church in St John's but the baptisms were outside in a birthing pool. The style was very contemporary and the church was absolutely packed. Since then there has been a small group meeting with one of the Alpha group leaders.

At the end of this month, on Sunday 28 August at 5pm we are having our first open 'The Lounge' which will include jazz music, DVD, short testimony and lots of relationship building. It is too early to call this a missional community and a couple from the Church is considering the possibility of taking on the leadership of The Lounge or whatever emerges. We also hope that some of those who were on the edge of Alpha@Costa might come along. We might even consider another Alpha course if that is what is required! These are exciting days. 'The Lounge' might become a pilot missional community but once again we are seeking to listen rather than impose.

We also have a men's group called men@stjohns but this too is in the very early stages of development and has been birthed out of another initiative using John Eldridge's 'Fathered by God' course. We are hoping this will become more missional and are currently looking to hold this in a non church venue – at the local wildlife centre – where we ran the course previously. It is a monthly community where men can gather and build relationships with each other and consider what it means to be a Christian man in the real world.

Gainsborough Café Church

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.

Thirst Cafe Church

Thirst Café Church 'officially' started in November 2007 in the community lounge of St Philip's CofE Primary School, Romsey Town, Cambridge, but Sue Butler tells how its beginnings go back a lot further than that.

Thirst has grown out of 11 years of relationship and prayer. As parents of primary school children, we used to meet outside the classroom at 'pick up' time. There were about 10 regulars every day morning and afternoon and we began to chat about our faith with each other – including some who did not profess a faith. We joked that we should have a coffee maker there because we were often hanging around outside school for up to an hour, just chatting and sharing prayer requests with each other.

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.

At the same time, things began to move in a different direction in my own life. My children were getting ready to leave the primary school for secondary school, so my personal involvement there might naturally have ended. In 2005 my husband started ordination training at Ridley. I began to increasingly feel that God was saying, that my time and connection with the school was not over but that there was more that God wanted me to do there.

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.

During the same time In our ongoing relationships at school, those Christians amongst us at Thirst became known as people who would pray for people if they wanted it. We would often pray with parents in the playground, many of whom had no idea what they were asking for. We would find that people would simply stand where they were, bow their head and expect us to pray on the spot. When I look back on that period now, I suppose it was a case of God gathering people because they began to get healed, come to faith, and wanted to know more about Christ and how he could transform lives. It was about discipling them through relationship because many of them did not have any links with traditional church at all and some had never entered the doors of a church. They then began to attend Thirst and are an integral part of us now.

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.

I was talking to God about it and told him, 'It's no wonder people don't go to church.' I 'heard' the question, 'What would they come to then?' I thought of what we did as friends together: breakfast, drink coffee, pray together, laugh together, have relationship and support each other. I said to my friends, 'Let's keep on drinking coffee but, if it's going to be church, it has to have more to it than a coffee morning. It's about transforming the community that we live in through our relationships, and in the power of the Holy Spirit.

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.

From the first Thirst Cafe, we started off by showing Rob Bell Nooma DVDs; I didn't want to get people to come to do things they didn't want to do or feel comfortable with and felt that a DVD was something that people could relate to. They did not have to make any kind of outward or verbal response to it if they did not want to. I was also determined that I wasn't going to start a discussion around the DVD subject. God surprised us again because we showed the DVD, and afterwards somebody visiting asked questions and began a discussion centred around faith. The conversation started and has been going ever since! We very, rarely direct these conversations. They just happen naturally and we discuss all manner of spiritual issues which often carry on long after Thirst is over and have helped to develop and nurture people in the faith.

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.

It's interesting to see how things develop in a way you never expect or plan. From the beginning we called ourselves the Thirst Café Community because we wanted to keep the word church right out of it. Within two to three weeks, people started asking, 'Are you going to café church?' They weren't asked to use that description; it's how they saw it. We are still known as Thirst Café Church to many people!

About two years ago we started to think about what it means to be a worshipping community and how we encourage spiritual growth amongst new believers. We introduced a Bible study one afternoon in the week but the big question, of course, has been what to do about Eucharist. It was really difficult to explore ways through this but, in the end, we just thought, that if this is God's feast and his journey with us, then he will show us what to do. We decided to do a simple Eucharist with a short liturgy.

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.

There are a couple of people now talking about baptism, which will be interesting. The discipleship of new believers is our next and most pressing concern and we are hoping to continue with exploration and reflection on the best ways to do this.

St Philip's School is in the parish of St Philip's Church. Their vicar is supportive of what we do, we are very loosely associated with them but don't see ourselves as 'belonging' to St Philip's. In saying that, we have done things together and the vicar regularly visits us. We supported St Philip's in their after-school Christingle and Easter service, but – as mothers – we are limited with time constraints. We have a very good relationship with St Philip's and they support us in many ways and we are thankful for the relationship with them.

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.

We still don't sing or 'preach' but we do proclaim in many other ways the love and grace and mercy of God. We always pray and we have recently begun Bible reading and daily devotion programmes with new believers asking for Bibles and study guides! We always pray for healing, wholeness and expect God to be present with us and to hear us and answer us, in a variety of ways. People pray for each other because they see us as leaders doing so.

I think people just think, 'this is the way it is done.' They assume this is church because they have no other point of reference. We model our faith and they come with us. They say it's about community, these are my friends, this is relationship, this is church! We expect much of God and he does not fail us!

The Dock

Belfast's Titanic Quarter is at the heart of the city's regeneration. A few years ago the area was largely deserted, but a large-scale redevelopment programme is transforming it into a 21st century 'urban village'. Chris Bennett is chaplain of The Dock.

I had been in parish ministry for 10 years before taking this on in November 2009 and I can honestly say I have never had so much fun. I am not finding it a burdensome and terrifying thing – though there has been quite an adjustment to make.

In my first year here, after coming from a busy parish, I thought we would be singing songs and getting on with church life within a matter of months. That, of course, was not the case and wise people have talked patience into me.

It requires a kind of reordering of your expectations in a new way. It's a process. I was coming in with some expectations which were pretty standard parish-based ideas and it's been fun having that knocked out of me.

I've tried not to rush to plant a church on an existing model, or to do what is familiar or recognisable. Instead I have had to move from the focus on attractional and instead think about something incarnational; that's the essence of chaplaincy. It's about a whole 'other' way of doing things – to go and walk the streets and live the life of the community around you.

There is a lot of talk around chaplaincy when thinking about its relationship – or not – to fresh expression of church. What I have found in this context is that the chaplaincy word seems to describe what I am aiming at and it also helps those from a traditional situation to grasp what I'm doing. This is quite important from our faith background here in Belfast.

The idea of yet another expression of church in a place where division and sectarianism has caused such problems in the past can be seen as not overly helpful. There are very few working models of how Christians all share a ministry other than chaplaincy – why should it not work in the Titanic Quarter? The variety of needs here is too great to ever be encompassed by one minister or even one denomination. Chaplaincy is helping us to work out shared working in denominations. It's a key that unlocks unity rather than describing my absolute mission statement.

Over the next 25 years, the Titanic Quarter will evolve to include residential areas, businesses, a new college, a film studio, the £97m Titanic visitor attraction – and links through to East Belfast and the nearby Odyssey Arena.

The numbers involved will be staggering:

20,000 residents;

10,000 businesspeople, mostly in finance and IT;

15,000 students at the new Metropolitan College;

500,000 tourists per annum (the target for the first year alone).

Clearly the Titanic Quarter, when complete, will be big enough to merit its own local church. But the opportunity runs even deeper than the chance to plant another church along existing models. A brand-new community, in a brand-new part of the city, offers an opportunity to re-envision church for a new cultural context.

The Dock is in a position to register a new type of Belfast. There really is a feeling here that the Titanic Quarter, as neutral ground, could be seen as Belfast's chance to start again. Someone described it to me as 'the best blank page the church has had in Ireland since St Patrick stepped off the boat' – it's our challenge and a core value of The Dock to find out what it means to share the ministry in this place.

I would see our expression of church as our weekly Dock Walk where we chat about a passage of Scripture as we're on the move, or as we stop, pray, or listen to meditations or music. We use Wordlive multimedia resource as a jumping-off point for our chat but people are very welcome just to turn up and we'll take it from there. We don't sing, or preach, or walk around with sandwich boards. It's comfortable for all of us – yet we engage in issues in quite a profound way. Then we all head for coffee afterwards and spend a little more time together.

This is a three-year pilot project post. I now have a job as a Titanic Walking Tour guide for two days a week. The role has got me into all sorts of businesses and buildings I wouldn't have been able to do otherwise and it's also an attempt to show this work can be self-sustaining because most of The Dock's money still comes from the Diocese of Down and Dromore – though we are in the process of being formed as a company, limited by guarantee, with charitable status.

Sometimes I do get asked, 'When is it going to look like a church? When are you going to have people singing songs and listening to a sermon?' but I've got a fantastic amount of support from Bishop Harold (Rt Rev Harold Miller) and all the denominations. I'm very fortunate in that. I also have a Methodist co-chaplain working with me now and hopefully this is the shape of things to come at The Dock.

As part of our future plans, I also hope to get a boat – that has been the concept right from the start. Quite a few people ask us why, particularly with all of the Titanic associations here, but it feels like we are at the stage where we have done all we can do in coffee shops and a boat would give us an operational base. That means people could physically find us rather than having to rely on a website and a phone number for information.

In practical terms it's a good idea because development here is quite tightly controlled – and expensive. A boat is the only way to have a physical space for us and it's a relatively cost-effective way of doing things. Our budget is in the realm of £500,000.

A boat in the Titanic Quarter would carry great iconic power. As a boat doesn't look like a church from any denomination, it would be new territory for all – neutral waters.

As for being associated with the name of the Titanic, we're all accustomed to queries as to whether it's bad taste to commemorate that link at all. In fact the view in Northern Ireland is that it was all right when it left here; it was later on when disaster struck. But for many years there was a real level of shame about it – I actually think there is something of God about the way that everything is tying together in Northern Ireland at the moment. Somehow, the Titanic, from being a thing we never much talked about, is being re-born because it pre-dates the Troubles. For all that it was quite clearly a tragedy on its maiden voyage, the very fact that it sank has stamped its name on history. Many other ships suffered tragedies but the scale of the Titanic's amazing construction makes it unique and people now feel it's right to remember the incredible expertise that went into it. That's why there was such interest surrounding the recent 100-year anniversary of the Titanic setting sail.

The talk in the corridors of political power is all about Shared Future and Community Cohesion – redefining the existing communities and asking them to change but here we have the opportunity to create a new community that looks very different from our sectarian past.

We are aware that the international community is looking at this too. People can view Belfast through a very narrow lens but The Dock can offer a phenomenal witness. In the past, Belfast has been the example of the danger that religion can bring. How wonderful instead to be an example of the healing of faith.

Essence

Revd James Blandford-Baker, vicar of St Andrew's, Histon, describes how the church's vision to be at the heart of the village community led to the development of Essence.

St Andrew's, a charismatic evangelical church in a village just to the north of Cambridge, has an average Sunday attendance of about 250. We praise God for that but it became clear that we were missing out on relationship with many people who would never come into a Sunday service.

We have a Stepping Stones organisation that runs a playgroup, toddler group and babyclub on weekdays and a monthly Friday morning Teddy Bear Time – recently renamed Toy Story Time. That's when mothers, sometimes fathers, and very young children come to church for songs, Bible stories, craft activities and refreshments.

We began Essence three years ago in an attempt to offer mothers a space to explore their spirituality alongside the Christian narrative. We had lots of contacts through our children's work but they had remained just that, contacts without relationship. Having looked at a number of courses (such as START and Alpha) it quickly became apparent that we would need to invent something of our own that would connect with people. The driving issues as we put Essence together were the attitude of consumerism, the importance of story and the desire for spirituality.

Consumerism meant whatever we did it had to be good: quality invitations, great hospitality (decent coffee, croissants and cakes are key) and a fully staffed crèche. Story meant that we had to give space to listen to people's stories as well as finding appropriate ways of speaking about the Christian story: a café-style layout with interactive time for input, questions and discussion (we often use DVD material such as a clip from a movie or a Nooma to get things going) has worked well. Spirituality meant creating space for God to speak: from the start we've used an upper room for 10 minutes of silent prayer, often stimulated by a picture, icon or some creative display.

When Essence was launched, we prayed for five people to show up on the first Wednesday and 10 arrived. The format worked from the outset; people talked naturally and honestly, sharing their stories and engaging fully with the Christian story. By week three people were exchanging mobile phone numbers; community was forming. Not long afterwards people began to look after each other when they were in need. It is quite normal for a new mother to have meals for the family delivered each evening for a fortnight.

From the start we were quite clear that we were building a congregation for the unchurched and dechurched – as well as a few churched. This was expressed by clearly saying to the PCC that it was not the purpose of Essence to get people to come on Sunday. The vast majority of people we see there don't come on Sundays and do see Essence as their 'church'. The intent is very much missional… our focus is not on passing on a 'package' of Christian beliefs but seeking to engage with the questions that people bring. We use the language of story a lot: we want you to feel able to share your story, and we will see if there are connections between your story and the Christian story, and explore if those stories might come together.

Of course this approach raises questions about some big issues, including Baptism and Communion. We haven't resolved those issues but are happy to be continuing on this journey while we continue to consider them.

Our times of prayer and quiet at Essence have been a fascinating journey too. Some people have had to learn to stop and be quiet; others use the word 'oasis' to describe what they've found in the silence. Although we didn't anticipate it, people have been keen to share what's happened in the quiet; God has done some amazing things and touched people at their point of need in quite wonderful ways. For many busy mothers the time on their own as someone looks after their child is the only 'time out' they get during the week.

Essence runs on a Wednesday morning. We begin at 9.15 with coffee and croissant as people arrive and settle their babies in the crèche (run by a wonderful team from St Andrew’s). At 9.45 we begin our input and discussion time. With visitors every week it is essential to rehearse the ethos of Essence at the start (all questions are valid, please share your story, no Christian jargon allowed). At 10.30 we break for more tea and coffee and the essential cake and then at 11am we move upstairs for our quiet space and collect children from the crèche at 11.30 as we end.

Essential to the success of Essence has been the team made up of clergy, our lay pastor for people with young families, our children's worker and other lay people who have taken on certain roles. The crèche team give of their time generously; they have a real heart for the mothers as well as the children. They too feel involved in the spiritual journeys of those who come with many conversations about what God has been doing as the mothers pick up their children after the quiet time. The topics for the sessions each week are a mix of ideas from the team and suggestions from those who attend. Unlike on an Alpha course, there is no sense of the need to get through a defined 'spiritual programme'; we go with the flow and find that there are plenty of opportunities to explore all the most important Christian themes and ideas.

Essence is a mobile group as mothers come to us for a time and then return to work and as new people join. The group is very open – men have been known to attend, and those who come cover an age range from the very young to someone in their 80s. Attendance including children is around the 40 to 50 mark each week.

Cre8

Cre8 is a fresh expression for children, young people and their families, at Carlton Colville Methodist Church, Lowestoft. Deacon Ian Cartwright explains how the range of activities include a gardening club, health and fitness programme and special events.

Our purpose is to build lives and build community and to serve beyond our gatherings. Cre8 has been going for about three years around a flexible mix of activities in our church building based on a very large, private housing estate. Among the most popular is a cinema and film club where the children choose the movie to be screened and dish out the popcorn and everything else!

Before launching Cre8, we wanted to try and find out what the community wanted rather than what we thought they wanted. Our first piece of research, done in conjunction with the University of East Anglia, started with focus groups from which we developed questionnaires. We asked things like, 'Would you like to meet?', 'If so, what time would you like to meet?', 'What activities would you like to see in this area?' The questionnaires went out to 6,000 homes and nearly 1,000 of them were completed and returned.

The overwhelming response was for health and fitness opportunities and things for young people to do. The next step was to ask the children and young people themselves whether they wanted to have such activities. Questionnaires went out to the six schools which serve this area: two Lower, two Middle and two Upper. Thanks to the schools' support, we were able to classify the children and young people into postcode areas.

The research was carried out by groups from within the schools themselves while Christian Research did all the analysis. It mirrored our first research results and also told us that what they meant by 'activities' was really a good place just to chill out and relax, somewhere they could go to play with their PlayStations and Wii. As health and fitness was such a big theme, we got in touch with The Leisure Database Company which provides data, analysis and advice for the sports and leisure industries.

They draw up what's called a Mosaic map, a sort of jigsaw puzzle, of the people in your area. They can analyse the socio-demographic breakdown of a place and tell you things like how many 0-15s there are, the type of families they come from based on income, and eventually build a profile of the area and classification of those who live there. From that they can delve deeper to tell you how many people are members of gyms, what the competition is for health and fitness provision, and so on. They told us there was a latent demand of about 1,000 people in the area we serve.

A sport and leisure trust called Active Luton acted as our consultants in this and they said 1,000 was a good number to make things add up commercially. Cre8 came about as a result of that research and we built up a small team to get things off the ground, including someone who worked with the Schools Partnership Agency.

We started off with the kids taking part in shows. Adults would come along with them on Saturday mornings for rehearsals and have a bite of breakfast with us. At that time the Christian input was very small because we were at the stage of simply wanting to build up relationships with the children and their parents.

It was at that exploring sort of stage that we began to see the development of a holistic ministry, where people's Christian spirituality is very much seen as part of their physical, social, mental and emotional health and wellbeing.

The spiritual dimension is there in all we do because of our desire for God to be at the heart of it all, involved in every aspect of it – and for the glory to go to Him. It is also there because of who we are and the values we apply. They shape and form us into the community we are and what we hope to be. We see these as being Worship, Pray, Create, Learn, Enjoy Abundant Life, Transform, Influence, Give, Celebrate, and Be inclusive.

A family service once a month is done in a very informal way. This month it will be aimed at blokes as part of the Father's Day theme – there'll be bacon sandwiches to eat, a Yorkie bar challenge; a clip from a Rob Bell DVD, and a lot of bunting and a banner made by the kids!

In the past we've also had very low-key Communion with them. At one such Communion, we looked at the meaning of symbols; starting off by looking at McDonald's, Nike and KFC – what did their 'symbols', their logos, say about them? We then moved on to the symbolic meaning of the bread and wine. It was all consecrated properly but we served the wine in paper cups and gave half slices of sliced bread like the people would eat at home. It was all familiar to them.

Fridays@7 is another development – a café church environment in our building where men chill out to eat, drink coffee, watch films, enjoy music and explore what faith in Jesus is all about.

It's amazing what has happened there. One guy loves Shakespeare and he went out to buy himself a King James Bible because he sees parallels between the two; there were a lot of the programmes on radio and TV at the time about the King James' 400th anniversary and he was fascinated by it.

I went to register at the local gym and met a guy who couldn't get along with traditional church services at all but now he's working at a rehabilitation and recovery centre and brings some of his clients along to us on a Friday night.

Established for nearly four years, we are members of the Willow Creek Association and use materials from a variety if sources including Christian Vision for Men and Rob Bell. We are currently making whole life discipleship our priority. There is also crossover with CRE8 with two of the Fridays@7 guys running our gardening club.

The group wants to stay small, about 10 to 12 at the moment, and develop a new offshoot on Thursdays called Thursdays @ 7. From time to time we meet at a local pub. We call this evening 'Who Let the Dads Out?'. We also go karting, walking, and other fun things that men enjoy and encourage our non-church friends to join us on these occasions.

In all of this, there have – of course – been struggles along the way and it hasn't come together easily but the church and community wrestled with issues together to find a way forward and develop things. This has certainly been a painful process at times.

Now I think the mixed economy works very well here because we have mechanisms in place for communication between the inherited church and the fresh expressions. We meet once a quarter when representatives from the different areas of church life come together to plan and discuss. The fresh expressions group is very firm in saying that it is as much 'their' church as inherited church but they also know that it is all about working together for the good of the Kingdom. Sometimes there are difficult conversations because these are part and parcel of what it means to be church – we know that's what it means to work out the mixed economy in reality. Not always an easy journey.