cafe Archives - Page 5 of 7

Barney and Judes

Tim Sanderson leads a café church for 18-30s at St Barnabas and St Jude's, Sandyford, Newcastle. Organisers feel they have been 'running to keep up with God' since Barney and Judes got off the ground in 2010.

One year ago, we were exploring closing our building in this community as the Sunday service had seven regular attenders and building costs were mounting.

Sandyford used to be a family-based community but in recent years has become a place known for cheap student houses, a place where 83% of the local community is aged between 18 and 30. Working with the existing church membership and in partnership with Holy Trinity Church, Jesmond, we converted the building into a cafe space to reach that 83%.

Our aim was to establish a fresh expression of church for those unchurched 18-30s in Sandyford by creating a welcoming and vibrant living space; planting and growing a worshipping community and serving that community.

Renovating the existing facilities has resulted in the cafe-style venue, comprising a warm, relaxing 'lounge' for those in multiple occupancy dwellings. The flexible area, where coffees and cakes are served, is furnished with sofas and offers free Wi-Fi. Students and other young adults are invited to drop in and use the space for chat, performance, art and so on whilst building relationships with the team.

Our café style fresh expression of church runs on Wednesday nights and we have a parallel new work amongst seniors called 'vintage' on Thursdays. The café space itself opens from 4pm to 11pm every weekday evening. We also have teams going door-to-door in the community offering to clear up front gardens and remove graffiti. These teams are drawn from Holy Trinity and Agape student ministries – and a few local residents.

We feel we are running to keep up with God and are delighted at how well the work has started. In a community dominated by multi-occupancy dwellings where no-one has a lounge any more, we are providing one! As part of a community in which seniors and students clash over noise issues and untidy gardens, we are working with both groups and pray that Barney and Judes will become a venue for communication and reconciliation. It's early days, but the first signs are promising.

The Wednesday night fresh expression is intentionally missional and is becoming a new congregation for unchurched and some dechurched. At this stage it's just a small number but they are attracted to the café space and the team who run the fresh expression. We offer many alternative worship opportunities at Holy Trinity in the next parish and have been encouraging any Christians who turn up at Barney and Judes to go there rather than stay with us.

Newcastle has a number of large student/young adult churches which do great work but we are interested in the students and young professionals who are put off by large church initiatives, or who would never think to go near them, even when invited by their friends. These are people who struggle with hierarchies and up-front driven programmes. Taking a café style approach seems to be working; it means we not only come together as a fledgling community but also keep in our small groups around tables. This distinctive and focussed missional approach means that regular use of the venue by other church-based student/young adult groups is not encouraged.

We really want to engage with what is called the 'Urban Intelligent'. That title comes from a socio-economic analysis system known as MOSAIC which classifies UK households by ward or postcode. The April 2010 MOSAIC profile of South Jesmond ward, indicates that 83% of the population are ‘Urban Intelligent’: these are students or young professionals living in multi-occupancy dwellings (42% short term student renters; 29% economically successful singles; 15% well educated singles and childless couples). They are the dominant constituent of the local population and therefore the primary focus of mission.

Some 15% of the population here are active older people. The current inherited churches between them cover an extensive local network of seniors. This is a secondary focus of mission.

The church centre is still faithfully used on a Sunday morning at 9.30am by a small group of older ladies – three of whom have just celebrated their 90th birthdays. That operates as a completely separate congregation. What is fun is overseeing a mixed economy in the same building. I'm also interested in how the two congregations might talk together in future about some of the inevitable tensions between students and seniors in this area.

We want to continue planting and growing a worshipping community within the context of a weekly meal, grouped around small group discussion, creative worship opportunities, and some input from the front. Collaborative working is at the heart of this venture. The congregation of St Barnabas and St Jude's have offered significant finances to help with buildings improvement and the part-employment of a parish assistant, but personnel for this venture has been more widely drawn from two main sources: Holy Trinity Church, and Agape Student Ministries.

I lead the small steering team representing all three partners which reports back to each meeting of the PCC of St Barnabas and St Jude. The wider diocese has offered a level of financial support and is kept informed as the initiative develops. The steering team is committed to work flexibly, holding structures lightly and engage in regular review/assessment of the work. In that way we want to model flexibility and openness – in all that we do.

Sacred Space

The Rhondda's café church, Sacred Space, first opened its doors in Porth three years ago. Gethin Rhys, minister of Porth URC, organises the monthly sessions with Porth Newydd vicar, Chris Coles. Gethin describes how a sabbatical led to a new way of doing church.

Our first meeting, at Porth Plaza, was entitled Aspects of Love and it attracted people of all ages to watch film clips and listen to music about love in all its forms. We 'tasted' two Bible verses (involving horseradish and honey), wrote prayers and penned letters and postcards to prisoners of conscience adopted by Christians Against Torture. BBC Radio Wales also interviewed us on behalf of Good Morning, Wales!

At another service, we launched a 90kg rice challenge. The idea was to sell 90kg of fairly traded rice (in 1kg bags at £2.75 per kilo) to enable the Malawian farmer who grew the rice to send a child to high school for a whole year. A harvest session, entitled Bread of Heaven, saw us prepare bread for baking while worshipping together at the same time.

Our February 2011 topic was 'Money, Money, Money', when we looked at the 'art' of tax evasion and its devastating effect on people's lives in the UK and abroad. The informal format included Monopoly and Who Wants to be a Millionaire.

Sacred Space, as an ecumenical venture, is sponsored by the Porth Newydd parish of the Church in Wales and Porth URC. It all began when I used some time on sabbatical to look at café churches, I came back quite convinced that we should get involved in that. I spoke to my Anglican colleague, Chris Coles, because I felt this was something we could share – Rhondda has one of the lowest levels of church attendance in the UK. Before too long, Sacred Space had got off the ground.

We use the council-owned Porth Plaza in the centre of the town; it's a very good building for Sacred Space – especially as it's not on church territory. The council also let us have it for free for the first year which meant we could start the café church without a big financial outlay.

We meet on the third Sunday of the month at 7pm, it's not the ideal time but it reflects the fact that we are running conventional churches as well and Sacred Space is an add-on. In my other church we have a café church at 5pm on a Sunday and I think that's a good time but Chris has got Evensong so can't do it then. The 7pm start does rule out very young families because it runs too late for them to get children to bed and ready for school the next day.

We deliberately have a different format each time we meet. I plan it with Chris though there are a few lay people who sometimes come and join us but it's quite difficult to find times to be able to get together. Looking at long term viability we are going to have to find a way around it so it doesn't become dependent on us as clergy. In terms of who comes along to the sessions, at the moment we get many people who are connected with other churches but we are not often reaching the unchurched. Throughout the first year we advertised it pretty heavily and are on local radio quite a lot but it hasn't really prompted people from outside the churches to try it. We might have been better doing café church in a midweek slot but, again, it all depends on time, energy and resources.

At the moment we do attract people from various churches right across the age range – apart from the very young. We now have a number of children from seven and eight years upwards, a few teenagers and adults from 20s to 80s. We call it the Rhondda's Café Church so we get quite a mix of people from a wide area.

Craft activities do particularly well; that's really what engages people and makes it all age. Adults get involved in the craft because children ask them to help with what they're doing, adults wouldn't necessarily do that but a request from a child usually breaks down barriers and really makes a difference.

We follow the liturgical year reasonably closely whilst trying not to repeat the same themes too much because we don't want to get into a rut. We've always tried to ensure that it's never the same from one session to the next in order to avoid complacency. A recent Sacred Space was based on 1 John 4, for instance; the first time we had based café church on an extended Bible passage. We are very, very determined that when people arrive they shouldn't know exactly what to expect.

I was a stranger at every café church I visited on sabbatical and it was very interesting because I'm afraid a lot of them had become holy huddles and I did feel like a spare part when I arrived. That's why there is always something for people to do, maybe a quiz or a puzzle of some sort, when they first walk in the door at Sacred Space. The idea is that they won't feel awkward while waiting for something to begin.

At the start of my sabbatical I went along to a fresh expression of church with my teenage daughter. We went to a Sunday meeting but there were no welcomers so we did feel like spare parts – that wasn't a good start.

It got worse because there was a teenage group which met in parallel with the main meeting but no-one told us that at the start of the service. We only discovered that vital bit of information at the end and my daughter was really disappointed that she could have been with them doing something more interesting and appropriate to her own age group.

I also deliberately tried not to mention what I did for a living as I visited all these places because they would then treat me differently when they knew I was a minister.

A fresh expression needs to be genuinely fresh otherwise we are deceiving ourselves. There has been quite a churn of people since we started but there are some who have hardly missed a café church since we began, many of whom are from the Anglican congregation. It took my congregation a little longer to latch on to it all.

In our Sunday morning service at Porth URC we have started a Sunday school after a gap of many years. Some of those Sunday school children are coming to café church and that makes for an interesting crossover. There is also a core of people who come to Sacred Space immediately after Evensong. There have only been one or two sessions when there hasn't been somebody there for the first time from the outside but they are mostly from other congregations.

A number of initiatives, inspired by Sacred Space, have spun off to other churches as a result of these visits and that's great. The fact is that we didn't know what it would turn out be when we started but this is what has happened in this context whereas my 'other' church-based café church has developed differently. They each take shape in their own way in their own time.

I am still convinced this is the kind of church that could be much more accessible than something involving pew-based worship. I know that Sunday evening at 7 is not the best time in the week for reaching these people but at the moment that is a challenge that can't be met very easily. The Plaza building is hired out to other people, we are confined to the times we can book it, our own church schedules and the availability of people who have family and work commitments. A possibility for us may be to have it before Evensong, perhaps on a Sunday at 3pm.

The Spirit blows where it will and I'm not too inclined to try and control that in any way. In some fresh expressions material there can be an emphasis on knowing of the people you intend to reach, a target audience if you like, but we don't do any of that and I think we are the better for not doing it. Sacred Space has worked by not being strategised and, as a result, I see it as a real development for outreach.

It would be great to see people not connected with any other church at Sacred Space but at the moment it is clearly providing a very important service for all our churches. We have no problems with this and will not be making any major changes in the way we do things in a bid to change the outcome – at least for now.

Church people are the only people in the world who know about what Sunday of the month you're on. Realistically I think it is already on the way to being a full blown church but, for it to have a full identity, it would need to meet weekly. It would need that regular meeting for the core to build but I'm already ministering with two churches so there are all kinds of issues around that. We haven't got the critical mass of leadership people to make that work and those we do have don't want to leave traditional church.

There have been some amazing moments along the way. At one session on patterns of prayer, we had a group of teenagers just wander in to ask what was happening. They said, 'Can we come in and have a cup of coffee?' I said yes and they were there for the whole time, taking a full and active part in it. One boy had been excluded from school but I wish his teachers could have seen him that evening, being involved in confession, adoration, intercession.

Hope Theatre Café

On the first Saturday evening of each month from February to July, Christchurch URC/Methodist Church is transformed into a café style performance venue. Revd Darren and Anne Middleton explain more.

The audience will be seated around small tables and treated to free tea, coffee and home made cakes! The café will open at 7pm and the performance will start at 7.30pm.

Each month there will be a different professional Christian performer – theatre company, singer, musician or mime artist to name a few – who will share their message of the hope that they have in knowing Jesus, through their chosen art form. The performance will last for about an hour and a half and will be followed by a prayer and an opportunity to stay to chat or pray with someone if they wish.

The reason for Hope Theatre Café is that we want to provide a non-threatening venue to invite the local community to hear a message of hope through the accessible medium of theatre and the arts. The arts have a way of transcending barriers, of reaching the bits of us that other mediums just cannot reach. We have nothing against preaching a good gospel message but we have both been involved in theatre and the arts for many years and have experienced how powerful they can be.

If this article or our interview on the podcast has excited you or left you wondering what on earth we are on about, then come and visit Hope Theatre Café at Christchurch URC/Methodist Church. Come and engage ALL your senses: smell the coffee, taste the wonderful baking, see the transformation of the building, and feel the stress of the week drain away, as you engage with the hope we have in a wonderful saviour.

Xpressions Café

Xpressions Cafe in Norfolk aims to offer church for those who don't do church. Richard Seel explains how that happens through a number of different 'zones'…

Our safe space is provided by our café, Xpresso, which we hold downstairs in the church centre attached to All Saints, Chedgrave. We have made a deliberate decision that we don't 'do religion' in Xpresso, instead we offer a warm welcome with free tea and coffee, home made cakes and Sunday papers. In this way it becomes a place where anyone can feel comfortable and at home.

Xpresso is open from 9:30am to 12noon on the first Sunday of the month and people come and go as they please. A menu on each table gives details of the events and activities going on in what we call our different 'zones' – namely Xpressions, Xplore and sometimes Xperience. People choose when, or if, they want to find out more about these areas:

Xpressions, upstairs in our church centre, offers activities and worship for children and families. With story, song, craft, activity prayers and much more it provides an environment which appeals to many unchurched families;

Xplore, in the church people building, offers different acts of worship, reflection, discussion around the theme for that day's café. Everything in Xpressions Café is lay led and devised. The clergy act as 'chaplains' to the teams which do the work.

Some come only to Xpresso but, of those, a number are now prepared to venture upstairs with their children to sample Xpressions or to go into the medieval church building for an Xplore session. We are particularly successful in attracting young families, most of whom are unchurched, the rest being dechurched.

Although at first sight, Xpressions Café might seem to be attractional since we use church premises, its aim is missional. We do not see Xpressions Café as a stepping stone to 'proper church' but rather we are looking for ways to develop it as church for those who come and for ways in which we can help people along a road of discipleship.

One way that we are looking to do this is by challenging those who come to the café to get involved in some community action. In other words, we are looking to juggle the believing/belonging/behaving schema a little further by suggesting that some people may start behaving before they belong or believe; others will take a different route.

It all started in December 2007 and at one of the very early meetings we had about Xpressions Café – when I was trying to explain what it was and the vision for it – one of our church members said, 'That's all very well but where is the Gospel in it?' What they meant to say was, 'Where is the preaching of the Word in this?' My answer was, and is, that all of it is the Gospel.

There has been discussion also about whether our worship sessions are more 'seeker' than 'alternative' in approach. The fact is that they are a bit of both though not attracting the 'typical' kind of alternative worship age group or set of people. We do use a lot of video and interactive stuff but, on the other hand, we do lead from the front which is sort of 'seeker' in style.

That is partly due to environment, we have to work with what we've got – which is not necessarily what we want. It's no good for us to say, 'I wish we didn't have any sort of pews in our medieval church' – even though they are actually Victorian interlopers in the space. We just have to get on with it. There is a 'front' to the church and there are pews and we have to work within that context.

However, people don't have to stay in the pews of course. For instance, we asked people at an Xplore session to write down their favourite section of the Bible. There is a mixture of Christians and non-Christians in this group so it's interesting. We stretched out a washing line and pegged their Bible 'bits' onto it in chronological order to give an idea of development so Creation was down by the font and Revelation ended up near the Altar! It was a great visual aid.

We now have a core congregation building up, mainly made up of young families. The café is part of a much wider strategy which sees us building connections and deepening and enriching them all the time.

We have a group called Noah's Ark, for pre-school children and their parents and carers, running in Loddon – the next village to Chedgrave. They are getting upwards of 50 there on Wednesday mornings and, for the last six months or so, there has been a time of worship in an adjoining room. More and more people are starting to go through to that. As a result Noah's Ark is on its way to becoming a fresh expression of church too.

One of my visions is to take the principles of Xpressions Café outside the church. When I first started investigating the idea of a café church it seemed to me that many so-called examples were in fact 'ordinary' church with the only difference being that the congregation sat at tables with refreshments for the service but we were looking for dechurched and unchurched.

That's when the notion of different 'zones' came up with Café Xpresso as a 'neutral' place where God's presence is demonstrated by extravagant hospitality. We have now extended that idea once a month after Noah's Ark by having Xpresso 'Souper' Lunches with great soup, great bread and home-baked biscuits. A lot of the parents and carers – and their children – are staying on for that.

There are so many things I'd like to develop further, like doing Xplore on a Thursday evening in a pub or developing the contemplative side of things in Xperience. There are lots of people for whom contemplative spirituality is their thing but they don't realise that the Church has 2,000 years of it to share.

However to develop all these things, leadership is key. Some of our participants are just starting to become leaders or take leadership roles. It is a slow process but encouraging to see it happening at all.

Crossnet

Church of England minister Nick Crawley knew that he wanted his next post to be about mission not maintenance. So he wrote to the Bishop of Bristol to suggest launching a network church. After a series of meetings he began work on his new 'parish' of Bristol-based young adults in 2004.

We have no church building, no parish, no PCC, no inherited congregation,

Nick says.

I had no weddings or funerals to do so I was free to start from scratch.

An original team of three families drawn to the network church idea began meeting in Nick's family home in central Bristol. As the new church grew, it began to rent space in Starbucks. It now meets in a larger coffee house on Tuesday evenings attended by an average of 30 people who eat, worship, discuss and pray together. Roughly half of these were not previously attending or committed to a church.

One-to-ones and training teams continue the work of discipleship.

Nick attributes the growth of this network church, Crossnet, among students and young professionals to 'word of mouth'. The church has seen four conversions and others growing in their faith.

The two emphases are mission and discipleship,

says Nick.

There is no doubt that the commitment people have to loving one another is growing.

Crossnet aims to be self-funding by the end of 2009.

Messy Church in the Loughborough Circuit

In early 2000, Knightthorpe and Sileby Methodist Churches each began monthly 9.15am services as an 'experiment'. Now seven out of 10 churches in the circuit run a Messy or Café Church. Rev Jane Carter explains how it happened.

The 9.15am, half hour, informal services were for people of all ages. These went well and new people started coming; one service was lay led (team) and the other, called Arise, was led by me. This was at Sileby Methodist Church.

At Sileby we used to have coffee afterwards as a 'bridge' between the 9.15 regulars and the main congregation. It originally started because of a shortage of people to help at Sunday School; this particular church had a more elderly fellowship and this was very much seen as a new venture. We really hoped that it would attract families who were just hanging on in there at our churches, and something to invite families from the Baptism roll.

That really took off and one of the interesting sidelines was that a number of teenagers, who had never had any involvement with church at all, began to come along on a regular basis. As a result of that we started a youth fellowship.

Following a redevelopment of Sileby Church building, coinciding with the launch of the Fresh Expressions DVD showing Messy Church, the church reviewed what they had been doing and decided to stop the 9.15am service. Quite a few people had said they couldn't come to them because they were too early on a Sunday so the church relaunched the idea in a different way in the afternoons.

Knightthorpe too reviewed its 9.15 service and with the new ministers Rev Adam Wells and Deacon Jan Sutton they began a new style of service. Knightthorpe went for a monthly cafe style service and Sileby became a Messy Church, both starting at 4pm. The format was still very informal with craft, songs, Bible stories, activities, food. These again attracted new members.

Others in the circuit started to ask me what was happening at Messy Church in Sileby, and in my other churches too in Barrow upon Soar and Wymeswold. From this I then raised the idea of having a circuit team consisting of local preachers and worship leaders to offer to lead a Messy Church within the churches in the circuit and to help them to start a Messy Church on a regular basis if they so wanted. All circuit staff are actively supportive of this work.

Now seven of the 10 churches in the circuit run a monthly Messy Church/Café Church, all take place at 4pm and all have attracted new members. These are held both in town and rural churches, and one is a Local Ecumenical Partnership (Anglican/Methodist).

The issues some are facing now are: How does the church help the people who come grow in faith? How do you link them into the wider context of the church, if at all? One church is starting an Emmaus Course and is hoping and praying that members from Messy Church will come to this.

We have very good links with local schools. Every month I do an invitation containing the Messy Church details; the school at Wymeswold puts it in every school bag for the children to take home with them. Messy Church within the churches is providing a wonderful opportunity for churches to invite those on the fringes but needs to look at how people can grow in faith and discipleship.

I have been here in the circuit for 11 years but I will be leaving in 2011. However it's good to see that there are lay people already coming into leadership of Messy Church in my churches. Within the circuit we are also encouraging and developing The 'pastor in every Church scheme' and the three I am working with are all involved in the leading Messy Church, which will enable this work to continue and grow.

Although we are looking at fairly small numbers at the moment there is real long-term potential for growth and evangelism. At Barrow on Soar they have dropped their 6pm evening service to concentrate on the 4pm Messy Church, and we now get more people coming at 4 than we had at 6.

It has taken time to get things going but to me it's very encouraging that a lot of chapels with elderly congregations have seen the vision for this and gone with it. It's not only young families who are being drawn in; sometimes grandparents bring their grandchildren and in one area a farmer comes on his own from another village and joins in with the activities.

One of our practical questions here was about whether or not the church should make the food for Messy Church. Instead the Messy Churches I am involved in provide it on a bring and share basis and that seems to work very well. In Wymeswold, a dad whose family come to Messy Church provides gorgeous cakes for it because he's a chef. He never comes himself but we're very grateful for his contribution! We're now looking at the possibility of organising social events for the parents; there are lots of opportunities out there.

Church at The Centre

Church at the Centre (United Reformed), Tonge Children's Centre sees its mission as sharing the love of God and the Gospel of Jesus Christ with the people of Tonge Moor through worship, fellowship and action. Community Minister Pat Oliver explains more.

Tonge Moor United Reformed Church, Bolton, was originally founded as a Congregational Church in 1891 and is now a member of the Vision Pastorate with Rose Hill URC and St Andrew and St George URC. In 2000, the church reviewed its calling of service to the community and major issues were identified as a result:

increasing age and decreasing numbers of members;

burden of upkeep and unsuitability of a building over 100 years old;

call to work more closely with other churches and organisations supporting the Tonge Moor community.

Whilst many members of the fellowship had their roots in the Congregational and United Reformed Churches, many of them actually lived outside the immediate community and so did not share (as residents) the problems and aspirations of local people. It was strongly felt that there was a need for the church to be shaped by local residents into the form of fellowship which best suits the needs of the community.

The church responded by firstly inviting neighbouring churches (Anglican, Methodist and Roman Catholic) to create Churches Together in Tonge Moor. Then after taking advice on the potential uses and limitations of its existing building, the church also approached Bolton Metropolitan Borough Council and East Bolton Regeneration with a view to making the church's land available for the development of a Community Centre, which would include accommodation for the church.

In October 2003, after demonstrating a willingness to work alongside others supporting the community, the church was invited to join in the creation of a new Children's Centre to be built on the church's land and that of the neighbouring Tonge Moor Community Primary School. The fellowship adopted the name Church at The Centre, when the Children's Centre opened in May 2006.

Out of the church's desire to better serve its local community, the church identified the following aims for its Church-in-Community project, Building Bridges:

To counter alienation in young people and fear in older people by building bridges between the two age groups and developing mutual trust and support;

To explore opportunities presented by the Church's partnership with the Children's Centre;

Use this experience to identify and share ways in which other churches could become more engaged in the national Children's Services/Children's Centres initiatives in their areas;

To provide a model for other churches to shake off the constraints imposed by obsolete buildings.

The Tonge Moor project involves Age Concern, Bolton Council Children's Services, other denominations, local Residents' Associations and URC NW Synod (all represented on the Project Management Group). The church has developed financial management systems for its community support work separate from its life as a worshipping fellowship. This was done to facilitate access to, and eligibility for financial support from a variety of bodies.

The Children's Centre's main remit is to help 0 to 5-year-olds, their parents and families, but we work alongside them to provide some supportive extra glue eg. summer holiday activities for the older siblings of families using the statutory services, craft activities or just chatting with lonely young parents in the Centre cafe etc. I basically try to grasp every opportunity I can to support what's going on here. It works as a seven day a week operation, five days a week for children's services with a community café and activities on Saturday and our informal services on Sundays. We try to be open to and willing to take advantage of as many opportunities as we can to demonstrate the love of God in Christ in this place.

In terms of community development, it takes time to build up relationships so as I'm based in the Centre, I'm able to work with the Centre's community outreach leader to organise some events jointly – it is part of their community cohesion remit and it's our reason for being. We are also building a volunteer base, involving people from church and community, which will help us to offer long-term support in this area. I’m not into offering something that comes and goes very quickly because that builds on the low expectation that many people have around here. People are accustomed to things starting up and then disappearing without trace; this contributes to the feeling that 'we don't matter'.

Being based in someone else's building has required adjustments by the church fellowship. Even new members who never knew the old building have preconceptions based on the traditional model where a Church has control of its own building. We've had to learn to share. People now appreciate how hard it is to cross the threshold of someone else's building no matter how warm the invitation! This new Centre is far more welcoming to 'non-church' people and provides 'neutral space' for church folk to meet with others from our local community and this is happening more and more now.

A recent joint venture involved creating a mosaic on the theme of nature. Anyone who came in to the Centre via the café was invited to join in and it took us three months to complete. We had a community artist working with us and the result is wonderful – the folks who aren't used to being creative have something to be very proud of. As far as the theme of it is concerned, for those who have no faith it's nature, for those with faith it's creation. This is the best visual example so far of what we are trying to do together.

I think at the beginning of all of this people said, 'Let's have a church within a Children's Centre' but what that actually means in practice is very different to what some imagined it would be. It can be a challenge for many to realise that church can look very different from the way they might expect. Folk outside of our fellowship find it hard to take on board that we're all about supporting people in living as good a life as they can in their community.

If they ask us about our motivation, then we have an opening to tell them about the whys and wherefores behind it all – the faith that stirs us into this action. If they don't ask, we just get on with it knowing that in God's time our message will be received one way or another.

We have about 30 members and we are growing. Some of the new folk have come from very different sorts of church backgrounds, or from no church background at all but whoever you are, you still have to get through the doors in the first place. As a result, hospitality events are very popular and very rewarding. We work with the other Partners in the Centre on special occasions and we also have a hugely popular candlelight Advent Supper.

Weekend baptisms, weddings and funerals can take place here as in any church but, mid-week – thanks to an arrangement with the Centre Management, the same services are possible. When requested, part of the premises is closed and we use a different entrance, enabling families to have their ceremony on the day and time they choose. Thus far only funerals have taken place mid-week but who knows what the future will bring.

My role is not about me alone or about building church in its narrowest sense; it's about supporting all in the challenge of looking for where God's love is already evident and joining in, it's about all of us carrying God's love to where it's needed, and it's about us together building God's community wherever God calls it to be. Not an easy task… some of the challenge comes from those who say that if people don't become 'official' members of our churches then how will we continue as a denomination? Others ask, 'If you are based in a Children's Centre, do you get children coming to church on Sunday?

Church at The Centre believe that we are taking our worship beyond Sunday mornings and into the week, and sharing the love of God as we meet people in their everyday lives – just as Jesus did. We don't expect people to respond by falling in with past traditional patterns – all must be encouraged to worship in ways that suit them and their journey with God.

As we go forward we know we are totally reliant on faith and the way God works in the community through people who say they have no faith. Christians don't have the monopoly on God after all.

Legacy XS

Legacy XS offers, among other things, indoor and outdoor skate parks, a recording studio, arts suite… and a youth congregation. Leader Pete Hillman gives the lowdown on its work in Essex.

It's never boring being involved in fresh expressions! When we first appeared on expressions: the dvd – 1 there was a lot going on but things have developed much further. The skatepark is still very much a going concern but we have also developed the building itself and now have outside ramps as well. There is a multi-use games area at the back for basketball and 5-a-side football and we fitted a recording studio and an arts suite with a dance floor so we can offer dance lessons. There's a café downstairs, Café Legacy, and a video editing suite that boasts £20,000 worth of equipment which we got with a grant from various sources.

There have been some difficult times along the way. The local council decided they wanted to begin charging rent on the land on which Legacy XS is built (an interesting move in the context of the 'big society!') and, as a result, we had to make the centre manager redundant. However, the council's decision made us take a fresh look at what we wanted to achieve with the skate park as a whole.

We decided to reduce the hours we were open to the public and instead of running our midweek sessions on a commercial basis we instead now operate them as cell groups organised by our team of youth workers. That has been running quite successfully on Tuesday evenings for young people from Year 4/5 up to Year 7.

Wednesday evenings are now given over to skateboarders, we started with very small numbers but this has grown steadily. Thursday night is a BMX cell and, again, numbers are very encouraging. On Fridays we have just started running a gym as a bit of a pilot project.

On Saturday and Sunday we can get 60 young people through the doors. It's interesting the response we get sometimes. For instance, a local Catholic Church gave us a large figure of Jesus made out of wicker which we put at the end of the skatepark on the wall – it is supposed to be a crucifix but looks more like ascension. A couple of years ago when one of the BMX lads was leaving, I was joking with him about me doing all the work around here. He said, 'What do you mean you run this place? I thought it was that bloke hanging on the wall over the ramp.'

The Legacy XS youth congregation itself has been much quieter and has shrunk down to a maximum of 20 people. How many of them are moving on in faith? Not many that we know of to be honest. It's better to tell the truth and say it is really, really hard to develop the youth congregation. The fact is that the measure of success and failure in God's economy is quite different. That may make it sound as if we are trying to cover ourselves but that's what we believe. All we say is that it's our job to put Jesus at the centre of what we do, for some young people that will be enough for now because maybe the time isn't yet right for them.

About three years ago we also launched Legacy Rayleigh which operates in the neighbouring town. It has its own full-time worker as part of the parish team there and has developed its own distinctive ethos. They too have mid-week outreach activities for different age groups as well as a cell group and Sunday evening gatherings for worship, prayer and teaching. It's another runner of the plant springing up somewhere new.

In other areas Legacy XS, now open for six years, continues to develop very well. Two years ago, the local county and borough councils and the Canvey Island Town Council asked us to be the lead partner in a drop-in centre on the Island. They came up with all the money. I reminded them that we are Christians and they said they had no problem with that at all. In fact I have never encountered a problem because of our Christian roots – quite the opposite. We have got another year or so of funding so we can now offer sessions on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, after-school Saturday and most of Sunday.

The team does a lot of teaching work on Canvey Island and we also managed to get some money to buy a 33ft Winnebago-style vehicle to use as a mobile recording studio to go out into different areas. It's like a youth club on wheels.

Sustainability is always a big challenge. My curacy comes to an end in June 2011 and at the moment I have no idea what will happen then – hopefully something to help me continue with Legacy XS. It's always a struggle because youth congregations in particular are never, ever going to break even. The only way they will be self-sustaining is if they are delivering work on the ground that is recognised by secular funders. That's why we have to be clear about what we are doing and why we are doing it.

You really have to be an entrepreneur if you are going to be doing radical stuff; that can be seen in things like taking risks and being a bit creative about the way you describe what's happening and what you can offer. It's about being as wise as serpents and a bit shrewd about things.

People then begin to recognise what you are doing. The local secondary school is a Business Enterprise College and they now study Legacy XS as an example of social entrepreneurship. The fact is that I run a reasonably sized organisation and have learned to be creative – not just in the work itself but how I am able to develop ideas within the existing structures. Through my work as a school governor, I not only take lessons in Religious Studies but also in Business Enterprise. This is a time of great opportunity and we hope and pray that we can continue to make the most of them in all of our activities.

The Welcome

After 15 years in the making, The Welcome has become the 'newest' church in Methodism. Its minister, Rev Ben Clowes tells how the project developed in the Alderley Edge and Knutsford Methodist Circuit.

Cheshire is known to be one of the richest and most exclusive areas of the country but it’s a place of extreme contrasts. Around Knutsford we have the Bentley Garage for Manchester, Premier League footballers in £2m homes, charity shops selling Prada and Gucci – and one of the most deprived wards in the Cheshire East.

In the past, the community at Over Ward, Longridge and Shaw Heath missed out on a lot of support and possible grant aid because many charities only look at postcodes when considering applications. As soon as they saw Knutsford, that was the end of it for them.

It is interesting because The Welcome very much started as one thing and became another. Reaching out to the community has always been important at Knutsford Methodist Church and across the Circuit generally but the story of The Welcome really got going when Sue Jackson arrived as the project's first deacon.

Initially she walked around the estate, talking to people, getting to know them, finding out what was needed. The call was for second hand clothing so Sue started to provide facilities – usually the boot of her car – for people to bring and buy clothes. Moving on from that, we then got a lease on what was originally a doctor’s surgery and that became a Christian place to sell clothing and serve coffee. At that time it was called the Over Ward Project (Longridge and Shaw Heath).

By the time our second deacon, Margaret Fleming, came along, the church began to develop. There had always been a Christian ethos of meeting people where they were but increasingly the people themselves began to ask why the church was doing this.

As the church grew, the community named the place. They were very clear they wanted it to be called The Welcome.

Cris Acher was appointed Presbyter and he was here for three years before he moved on to Nexus in Manchester. The church still continued to develop and took on a lay manager who started to make further inroads. In time, less clothing was being sold and more coffee was being served and we started to see the growth of an educational project.

The next stage began with the next Presbyter, Richard Byass, who saw the acquisition of the next door lease so we had a cafe space and sessional space for the community. Last year we had a big funding hole but realised that we were giving out such mixed messages when applying for funding, we were café, business, education – and church. We did get a couple of grants to keep us going but then we got to work with Manchester CiC (Community in Communities) and they set us off on a new way of doing things.

By that stage the church had been meeting for 8 to 10 yrs and the questions were starting to be asked by the community as to why we were not being officially recognised as a church. What was the problem? We should be recognised formally, etc.

It was suggested that the best thing to do was to separate the two elements of the centre – the business side of it and the church. A new not-for-profit company called The Welcome CIC (Community Interest Company) will run the now refurbished community centre and the café (probably as the trading arm of a charity) while The Welcome Church itself was formally recognised as the newest church in Methodism at a special dedication service in September.

It was a great month because we had already celebrated confirmation of two members. We have now got 16 members and the two most recent additions are dual members – one from Knutsford Methodist Church and the other is our new business manager who is an Anglican.

Rev Dr Keith Davis, chair of the Manchester and Stockport Methodist District, conducted the dedication service held jointly at The Welcome and a local community centre. It was interesting when we were putting the service together. The Welcome style is very hands-on and experiential and the worship is quite distinct but in the end it was actually a very traditional service because people said, 'just because we normally do it differently doesn't mean we can't do it the standard way. We are not fixed to one style like some churches are.'

So we started to look at liturgies and it seemed to be a contradiction in terms that we were about to celebrate this non-traditional church in a very traditional way but the community message was clear, 'How dare you assume we can't do it another way?!' As a result, Faith and Order now want copies of the liturgy. What we have done changes further develops Methodist ecclesiology!

The important thing is that this has come up from the community, this is the way they want to do church but they also want to be recognised. They are very much for the moment. At one stage they weren’t ready in any shape or form to become a church but things change – and we have to be ready to react to those changes. Other developments include a youth café and a Travellers' Bible Study (that’s a Bible study for those on a journey with God not a Bible study for travelling people…)

Another recent visitor was our local MP for Tatton, Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne. He said he was thrilled to see what we were doing, describing The Welcome as 'The Big Society in action.'

Last year was a difficult one in that we had to make our cook and community manager redundant but this is a new stage and we are looking to God for what happens next. The first time we met as a church there were about 25 of us and at the special service we had more than 100. We don't open the doors and expect the people to come in, we go where people are – I don't think anywhere on Longridge or Shaw Heath is as busy or well loved as The Welcome.

Our former kitchen supervisor now works alongside me in pastoral work and hers reflects the story of The Welcome. Five years ago at interview she said, 'I'm very happy to do the job so long as you know I don't do God.' She is now a preacher in training and our Senior Steward! The Welcome has been and continues to be a place where God is at work and where people meet with him daily. Our prayer is that, even now we are a 'fully fledged' church, and have even held our first 'Welcome-style' Church Council, we will continue to listen to God and to follow his lead as we have done for the last fifteen years.

FREEdom Café

There's no such thing as a free lunch. Well, not unless you're visiting the FREEdom Café in St Gregory's Church hall, Seaton. Its leader, Mary Casey, gives the lowdown on the church with a difference.

The monthly café itself has been running for just over 12 months but the story goes back a lot further, about six years, when I became very conscious of those people who found coming to traditional church very difficult.

At that time I worked for a charity promoting social inclusion for people with learning disabilities and I was concerned that when they went into residential care, it often meant the end of any opportunities for them to explore or celebrate faith. I persuaded our vicar at that time to hold a special service for those involved in care in the community, whether they were carers or those being cared for.

We still have those ecumenical services six times a year and they have been a great blessing. Simple worship followed by fellowship, afternoon tea and a sing along. As a result some of the carers at those services started to show an interest in knowing more but they weren't ready for the full-blown church 'thing' or anything like the Alpha course, so I wondered how we could do something about that and also include others in our community who might have preconceived ideas about 'church'. Then the answer came to me, food. I love it!

My faith is very simple in that Jesus was always talking about community, serving one another, friends and feeding people. As a church I felt we needed to be very much part of our community so about two years ago I went to our PCC and asked if I could have the use of the hall for three months because I wanted to open a café where people would not be charged for the food they'd be given.

I didn't know how we were going to fund it but felt it was time to put my faith where my mouth was. As a Christian I often shy away from publicly acknowledging my faith, but I felt Jesus was encouraging and challenging me to do something about this. We talk about a God who will give freely if we trust, let go and ask. I wrote a piece for the church magazine about the cafe and asked people to pray about it and pledge whatever they could, time, money or ingredients to the project. Such a lot of talent and produce was offered that I was able to create a rota for volunteers and a menu for the cafe, and we opened our doors in September 2009.

It was a huge learning curve for the church to trust that the money would be supplied. On that very first Saturday we had overspent by £39.42, when we looked in the baskets we had put out for prayer requests – not donations – we had enough to cover our deficit and over £100 more to fund the next café session.

I believed from the start that if God wanted to fund this, the money would be there. We have a rummage and book stall too but again, there is no charge for anything. The only baskets we leave out are those for prayers though our 'customers' have been so generous that we've been able to buy ourselves some basic kitchen equipment – at the beginning we brought in our own – and we've also given away over £500 in donations to local charities and community projects. To mark our first anniversary we held a special birthday café, with many from the community helping out and also gave a £100 to Seaton Primary School to help a project there for the young children.

We meet on the third Saturday of every month and we now have a core team of about ten and many, many volunteers – more than I can actually use for any one café session. That means I can give people time off for a month or two, they are very grateful and it does away with any sense of it being a chore to be completed rather than an act of joyful service! It gives everyone the freedom to move in and out of the volunteering rota, the message being that God doesn't 'trap' you into serving him.

Earlier this year I completed a Pioneer Discipleship course run by Exeter diocese [mission shaped ministry] and it was very helpful indeed. One of the things I had to come to accept through the course was that, for many, a transition from something like FREEdom café to a traditional Sunday model of church is almost impossible in today's culture. The course also helped me to get some input for myself and just check again if this project was more about self ambition than anything to do with the Lord working. Very quickly I had confirmation that if you gave God a space he would walk in it.

I constantly check on the project's motivation and make-up, if it starts to become a struggle because the Lord is no longer moving in it, then the volunteers know I will knock it on the head. But until then it will go on, not necessarily with me leading it, but that's fine – God has already raised up so many people to be part of this, I'm sure he'll have his eye on the next person in line.

The joy is that we've now got people meeting in the FREEdom café community who don’t go to traditional church but who are active in volunteering their time and talents. We open up at 10.30am and at 1.30pm when the café officially 'closes', I give a clear announcement that the team is going to join café visitors for lunch and at 1.45pm will have 3.2.1 for Jesus.

This is 15-minutes of worship time and people are very welcome to stay or leave as they wish at any time. At first I thought people would run for the door at that point but instead I've noticed that some now come later in the morning for lunch and then hang on for 3.2.1. It averages about 30-35, about 60% of which don't attend traditional church.

We light candles and hand around a simple service sheet with a few words and a clear outline of what to expect. There are then:

Three minutes of music for reflection;

Two short readings (one Scripture and something current today which fits in with the scripture);

One further song with lyrics that fit the theme and a short time of prayer based on the simple Celtic theme of 'circling'.

People are invited to join in aloud or quietly in their hearts if they wish. I quickly learned to include the words of The Lord's Prayer when I realised it's not known by everyone any more.

We talk of a God who speaks of freely giving us what we need, it's all about putting our faith on the line and seeing that God will feed us freely – that has certainly been our experience at FREEdom Café. When I first presented the idea to the PCC, I said the only way that everyone can be treated as equal in this café is for everything to be free.

Some of the initial reactions were that it was a ridiculous idea, that it would be 'awkward' if you weren't paying, that there was no such thing as a free lunch. People from the community were looking for the catch, saying we don't want to come here if you'll then say we need to come to church on Sunday, or have our children baptised, or be confirmed. The only way I could explain it was by saying, 'Nearly 2,000 years ago a friend of mine fed a crowd of people he cared for lunch. The loaves and fishes went down a treat. He's doing the same today only its called FREEdom café.' Those words are now on a poster on our wall. Christian visitors to our café have written these words down and taken them away to Wales, North Devon, Chester and even New Zealand!

Thankfully I could go back to the PCC after that initial three months pilot to say that FREEdom café was going well, and so it rolls on. One of the key things is excellence in all things and doing our best for God because, from the start, I wanted this café to look like it would fit into any high street, and operate like a restaurant. There is waitress service; and beautiful white contemporary crockery donated by the Churchwomen's Guild. The colour theme is black and white with a touch of colour and this reflects in the table linen and waitress aprons. The kitchen staff has to make do with green and white aprons, but we're working on it! Everything is branded with our logo. There are just no prices on the menu…

The other huge benefit with the development of the café has been the growing relationship between the churchgoers who lend a helping hand. Many people didn't know each other, even though they all go to the same church, because they attend different services. If they go to the 8am, 10.30am or Evensong regularly they may never have met each other. My question was 'How can we bring people to Christ if we don't even know the people in our own church family?'

There are now at least eight regulars at 3.2.1 who do not set foot inside traditional church, FREEdom Café has become their church and I pray that many more will come to know the God who loves them and gives so freely as we move into our second year.

What would I like to see for the future? I would like to see the ethos of FREEdom Café in every parish in the diocese, and in 10 years every parish in the land. One of the biggest challenges in that? Christians have to learn not to question, or even interrogate, the people they are there to serve. Don't quiz them, don't mention church, keep it on their terms and be ready to speak of your faith if asked – but not before. Just love them, serve them and watch what happens with God's help.

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