food Archives - Page 2 of 5

Cortonwood

Lieutenant Catherine Dodd is leader of The Salvation Army in Cortonwood, South Yorkshire. She tells how their mission to 'go, gather and grow' has developed in the past six months.

I've been in church leadership for the past 10 years and had been serving part-time at Cortonwood since 2010 – alongside being the Officer (Minister) at an established Salvation Army church locally. In October 2013 I was appointed as the full-time leader here and Cortonwood was recognised by The Salvation Army as a new Church plant. We are situated right at the heart of our community, in a neutral venue above the Cortonwood Miners' Welfare Club.

Cortonwood was deeply affected by the miners' strike 30 years ago and the subsequent demise of the UK coal industry. Cortonwood Colliery closed and, as the biggest employer locally, this meant that life was changed forever for most of the families here. As a miner's daughter, I understand the culture and have a heart for the people of ex-mining communities.

It had been felt for some time that God wanted to do a new thing in the Dearne Valley, and so began the process of discerning the 'what' and 'where'. Since 2010, The Salvation Army had been experimenting with different ministries through the formation of a Dearne Valley Planting Team, which I was blessed to part of. Confirmation soon came that Cortonwood was the place where God wanted us to be.

There was no physical Church presence in Cortonwood – the Methodist Chapel closed a few years back, and the parish church is situated in a neighbouring village, but I always believed that God wanted to build a church here in Cortonwood. Furthermore, I discerned that it was never his intention to plant a Church by parachuting in a group of Christians. He made it clear to me that this new plant was to be formed from people within the community who, for whatever reason, were not engaging with a traditional, attractional model of church. He wanted it to emerge from us 'journeying out' and coming alongside the community, working with them and seeing what would develop – without being prescriptive as to what it would look like or what shape it would be. To have the freedom to be part of that from the very early days, and then go on to lead that, is a great blessing.

Initially, we did not have a base of our own and so we used various community venues as gathering places, which is something that we still do and are keen to maintain– we didn't want to go down the route of having one place that would be regarded as 'Church'. We have been blessed with the provision of our base at the Miners' Welfare Club, which provides us with office space, a community prayer room and multipurpose room – it's an accessible place where people can come along without it being a traditional Church building, which can sometimes be a barrier to people. We use it for some of our events, but by no means all.

One of the venues that we use is Costa Coffee. We have always had a good relationship with the manager there, and so when we were looking for a venue for worship we made an approach and we were delighted to be allowed to use this space. Since June 2012, we have used Costa as the venue for our now monthly worship event 'The Gathering', where we meet after hours on a Sunday evening. It's an event which is aimed at unchurched people, where there is good coffee, conversation, live music and opportunity to pause for thought.

We were very keen to have multiple connection points with our church. Some of the activities that we are currently delivering include weekly school's ministry, Toddlersong, food drop-in (with budgeting advice on offer too) and a Community Choir. Since January 2014, a weekly informal and conversational cell group has commenced which we call 'Time & Space', giving people an opportunity to ask the difficult questions as they explore faith. It's beautiful to see how God brings that together. The people are shaping that time of worship themselves through partnering with the Spirit; that's the way it's got to be. We have some powerful prayer times and it's very raw; it's allowing people to 'be' where they are. We have got a lot of needs in this area and some people feel downtrodden; when they start to see their value in the eyes of God, it's quite a special moment.

The key to relevance, is, for me, all about being willing to be experimental and acknowledging that this is a valid form of church. It has to be fluid. Whatever we start, we are not going to put it on tablets of stone and continue with something ad infinitum; we view things in seasons, and we just go with it. I believe this missional community, this fresh expression, is not a 'stepping stone' to traditional church – it is certainly church in its own right; yes it's firmly rooted in Salvationist doctrine but we are not frightened to be quite pioneering in the ways we go and reach out to the community.

We want this to a place where people feel safe, welcomed and loved, where we can work out together what it means to be disciples of Jesus today as we serve the community of Cortonwood.

It's wonderful to see individual's lives being changed as God’s work develops. One of the guys, who is coming to food bank, wants to start to get involved in volunteering; we are also establishing a community allotment as a means of creating community, tackling food poverty by growing fresh fruit and veg for our food drop-in and caring for creation, and we are also seeing people from our local community get involved with this.

It's still very early days but it's a wonderfully energising thing to be involved in – you know that when you get up in the morning you are going to see evidence of what God's doing in people's lives. I have always had a heart for the unchurched and a real concern that people need to hear the gospel but can't – or won't – come to established church. At Cortonwood, we are seeing people engaging with our way of being Church who would not otherwise do so. It's so important to come alongside people in relevant ways as part of their community and leave it to God to engineer the conversation. We've seen that happening in all sorts of ways, including through the local school, where I have been involved for the past four years, and have recently taken on the role as School Chaplain. We did a whole school, in-school Messy Nativity and most recently a Messy Easter for all children and their parents.

Our next priorities will be serving people in practical ways by offering 'eating on a budget' (cook 'n' eat) sessions, and setting up as an Employment Plus Centre, where people can come along and receive help in their job searching. It's all part of discerning the current needs within our community and responding accordingly.

In January, Vicky Hughes joined our team as a part-time Community Development Coordinator. Her role is to develop the food bank and get our community allotment up and running. She will also ascertain community needs and put plans in place to ensure that we can, in the name of Jesus, do something to help towards meeting those needs.

Life can seem very busy at times as I seek to balance ministry and family life. As well as leading this church plant, I'm also doing a MA in Aspects of Biblical Interpretation through London School of Theology. Distance learning can be difficult and the 10 hours of study per week can be tricky to fit in but I carry on with what God has set before me; I always find that he gives me the time I need to do what he wants me to do. I never feel overwhelmed in any way, and firmly believe that Cortonwood is where God has called me to be.

Church has got to be accessible for people. We need to be available to our communities, to love them and be prepared to journey with them in an authentic way. When we move away from our perceptions of how church should look and abandon ourselves to the Spirit, then we see God do amazing things. It is a joy to behold. Lord, may your Kingdom come, your will be done in Cortonwood, as it is in heaven.

BELLS

Phil Smith is a lay pastor in a Queensland school and he is also helping to grow a faith community around a barbecue.

We are based on Australia's Sunshine Coast in a new real estate development where there is no church building. I work half time for the Uniting Church as one of two campus ministers at the Unity College ecumenical school in Caloundra.

In Bells Reach and Bell Vista, people are moving from the colder southern states to live the dream in Queensland but many find it's just another suburb – like the ones they left behind.

The estate surrounds the school, which is supported by Roman Catholic and Uniting Church parishes, and those involved in BELLS are people who live, work or go to school in that area. Using the College, BELLS has connected with 65 people in its first six months, meeting fortnightly on Sunday afternoons to hear one another's stories and ask where we see and hear God at work in our lives. We don't have a building or rows of pews; instead we get together either at Unity College or in the nearby park.

Our first big breakthrough came just before Christmas 2013 when the developer asked us, as the local church(!), to welcome people and provide a short chat and some worship songs at the open-air carols and movie evening. We introduced ourselves to 1,000 people, with the help of the Uniting Church, Churches of Christ, The Salvation Army and a local Christian radio station which provided cards and CDs to give away.

BELLS (Belonging, Eating, Listening, Learning and Serving) is an acronym which describes what we stand for:

belonging together and within the community, a blessing we share;

eating, always part of our gathering, whether that's barbecue or breaking bread;

listening to one another's stories;

learning where Jesus' story intersects with ours;

serving and sending us out into the community.

BELLS originally grew from an occasional discussion group for senior high school students from Unity College in 2012. It became known as The God Stuff amongst eight or 10 regulars who said they couldn't cope with a traditional church service. Why? Their comments included, 'We don't know when to sit down and stand up' and 'We only usually sing when we're a bit drunk at karaoke nights'.

It was all very different with us because of it being story based. We would have coffee by the beach in late afternoon and explore how our experiences that week had been touched and shaped by what Jesus said. Christians in their mid-20s would come and tell their stories.

Then, at about the same time as Caloundra Uniting Church started praying about mission in the development around the school, a handful of 'non-church' staff, parents and students at Unity College also began asking about developing The God Stuff.

A group began to explore these issues on the understanding that there would be no plans for a church building (with a big cross at the front of it) or expectation that people would drive in from all over the place to sit in pews there.

Our questions and discussions centred on the nature of church, an understanding of Luke 10, and Jesus sending 'beginner disciples' into the villages where he had not yet been – to build relationship with people of peace, engage with them and accept their hospitality.

Rather than create something and ask people to come to a specific event, we put the word around that we were simply going to buy pizza one Sunday evening in June last year and see who turned up. We hoped for 15 but instead 37 people came to tell us what a gathering might be like and what it would achieve. Their main message was, 'don't call it church'.

Caloundra Uniting Church endorsed this organic development and sponsored us. Members donated some $5,000 to support what we were doing, and a handful of them come each fortnight to make the coffee, turn the sausages and pray for the group.

That same church is now seeking three years of funding to create a half-time pastor's position for me to grow BELLS as a faith community, a fresh expression of church. This neighbourhood is set to grow dramatically over time with Caloundra South housing 50,000 people in the next 15 years.

Eating is a major part of what we do! People relax and talk when there's food and for Australians a BBQ is standard. Bringing food to a BBQ is an act of sharing; this may well be a ritual/liturgical aspect of BELLS, although one might not recognise it!

At the moment, we are focused on Luke's gospel for the messages to think about in our fortnightly meetings; considering how the Jesus story can be lived out in a culture that does not take it as 'given'. We prepare for that by putting out a trailer out on our YouTube channel a week before the meeting. The BELLS crew then begin to think of their own life experiences in relation to the message. We put up posters around the place and on the school noticeboard; it's also in the school newsletter and Community Association website.

Our meetings start with a 'sixty Seconds with…' slot when a volunteer is asked three questions in a minute. This not only acts as an ice-breaker but it provides an opportunity for an initial personal reflection on the message theme. The table groups then chat around those questions as we eat.

Two of our team sing for us and we now have some neighbourhood kids who are beginning to bring their guitars and jam along.

Someone will tell their story related to the message, perhaps on how they have experienced forgiveness – or something similar, then I talk about the scripture for five minutes. We pray simple thanks and requests in different ways, talk about our next opportunity for belonging or serving… and finish our dinner.

When we think about how we might grow the faith community, the school connection is certainly a 'foot in the door' and we have also had much encouragement from many other people of peace locally. The school principal offered the covered BBQ and canteen area for us; the real estate developer now views us as the local church; the publican and the Community Association advertise our gatherings and we actively engage with them in community events, such as park concerts and Christmas carols.

In seven months, four core households have emerged. Younger couples with kids have taken on the leadership in exploring opportunities for belonging, eating (looking at hospitality), listening – as in leading our worship times – and finding ways for us to serve.

As the pastor, my responsibility is the learning content. We also have three older, mature Christians – including two retired, ordained ministers – who pray for us and seek the big vision. They help give a framework of theological understanding to what we are exploring.

In the light of Caloundra Uniting Church being our supportive 'mothership', I attend their church council meetings. Their insurance and finance people also look after our necessary bureaucracy.

At this stage I add all preparation for BELLS to my workload at school – hence our meetings being fortnightly. We very much want to become a weekly gathering and develop some discipleship/home groups. If funding becomes available in June 2014, I will be paid a stipend to spend half the week in the neighbourhood.

Our costs as this stage only involve the provision of food because our venue is free. Donations from individuals with a vision as to what we are doing here have amounted to about $7,000.

Long-term commitment is very important. A significant part of building relationships of trust with community groups, the local council, and so on, is the assurance that we will be here in 15 years' time. God knows what the neighbourhood, or our faith community, will look like then but we are here to grow with the neighbourhood from stage one.

I first heard of fresh expressions of church when researching new forms of church online and then followed up on that with a call to a couple of Uniting Church ministers in South Australia. It's exciting to see what God is doing in Caloundra as part of that fresh expressions movement worldwide. Our accountability is formally through the local Uniting Church but we are also blessed by encouragement and regular contact with other denominations with a heart for the new neighbourhood.

How might things develop from here? Well, after six months, and – it seems – the ongoing possibility of personnel and time resources, we have a few challenges and questions to consider.

More than 100 people have connected with us but the fortnightly gathering is always around 30. Half of that is core and constant. How will we go beyond that initial contact to build good daily friendships?

How will we offer discipleship/faith exploration programs and what will they be? (Our neighbourhood isn't asking the questions Alpha is answering, yet).

We are being deliberately engaged in the Community Association, events in the park and so on but there are new opportunities too. There are hoops to jump through but the developer's former sales office may be handed to Caloundra City Council to become a small community hub. Could we become the managing agents? If so, we could engage with many other community groups, have a highly visible venue for gatherings of different kinds.

Makers and Bakers

Saturday Gathering

Linda Maslen is one of the lay leaders of a growing community of new disciples of Jesus in Halifax.

The Saturday Gathering story began with a foodbank and a group of Christians acting on Jesus' words to feed the hungry. The Halifax Food and Support Drop-in has been running for five years and it is supported by over 70 local churches – as well as schools, local organisations, businesses and individuals in Calderdale.

The churches and organisations work in partnership to provide a weekly Drop-in point, allowing vulnerable people many with often chaotic lifestyles to collect a free food parcel. These include the homeless, destitute asylum seekers, those suffering from drug or alcohol misuse or individuals experiencing extreme hardship.

The Drop-in takes place on a Saturday morning from 9.30am to midday at the New Ebenezer Centre in Halifax, formerly Ebenezer Methodist Church which closed down as a church a couple of years ago. The Methodists decided to keep the building, make it an ecumenical venue and rent out its rooms to the community.

It's in Halifax town centre and the areas that we draw from are urban priority with the church itself sitting in one of the poorest parishes in the UK.

As time went on with the Drop-in, more and more of more of our guests started to ask for prayer. When they began to see those prayers were being answered, they came into a relationship with God but settling people into existing churches proved difficult for our new family members and the congregations.

I saw this at first hand when someone came along to the church I go to. It is a friendly and family-orientated place but it was still a very alien environment if you have had no previous involvement with church. It made me stop and think about everything we take for granted and how we treat someone who has come in from the 'outside' and who doesn't know what you're 'meant' to know.

We need to be aware that people with varying backgrounds and life challenges may take a step forwards in faith but might then take a couple of steps back. I find it very sad if Christians don't want to walk with these new converts when they're going through a 'downtime'. Sometimes it seems that they're interested in the stories of coming to faith but not the struggles that many people then face.

All of this made me think about church not working properly for newcomers who didn't 'fit in' and I knew we had to do something different in order to prepare the way for them.

We tried a couple of things that didn't work out but, 15 months ago, Saturday Gathering was born. It takes place in the same venue as the Drop-in from 7pm-9pm on Saturday evenings. That's when we all have a meal, share stories from the Bible or use DVDs to prompt discussion, and pray and sing. God has done so much in our time together; we've seen chaotic lives changed, addictions broken and relationships healed. We started with 12 people and now have about 60. Some people move on into more traditional fellowships and we encourage that, but others very much see Saturday Gathering as their church – though that was something we struggled with for some time.

For probably the first nine months of Saturday Gathering's existence, we said, 'We are not a church, we are a gathering' but the thing was developing at such a pace that we had to seriously consider whether we were a missional community, a fresh expression of church or something else entirely!

Our community had already decided because they were referring to Saturday Gathering as church. This was underlined on Saturday (11th January 2014) when the Bishop of Pontefract baptised and confirmed 19 of our new family members, all of whom wanted the service to be in the place that had become their spiritual home. We now describe it as a church that is both dependent – and interdependent – on other churches.

Numbers continue to grow. More families are coming to the Drop-in and to Saturday Gathering as well. We're particularly seeing a lot of single dads who are looking after their children at weekends; all they have to live on is £35 a week in benefits so by the time the children come there is nothing left. We're told that for many of them the highlight of their weekend is coming to Drop-in and Saturday Gathering for food, warmth and for the friendship and love they receive.

In September, we launched a Family Gathering to support the children that come to the Drop-in. That runs at the same time as the Drop-in on a Saturday morning and we get local council money to do that.

There are three of us involved in leadership of Saturday Gathering. We are all lay people, none of us are paid for what we do there but I also work full-time and am in the second year of (part-time) ordination training with the Yorkshire Ministry Course at Mirfield. We are very fortunate to have a lot of volunteers drawn from various congregations and one of the local vicars has provided us with great spiritual support. We work hard at building and maintaining relationships and Saturday Gathering has encouraged many of the local church leaders – with most of them are playing a bit of a part in it.

I will do everything I can to encourage indigenous leadership but that really does take time – unless God provides people out of the blue! Something that has proved to be helpful is the involvement of a few of our guys as 'watchmen' at Saturday Gathering. It's quite a male concentrated community so the 'watchmen' keep an eye out for anyone trying to bring in alcohol or drugs of any kind. They also watch over what's happening and are happy to go and pray with anyone who is on their own. Being a 'watchman' gives them bit of authority that enables them rather than constrains them.

Looking to the future and the council has been talking about giving us a lease on an old Sunday School building next door. It would be brilliant because we'd then have a base for our community 24/7. At the moment everything has to be moved in and then out again but there we would have proper catering facilities and a café.

One of our discussions is whether we should go for a BMO. However, we are in the Diocese of Wakefield and are going through the diocesan merger so I'm not too sure at the moment. We may well end up with Saturday Gathering coming under the wing of another church; that's something to be considered – as long as it retains its independence to grow organically.

I'd also like to see small groups running during the week. If we get what would be called The Gathering Place in the building next door, we could run those small groups in an evening without the additional cost of renting rooms.

Financial support has come from some interesting places. Not long after we started Saturday Gathering, the police got in touch to say they had got some money they would like us to apply for because we were taking their worst culprits off the streets on a Saturday night! Saturday Gathering running costs are £100 a week for food and renting of the room and, up to now, the community fund the police recommended to us have given us about £2,500 – so they have basically funded all of our food.

Saturday Gathering sits under the Christians Together charity in Halifax and we gather funding separately for the different elements of what we do. If donors want to give money for Christmas dinner, for instance, we can show them that it went specifically to that. Some are happy to support the Drop-in but not the openly faith-based Saturday Gathering.

Such a lot has happened in a relatively short time, and we thank God for all He has done and is doing. It is a real privilege to be able to join in with what He is doing. But I'd want to say that what has happened here can’t just be replicated. Saturday Gathering, as it is, is unique to this area but I really pray that we may be able to share some of our learning and ways of doing things with others praying about what might be applicable to their own context.

feed.

feed. is a fresh expression of church run by skiers and snowboarders – for skiers and snowboarders – in the Canterbury region of New Zealand's South Island. Mike Keith describes the café church with a difference.

Mt Hutt ski area is known to have one of the best mixes of mountain terrain in New Zealand; it's just over an hour's drive from Christchurch and about 35 minutes from the town of Methven.

Feed. is an initiative of All Saints Anglican Church, Methven and it has traditionally taken place on Sunday evenings for nearly 20 weeks from June to October – our winter season. The original vision came from the previous minister, Dave Clancey, and it has now been running for five years; I've only been the minister at All Saints for about nine months so I 'inherited' it as a going concern.

It started because people come to Methven from all around the world to work in the ski/snowboard industry. Some might be Mt Hutt staff, like instructors, or they may work in the hospitality and catering industry. They need to hear about Jesus! The church very much saw a need in its surrounding area and began a fresh expression to engage with that need.

We are now planning to extend feed. over our summer months. Whilst the focus in Methven shifts away from people directly involved in winter snow sports, there remain international workers – as well as locals – who come to see feed. as their spiritual home so this is very encouraging.

In our planning for this season, we broadened our aim to reach not only those associated with the ski industry but also locals and farmers in the surrounding areas. Methven has a core population of about 1,400, which increases significantly in the winter, but we are in a fast-growing area with rich farmland. Many of the farms nearby are converting from sheep to dairy and this is bringing more employment. We have found that some of these people, many of whom are from overseas – particularly the Philippines – are starting to attend feed. One of the reasons they come is simply because it takes place the evening; the morning isn't suitable at all for dairy workers!

The format each week is:

open with a welcome at 6pm;

give thanks and eat;

ask question to fit in with the theme or talk;

play an audio visual (see our facebook group page for some of the audio visuals – and additional comments about what happens from week to week);

interview someone – might be a newer person to get to know them or a Christian to give their testimony about what Jesus has done for them;

the interviewee plays a snowboard race game as a bit of fun

Bible reading;

15-20min Bible talk;

prayer;

additional audio visual;

table discussion;

coffee and dessert.

We uncompromisingly teach the truth about Jesus from the Bible, his death and resurrection for the forgiveness of sin and the joy of eternal life. We do so in love – in an appropriate and respectful way – giving the opportunity for people to discuss and debate, agree or disagree. Bible reading and teaching is an essential and non-negotiable part of our time together; the format must include this.

There was a break of nearly a year between ministers and, during that time, feed. was lay-run – with visiting speakers each week. The church 'really 'took ownership' of feed. and there is still a lot of lay involvement, particularly in getting everything ready, technical stuff (audio visual), cooking, washing up and packing everything away. It's pretty labour intensive, particularly the cooking, as we average about 30-40 people each week but we have had over 60 people at times.

I am very grateful for the team of helpers we have and for the generosity of our parishioners who donate food, money, and many other things. Without such dedicated lay people, it simply wouldn't happen. It is very much a ministry of our church that gives the opportunity for everyone to be involved.

Each week, there are at least one or two newcomers and, for many, it is their first church experience. Every new person gets a welcome pack containing a gospel and some carefully chosen tracts – as well as a chocolate bar or two! Over time, we welcome in people of all ages, from the early teens right through to the more 'mature aged'.

Another very positive outcome is that the format has proved attractive to a core group of younger people. We currently do not have any ministries at church to cater for them but, as a result of feed's success we have just decided to launch a weekly 'Junior Youth Club' where they can come together in a weekly, afterschool, fellowship group.

I am also a chaplain for Mt Hutt and this is a ministry which very much complements 'feed.' in that I am part of the employment support for employees and guests. This means I actively build relationships with the staff, some of whom also come along to 'feed'. Many of them are also 'locals' so the chaplaincy is a community role which allows me to build connections with people in the immediate area.

I don't really know what people mean when they talk about going 'to the edge' in ministry. For me, it is simply a matter of doing what the church should always be doing, namely 'teaching the truth in love'. If anything is 'on the edge', it is that we look to remove any 'unhelpful', church barriers so that unchurched people – who might feel uncomfortable with the traditions and liturgy of a more 'traditional' church service setting – can feel comfortable when they come.

There are no set prayers or liturgy, no singing and I don't wear my collar – I wear a t-shirt, hoodie and jeans – because it's much more casual and relaxed. We sit around tables, eat, talk, laugh, have fun and are also serious together.

We still have collection but we don't have collection plates – we have a ski boot mounted on a mini ski. If people see feed as their 'spiritual home', they have the chance to financially partner with what we are doing. When I think about it, I suppose many traditional churchgoers would probably see what we do as going 'to the edge.' Some may even think we've fallen off the edge! I'd like to assure them that where the gospel message about Jesus is preached faithfully, God is at work in people's lives. That's what our task as a church is all about isn't it?

We want to reach those not normally reached by traditional churches because 'traditional church' is unattractive to this segment of the community – hence the subtitle under 'feed' is 'Church done differently'.

There certainly is potential for 'feed.' to be 'duplicated' in other places around the world. We'd be very happy to see a multiplication of gospel-centred ministries that follow the same format as feed. In fact, I understand that when the feed logo was developed as feed. (with a full stop), it was done so deliberately so that feed. in other places around the world could be easily identified. We describe ourselves as 'feed.methven' but potentially you could have 'feed.aspen' etc, etc.

The idea was that feed. fresh expressions of church could be planted all around the world. At the moment, as I'm just coming to the end of my first winter season here, I'm just trying to keep things going locally before taking any action in promoting the idea globally – except through the people who come.

Feed. really is a church in its own right. We also run a more traditional morning church in Methven, but it doesn't mean that the people who come in the evening are any different from those who come in the morning; they both get the same spiritual food (my sermons are the same, although adapted to suit the audience). We don't expect people to 'graduate' to traditional church, they are already are 'in church'.

However I must admit that, in many ways, feed. is a 'church growing in maturity' and perhaps – as we mature – we may see it introduce some things you may also expect in a more traditional church setting, like singing for example. Nonetheless, seeing feed. – which attracts the unchurched – also challenges us to think about how we do 'traditional' church so that our morning services are more open and welcoming to newcomers!

It helps us to think through why we do the things we do in relation to the task of reaching the unreached. It seems that the 'traditional' style of church unhelpfully hinders the unchurched, so we need to think differently – without compromising what we are all about, namely the preaching and teaching of the Word of God.

Kahaila

Baptist minister Paul Unsworth established a commercial coffee shop, which is also home to a church community, in London's Brick Lane. Kahaila opened in June 2012 and there are now plans for another.

When I began the initiative to set up a coffee shop, with the intention of planting a congregation among the many young adults in the area of Brick Lane, I had no idea how things would develop.

I'd always had a heart for those in their 20s and 30s. I was youth pastor at a church in Hackney for eight years and Youth Coordinator for New Wine (London South-East), but it really came home to me that I wanted to do something more when I came down to Brick Lane one Sunday morning and saw thousands of people visiting the market. I saw tarot card reading, I saw people of other faiths trying to reach out to the crowds but the Christians were all in church. I knew we had to do to be right at the heart of these crowds.

I could never have imagined what has happened since then and I am in awe of all that God has been doing since the café got off the ground. We have had a very good response from local people and businesses and we are generating four times as much business than we originally anticipated! That is particularly good because we are a charity, so any profit that is made goes into supporting local community projects and other causes.

In order to set up a café in Brick Lane, we needed to raise a lot of money which I knew would require a great deal more of my time. As a result, I left the church I was working in and approached the Baptist Union's Home Mission for financial help in setting up Kahaila. They knew it was a high risk project requiring a lot of investment, they also knew there was a lot of uncertainty as to whether it would succeed or not.

In the build-up to all of that, we just prayed that if it was what God wanted, then He would provide for us. Within the first six weeks of me first trying to find the money for this project, we managed to raise £60,000. We also had a significant loan but were able to pay that back within 18 months. The start-up costs were very high, in the end we raised over £100,000 but this was because the property required a lot of renovation and because it is Brick Lane – incredibly close to the city and a very popular area.

Home Mission awarded us a grant in 2011 and others believed in it too, with friends in the Anglican church and many individuals giving cash backing. Kahaila opened its doors to the public in June last year and things have gone so well that the trustees of the project agreed they would not need any Home Mission Support after the end of 2012.

Our goals were:

To build a community that brings life in all its fullness through enabling people to know Jesus Christ.

To reach out to young adults in their 20s and 30s, the declining generation in church.

To reach out to the estimated 20,000 people who visit the area every Sunday.

To run a successful business where profits are reinvested for the purpose of mission.

Our biggest challenge after the fundraising was trying to get a property on Brick Lane. It took about a year and a half and we secured the lease in April last year. Again, we had to invest a lot of money into it; gutting the place, rebuilding the back section of the roof and removing over 20cms of concrete from the floor – but God provided the key people with the key skills so there was a real sense of God's provision throughout.

It took a huge amount of faith on many people's part to get this off the ground – to get the money and to get the building. Then, once it had been transformed into a café, the challenge was, 'How can we make sure it makes money? It's a business and, if the business fails, the mission fails'. So we needed to really invest in the business to begin with.

Since then, people have been blogging about us and complimenting us on how they love Kahaila for its coffee, food, customer service and general atmosphere. We have also had the additional comment, 'O, and these guys are Christians'. I like that because we're being seen as people who are looking to serve rather than control. Other businesses have taken note of what we've been doing as well; we're now seeing many more shops putting cakes in their windows! One of our aims from the beginning was to become one of the best coffee shops in London. I am not saying we have achieved that as yet but we are making good progress. It's all the more special because the very first Baptist church in the UK was planted in Spitalfields in 1612 and exactly 400 years later we planted Kahaila in exactly the same area.

Why the name? We wanted something that created a bit of curiosity and the two words we kept coming back to were 'Life' and 'Community'. In order to come up with a more unique name we looked for these words in different languages, Hebrew being one of them. The Hebrew word 'Kahila' means community and the Hebrew word 'Chaim' – sometimes spelt 'hai' – means living and is associated to the word 'life'; so we took 'hai ' and placed it in the middle of 'Kahila'. This gave us the word 'Kahaila' pronounced Ka-hi-la.This really represents what we believe we are called to do, to bring life to the very centre of the community.

At this stage in the life of Kahaila, we are constantly experimenting as to how we build community and relationship through intellectual, creative and social events. A monthly 'bring and share' supper club involves us inviting regular customers to come and have a meal together. The regular programme of activities includes things like origami, a book club and live music and poetry. Much of it develops because someone enjoys doing a particular art or craft, for example, and they ask if they could do it in the café. We just say, 'Do it and see what happens'.

We have church every Wednesday night where we try different styles of worship and allow time for discussion after the teaching. Diversity in the worship is important because we don't want to be labelled as an evangelical church, a post-evangelical church, a charismatic church – or however people see us. We now have around 40 regular attenders, some of those that come regularly have either never gone to church before or have not been to church for a long time.

We are very much learning as we go along so some things have worked well; other things haven't worked at all. At one point we put out cards with discussion starter-type questions on them but when we got to our discussion time, everyone upped and walked out! We used to close the café on Wednesday nights and then open the place up again for church a short while later but that didn't feel right at all; now we stay open but tell everyone in the coffee shop, 'You are welcome to stay but, just to let you know that church will be happening here at 7.30'.

Kahaila is a 'crossing place' between Christians and non-Christians and, as a model, it demonstrates that the faith community (church) is at the centre of the café and all its activities. As a result, I feel like I have more significant conversations with people in one week than I had in one year working in a church building. What encourages me is that these conversations just happen by being available in the café. There have been so many examples of this, including a Muslim man from a neighbouring shop who came in and asked us to pray for him. So, in the middle of the café, we prayed God's blessing on him in the name of Jesus.

I always say that what we are doing here is exploring how we model a church that engages people; those people who see church as being a bit like a red telephone box – an amazing building that's part of our heritage. They'd never want it removed and they love to see it in the high street but they don't ever use it.

They look at church in the same way. They love the architecture, they love the fact that it's part of our British culture but it's not for them.

Another fantastic thing that we see happening is the effect on those working with us at Kahaila. We have a core team of about 20 and I believe that all of us are called to leadership in one form or another. Encouragement of young leaders is particularly important to me and we have seen many of them go much deeper in their discipleship; in their early 20s they are developing ministries to prostitutes in the area, to ex-offenders, to those in desperate need. My role involves looking at how I can release people into the calling that God has placed on them. They then go on to inspire others to do the same.

If I really empower and release them, I have to get out of the way – otherwise I cause a bottleneck in what God is doing in their lives. It's not that I, as a leader, don't get to live out my calling because the fullness of my calling involves creating a way forward for others.

Availability of Christians also plays a really important part in this. There is so much activity in churches which means that Christians, in many instances, are not available to meet non-Christians at all. On one Sunday a month we say to people, just go and be with your family and friends; be intentional about it. The café stays open but we give an opportunity for many of those involved to go elsewhere and they love that.

I don't see us as being 'radical' in any way I think we're just doing what Christians have always been called to do – which is to go. When the Spirit comes in power it sends us out. So we probably just need to get out of our churches a bit more and start meeting the people where they're at – rather than expecting them to come in to where we are.

As time goes on, the challenge will be that it's easy to try lots of different things when you're relatively small in number but when you get bigger, I think that becomes harder to hold. In a year's time we could be a church of 60-80 people so we'd then need a bigger space but if it means we move out of the café for church, then the danger is that we become a 'normal' church service somewhere.

The temptation is to pull back to what you know. Mission flows out of our Wednesday night gatherings; the aim is not to bring people to a service to be transformed but that significant discipleship can take place through relationship and community.

I do want to see big things for Kahaila but I think that would involve more of what we're doing already in different ways; we're looking at setting up a bakery so we'd then look at how we might do church in a bakery and at Kahaila. We want to plant out again because we believe Kahaila is having an effect; we have baptised people in the café and helped others on the road to faith.

Originally our aim was to reach those in their 20s and 30s but now many families come. How do we do Kahaila for adults and children? At the moment we are looking at the franchise model but remind ourselves that the vision is about reaching people for Christ; it's not about business.

Garden-City

Tim Nash is a pioneer minister with the Methodist Church's VentureFX pioneering ministries scheme. He, and his wife Hannah, have been developing a community called Garden-City for the past 18 months.

I started with VentureFX in September 2011 and am based in Sherwood, just north of Nottingham city centre. The first few months were a frustrating time as I was keen to do something; an event, a project, anything! Instead we sensed God calling us to let go of all our ideas, agendas and dreams and pray and discern what he was already doing in the area. So we prayer walked (and cycled) every street in the area a number of times, keeping our eyes and ears open to what God might be up to.

We slowly began to develop a picture of a place that was very open to spirituality, but one that at the same time was very suspicious of anything formal, organised, and in particular anything that appeared religious.

We then began to sense God giving us a way into this community. We felt God telling us to 'love your neighbour'. This took us by surprise a bit as it seemed so obvious, but we came to appreciate that there was something inauthentic about going out and about 'doing' mission in the area if we didn't even know the people we lived next door to. As a result we began to organise street parties and house parties for Christmas, Easter, the Jubilee or anything other excuse we could come up with. Then slowly we began to invite people round to explore spirituality in informal and creative ways.

Another thing we sensed quite strongly was the need to embody the gospel. Again we knew we were meant to do this, but we began to realise that in order to do this authentically we needed to open up our lives to the people around us. Although by nature, me and my wife are quite introverted and like our own space, we began to open ourselves up by making sure that at least three or four times a week we'd eat with other people, invite people to join us on holidays, invite people round for Christmas or to simply join in with whatever we were doing. We also learnt the importance of not trying to put a gloss on our lives, but to allow people to be a part of our struggles; our mourning as well as our celebrations. That's when people really seemed to be looking at what difference our faith made.

We also came to realise that in our particular context what we offered people needed to be experiential. As I spoke to people involved in the New Spiritualities, it was clear they were involved because of a spiritual encounter of some sort. I also met a number of people who had left the church to explore the New Spiritualities because they hadn't found a sense of an authentic, experiential spiritual journey in the church. So we began to create spaces for people to experience Jesus, regularly putting on creative, meditative evenings in our home, community centre and the pub. We've seen God use these spaces to touch people in really deep ways, even if their initial experience wasn't a positive one.

At one of our gatherings, for example, we took a small group of people through a guided meditation that ended by encouraging them to engage in a conversation with Jesus. One man, who had been brought along by his partner, began to experience a deep sense of darkness and fear. Rather than putting him off, however, this encounter with (what he described as) evil convinced him there must be something good and loving out there. All his previous intellectual objections to the faith disappeared and he began to pursue Jesus. We recently baptised him – just four months after that initial encounter.

We also quickly realised that we had to offer an holistic faith. Any hint of a sacred/secular divide was a big turn off for people. As we reflected on this we felt God draw our attention to Jesus's summary of the law as a framework for our faith journey – to love God (Father, Son and Spirit), to love ourselves (mind, body and spirit) and to love our neighbour (humans, animals and the Earth).

One of the many ways we've gone about expressing this is through sharing an allotment. Every weekend a group of us can be found there digging, weeding and planting, as we explore what it means to live more in tune with the seasons. The local allotment association has been so impressed with what we've been up to they're allowing us to turn another plot into a community garden to create a sense of community among the other allotment holders.

This journey has led to the formation of a community called Garden-City. We chose the name because humanity is said to have originated in a garden (Eden) and will find its fulfilment in a city (the New Jerusalem). We live in the 'in-between' time, the hyphen of Garden-City. It also seemed quite apt as our community lives in a city but we spent a lot of our free time in our garden/allotment.

There are 15 of us, plus children (and a small group of people still on the fringes checking us out). Although we're increasingly exploring the idea of mission as a community, our present growth seems to be happening through 'attractive discipleship', as people in our social networks show an interest in the lifestyle we're committing ourselves to.

We recently celebrated Garden-City's first birthday by going on a retreat for the day. To help us reflect on the journey we'd been on we made a timeline on which everyone wrote something about what being part of the community has meant to them. One of the main themes that emerged was people's thankfulness for the sense of family they've found in Garden-City. That was a sign to me that we are seeing a 'church' emerge – a Jesus-centred, spiritual family.

Although relationships are at the heart of Garden-City, a pattern of gatherings has emerged to help us on our discipleship journey.

On the first Monday of the month we all meet together in a pub function room to explore the life of Jesus. This is a very informal, discussion-based evening, where we look at an aspect of Jesus's life, and then commit ourselves to living it.

On the second Monday we meet in groups of twos or threes. This is where we get deeper into each other's lives, and hold each other accountable to loving God, loving ourselves and loving our neighbours.

On the third Monday we're all together again in the pub function room where we explore creative prayer and meditation. We've found this to be a good place to bring new people who are interested in exploring spirituality.

On the fourth Monday we meet in two groups to simply catch up, share how our journey is going, or to go deeper into any issues that have emerged at the previous gatherings.

We also all meet together one Sunday afternoon a month to share a meal.

What really strikes me as I look back over the last 18 months is that it is Jesus who is building this church. All we've done is commit ourselves to prayer and to giving ourselves to the people we've come into contact with, and sharing with them what Jesus has done for us. Out of this, Garden-City has emerged. That's not to say it hasn't been really hard work or that everything has been easy, we've certainly had our challenges, but there has been a very real sense that Jesus is going ahead of us, and we're simply trying to keep up!

Cringleford Community Project

Heather Cracknell, a pioneer curate near Norwich, is looking to establish a social enterprise café and community project on a new housing development. She hopes it will develop into a fresh expression.

Since I was ordained as a pioneer minister in 2011, the diocese of Norwich has encouraged me to explore what it means to be 'church' in an area of new housing.

Launched in June 2007, the Roundhouse Park development is on the outskirts of Norwich at Cringleford. Building work is still going and eventually there will be 1065 homes. In the next six to nine months there should be a school and eventually a community centre but, at the moment, there isn't a public place to meet at all.

I live in a house bought by the diocese at Roundhouse and my role is split between pioneering there and a traditional curacy in St Peter's Parish Church, Cringleford.

New housing areas are interesting because they have a very distinct culture and don't tend to integrate well with the villages around them. This is compounded at Roundhouse because the development is separated from Cringleford village by a dual carriageway so it's not easy to grow it as one community. Another factor is that the people moving to the new housing tend to be younger than those in the village. Cringleford is near the hospital, research park and university so the new development offers many young professionals and their families a more varied mix of housing.

I have been here for just over 20 months and, in that time, my priority has simply been to get to know as many people as possible. I started by having regular curry nights at my house and, from that, people would suggest different things we might do. This led to 'Stitch and Yarn' which involves people coming together for crochet, knitting or some sort of stitch craft; a cup of tea and a lot of chat. We've also had quizzes, running sessions, picnics and even a 'bake-off' around the kitchens of Roundhouse Park. We are trying to offer as diverse a range of activities as we can but we are still in quite an exploratory phase.

Once a fortnight I host something called Table. People come together for a meal and they're free to explore Christian faith in a safe space. We eat together, have a simple reflection (usually with bread and wine) and get to know each other.

It's so important to try and discern what people are concerned about in the area rather than make any assumptions as to what you think they are concerned about! As part of that, we launched an online community survey in the autumn to find out more about what people wanted and why. The idea was that it would encourage increasing numbers of people to get involved in building community spirit.

We also used the survey to suggest the idea of creating a community project. This involves setting up and running a cafe to provide a place for people to go, spend time with friends, meet others and join in with community activities. It's good to try and get feedback on something like that because there's no point doing something that people don't want in the first place!

The café would not only provide a physical focus for activities but, from the very start, be a spiritual hub. For us it's very important that Christian contemplative prayer and prayer stations of some sort would be 'built into' the rhythm of all activities there to give people the chance to explore Christian spirituality in a very familiar setting. It would be part and parcel of what's available and should beg the questions, 'What does it mean to live well? What would that mean to a community of people exploring faith together, meeting in a café space or school?'

The exciting thing is that we already have the embryo of that community at The Table. We are small in number but I can see the beginnings of a prayerful and supportive group of people.

St Peter's Church is fantastically supportive of what I'm doing on the Roundhouse and they have given me time for that. They also recently launched an appeal for various things associated with mission at the church, including updating of the church hall – and my community café project. If the fundraising goes well, then we will go out and find some match funding.

I have been very clear with St Peter's right from the beginning that the Roundhouse work is not about getting people to come along to the traditional church; some may well want to do that and I'd be delighted if they did but that's not the purpose of developing community in the new housing area.

As a giving, supporting, encouraging new community of faith is formed at Roundhouse; that will be 'proper church' too.

It's taking time to develop a team to help me with what's developing at Roundhouse, and a number of local people are involved in helping create the community project planning. They're not necessarily involved in the parish church but they all have a heart for doing something in, and for, community.

I'm trying my very best to create a team but young professionals are understandably very busy. Many of them have got young babies or they're working full time, are in the process of setting up their own businesses, or work irregular shifts – so I am still doing most of the work on my own but I don't think there's any way round that at the moment.

This is an unusual area in that – although we have a German Lutheran congregation which meets at St Peter's – we do not have another church, of any denomination, in our parish. We are fortunate in that we have had some great support from Methodists who are not too far away and they have helped me to link up with regional Methodist projects, but there is no other Christian community on the doorstep.

Officially I have two-and-a-half years to go here but I hope I would be able to stay on as an associate priest licensed to the newer church. I don't know yet whether it will be a BMO but my aim would be to stay on in order to see it through because it is now generally recognised that seven years is the minimum time required to make something sustainable. We'll see!

The Gate Faith Community

Baptist minister James Karran is looking to develop a new monastic community at a Cardiff arts centre. He tells the story so far.

I used to be part of a fresh expression called Solace, a bar church in Cardiff that I started with Church Army officer Wendy Sanderson in 2007. Sadly, Solace came to an end four years later but what didn't come to an end was my vision of incarnational Christian communities that meet in pubs!

The idea of setting up a new monastic community was inspired by a retreat I went on to The Northumbria Community in August 2011 at a time when I was considering where God was leading me next. While there I was thoroughly impressed by the type of community they modelled: namely one defined by openness, acceptance – and, most of all – hospitality. It was this coupled with a long-standing desire of mine to see pubs and bars in Britain 'redeemed' from the bad reputation they currently have that led me to the concept of a new monastic community that was based in a pub or bar.

After the initial inspiration, I began prayerfully pushing doors and this led me to a conversation with the executive director of The Gate Arts Centre in Cardiff, Paul Hocking. Paul, a retired evangelical minister, shared the same vision for authentic, hospitable and incarnational Christian community. The idea of starting a new monastic community at The Gate emerged out of this conversation and the proverbial ball started rolling.

The Gate is perfectly situated to be the soil in which a new monastic community could grow because it has all the key elements – a good reputation, people who regularly come in, existing Christian connections and a bar! There are also amazing opportunities for ministry amongst the groups already connected with the venue.

We had our first community meeting in September 2012 and there were five of us, none of whom really knew each other or had much of an idea of how this would work. All were Christians, but mainly Christians who had been wounded by – or else fallen away from – mainstream church in the past. Since then we have grown to 11 members; some are already followers of Jesus but others have never been to church in their life before. We are currently developing a rhythm of prayer and a 'way of life' for the community to live by, as well as learning in general what it means to be a community of spiritual pilgrims who come from diverse backgrounds.

Our meetings take place on Sunday afternoons at 4.30pm in the Cafe Bar of The Gate and they are always based around a meal. We each contribute an item of food and fit in elements of worship, prayer and reflection around our eating, laughing and chatting together. In this, the meetings resemble something of the Sedar meal of Jewish tradition. The meal element is extremely important and illustrates the emphasis on hospitality that we want to place. Jesus is the ultimate host, inviting us into the great celebration of his resurrection, and we want to incarnate this in the small corner of the world God has placed us in. In this way, the meal also becomes central to our understanding of outreach.

As a community we live by a code of three principles:

learn from Jesus as best we can – become an apprentice;

serve others selflessly – become a host;

never judge anyone for where they are on their own life journeys but to help them discover where God is leading them to next. – become a pilgrim.

This whole venture is non-stipendiary so I have no regular income though I do run a tentmaking enterprise called Solace Ministries – as part of which I conduct religious and civil weddings, blessings and funerals. I am still exploring a vision in the longer term to see a new monastic community that is based in, owns and runs a cafe bar/pub. The 'abbey' or 'Monastery Pub' would be a home, hub and base for the community, providing a centre for meeting, mission and ministry. It would provide a centre to go out from and come home to.

A number of 'new monastic communities' in Britain are geographically dispersed but bound together by a common rule and set of core values. The community I envisage would be of this type. Some members would (by necessity) be geographically located in proximity to the 'abbey', but many others would be elsewhere and find their sense of identity through adopting the community's 'way of life', taking an avid and prayerful interest in the life of the community and 'returning home' to the abbey for family worship celebrations at certain important seasons during the year.

As well as the dispersed community, eventually local communities would be established around the country for localised accountability, prayer support and worship. These smaller communities, known as 'cellae', would be bound together and to the larger community by the way of life, but would also undertake pilgrimages to the abbey at certain times. Establishing these local discipleship communities would be the primary focus for the community's missionary activity.

A Moveable Feast

Rev Jane Gerdsen, Missioner for fresh expressions in the Diocese of southern Ohio, tells of A Moveable Feast in Cincinnati.

It's a Wednesday night at 6.30pm and about 25 mostly young adults are gathered in a room in the back of a coffee shop, bringing dishes to share and talking informally in groups.

After a blessing for the food, we sit around a couple of tables to discuss hospitality: when have you been a host and when have you hosted others? We share stories of inviting friends to see us, of being welcomed into someone's home as a stranger, and wonder together what hospitality looks, tastes, and smells like. Following the dinner conversations, we gather in a circle and share what we had heard while at the table together.

We remember that God shows up in the most unexpected places, inviting us to feast on His word and presence in community – around the dinner table, in a coffee shop or in the sanctuary of an old church. We realise that the act of being the church, God’s community in our time, isn't limited to a place, or a day or a time – but is a way of life.

This is a Moveable Feast, an informal gathering to discuss God, spirituality, religion, faith, life, work, and culture. These gatherings can take place in people's homes, pubs, coffee shops, parks, studios, or other locations. Moveable Feast conversations are a place to ask questions and explore our faith lives in community.

In collaboration with the Rev Beth Turner from the Diocese of Western North Carolina – who created and is currently hosting several feast communities in that diocese – we are experimenting and adapting their model for use here in southern Ohio. Beth's vision was for Eucharistic communities of practice, in her case aimed at young adults, but hosted by churches or older adults in their homes or other community gathering places. She agreed that I might try to host some feasts in Ohio.

My first purpose was also to meet the needs of young adults I knew or met who were dissatisfied with church community. We had tried a few different things, emergent worship, pub theology, something I called a Sinner Dinner at a local YMCA but it seemed that:

pub theology limited us to people who liked to drink and wanted intellectual conversation;

a worship group self-selected around people who were drawn to creative worship but lacked a community building conversation piece.

Since we started in September last year we have hosted in different locations each time. The feasts have tended to be hosted by me as the missioner and I have partnered with a young adult to think of a location, theme, and how to structure the conversation.

But it is important to say that while created with – and for – young adults, A Moveable Feast is for all who are seeking a deeper relationship with God. Everyone is invited to participate and we hope the feasts will be intentionally intergenerational because Moveable Feasts hope to create 'communities of practice' and places for imagining a new way to be church.

So far our first few feast dinners have taken place in Cincinnati, but we are looking to find partners who would be interested in hosting a feast community in other places around the diocese. Feasts could be sponsored by a parish or a small group, but they are especially intended to foster community with people who are currently unaffiliated with a traditional church community. The feasts are – at their simplest level – a dinner and conversation but they are also intentionally sacramental Eucharistic communities exploring how to engage God’s mission in the world.

Beth and I see these feast communities as possibly growing into 'church' or Christian 'communities of practice' (which is the language I have been using to hold space for people for whom church is problematic). Some of our young adults are engaged in 'traditional church communities' but come to the feasts for the conversation and sense of community. We also have people who don't go to any church and probably won't. So, in that way, they are church in their own right.

We have been meeting once a month but I dream that they might meet more frequently. Many of our people are in multiple circles of relationships – intentional communities, neo-monastics, Bible study in a coffee shop, an emergent worship cohort, or other small groups. So this is currently filling one piece of a broader picture of fresh expressions. We will see what happens as to whether there is need or desire for these communities to grow or change going forward.

Moveable Feasts allow us to honour the sacramental nature of our tradition but they feel like dinner with friends. They have also pushed people to see 'church' as something that could happen anywhere not just in holy places. I think the conversation of consequence around a shared meal seems to fit a longing that hadn't been tapped by other groups.

At the moment I think we seem to be drawing de-churched people or people who attend church irregularly or are not entirely satisfied with their church communities for some reason. I hope that our fresh expression's work will result in us building relationships with people who have no connection to church at all. I feel the Spirit slowly pulling us deeper in that direction.