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Red Church

Ben Dyer tells of the development of a missional community of young adults in Ormskirk.

It is almost two-and-a-half years since my wife, Bethany, and I made the move from York to Ormskirk. I had been part of the leadership team of a church plant from St Michael le Belfrey called Conversations; this was aimed at 18-30s and we met in a bar each week. When that came to an end after five years, I told God, 'I'm never doing church leadership again. It is far too hard work and stressful'. That was in February 2012 but by April/May I felt that God wanted me to be in church leadership again!

After various conversations, we came to Ormskirk Deanery where they wanted 'something for young adults'. I subsequently had a formal interview with the Deanery and they offered me the job with a five-year contract.

Why Red Church? In some Bibles, the words of Jesus are written in red, which stands for what Jesus said. Red is symbolic of the blood of Jesus, which stands for what Jesus did. Lastly, red is short for redemption, which stands for what it means to us. People often ask why we are called 'Red Church' and in our answer we can often tell people the good news of Jesus through just explaining our name. I joke with people that it's also because we are all supporters of Manchester United! However, this is a dangerous thing to say in an area where most football fans would say they follow Liverpool or Everton.

I started here in January 2013 and, for the first three months; I basically tried to evaluate the situation. As part of that, I met every single vicar in the Deanery and lots of people in the diocese, including young adults in churches – and not in churches – to see what was going on. Then I presented a vision and a strategy to the Deanery with what I felt God was saying about how we connect with young adults in the area, help them come to know Jesus, and love the church.

There are 18 churches in the Deanery and it is predominantly rural but then we also have a few densely populated urban areas. In York there had been many young adults who were very gifted, very mature in their faith and keen to get involved in things. I came with the same expectations to Ormskirk but soon realised that this was a very different place.

I have found a lot of people who go through youth groups at church but seem to fall off the radar somewhere between 16 and 18. Even if they are living in their home town and have grown up in the church – and actually quite like God, and call themselves a Christian – they haven't managed to engage with church.

The original plan was that we would get together 15-20 young adults in some sort of gathering and attract other people to that. The only problem was that in six months we only managed to find two other people willing to be part of Red Church. So, we then formed a group of the four of us and we'd meet once a week in our house to read the Bible and pray a bit. There were hardly any young adults in local churches. In terms of disillusioned 18-30s, in all 18 churches, I'd say there was under 20 young adults committed to church.

After losing hope, more people started coming along to our house! In June 2013, we had four and by August we had twelve. Sometimes it would be people I came across who were disillusioned with church. One young woman invited a friend who had never been to church at all; she in turn brought along someone else who had no church background either! Some of the people had been in church all their lives but still didn't find themselves loving church.

It was very relaxed, we often watched a Nooma DVD, we'd chat what it was about, find out what was happening in people's lives and pray for each other. It wasn't intense 'Jesus-ness', it was just getting to know each other.

I decided it would be good to do an Alpha course and, because we had outgrown our living room, we decided to move it to a public venue. In September 2013 we set it up in a local bar and ran an Alpha. In my opinion it didn't go very well. We ran the course until Christmas but had a drop-off in terms of attendance every week.

At the same time, we launched a football team which trains at Edge Hill University, Ormskirk. Our football team plays in the South Manchester and Cheshire Christian Football League and 90% of those involved have no experience of church. Most of the guys who come along have been invited by their friends.

The fact is that, for most people, coming to know Jesus is a long-term thing. The message we want to give is, 'We're not asking you to say "yes" or "no" to the Christian faith within a certain timeframe; you can just belong with us in some sort of community'.

We believe church is fundamentally about relationships. Relationships with others and a relationship with God. How we 'do church'/our strategy is based on the idea that people generally move forward in their journey with God within community rather than outside it. Our church strategy has five levels with each level looking to attract different people and have a different intensity of 'Jesus-ness'. Our five levels are:

Our lowest level of 'Jesus-ness' is activity-based small groups. We think people generally form friendships and community more naturally and quickly while they are doing something together. We don't shove Jesus down people's throats, we just hang out and become friends. Whether that is through our football team, film club or girls/guys nights – they all bring people together and start friendships.

Red Group is where we introduce Jesus more intentionally. It's still very social but it all relates to Jesus. Red Group takes place every Tuesday evening at a coffee shop in Ormskirk. We generally play a silly game, show a Nooma DVD, or someone may tell their testimony for 5 or 10 minutes. People can ask questions, we have a chat and leave. We don't tell people you have to believe anything, but we introduce people to the idea of faith gently.

An Alpha course. That's where we can explore who Jesus is, why he died and what it means for me. We haven't run an Alpha course since 2013 but we plan to run another one soon. My motto is 'Make It Easy for Yourself' (I have to fight against perfectionism) so we are going to use the Alpha Express shortened videos. I feel Alpha is more about the relationships we have with the people and how the discussion groups are led, rather than giving live talks.

A service where we can encourage and challenge each other, while giving people an opportunity to connect with God. Red Church runs its service every Sunday at 4pm in Ormskirk School, it is not wacky or weird, it has all the main elements of a standard service but in a very contemporary and relaxed way. From 4-4.15 we have drink and doughnuts. At 4.15 we have a game, notices, worship slot, talk and reflection, which is maybe a video or a poem to give people space and time to reflect on the talk or their week.

Our deepest level of 'Jesus-ness' used to be a mentoring network, but this just changed to small groups because creating a mentoring networks turned out to be a logistical nightmare! We share a meal together, open the Bible, talk about the stuff going on in our life, and pray.

People can plug in to whatever 'level' they want, if people want to come to football for the rest of their life they are very welcome to be part of us at that level. However, the hope is that as people build relationships and hopefully become interested in God they will begin to move through the different levels.

On top of this, we also have a prayer meeting in a coffee shop at the University on a Thursday evening and we are trying to grow leaders from within our ranks through running the Growing Leaders' course. We currently have 8 leaders, all of whom are at different stages on their journey with God, but we are trying to grow and develop.

We have had a lot of encouragement from the Diocese and most people in the Deanery have been happy with how Red Church is developing, I think one of the reasons for that is for the most part we are not 'competing' with any other church. When I moved here I was shocked to find out most of the students from Edge Hill Uni were going to churches in Liverpool because they didn't find a church in Ormskirk where they felt at home – so it has been good to be able to offer them a spiritual 'home' on their doorstep.

I would say one of the challenges, as a lay pioneer minister, is administration of the Sacraments. That is still being worked out but I pray it will be considered by the Church as a whole because if we are a growing, functioning, worshipping, Christian community we must navigate any obstacles in the way of people's walk with God. It is a major issue.

Giving has been part and parcel of what we do right from the start but it is much easier to deal with the finances now because the Deanery has now set up its own charity for Red Church.

I'm fortunate in that I don't feel isolated in my ministry, which pioneers can often feel (although vicars serving in traditional churches can often feel the same). I think Liverpool Diocese has done a great job in terms of general support and creating accountability – and I am now an Associate in The Joshua Centre. They do recognise that pioneers need a lot of support, but I'm of the opinion that if you want/need support, it is also your responsibility to create your own.

I see massive opportunity in working with young adults. They are very open to the idea of spirituality, God and real community – not what they see as 'fake' community – but they are sometimes closed to the idea of traditional church. I meet a lot of young adults who are lonely and are earnestly searching for meaning in their life and I feel the church can offer them both real community and answers to some of their deep questions.

I'm an incredibly excited about continuing to see God work in Ormskirk and the surrounding area and I hope that Red Church will still be helping people discover Jesus and church in 50 years' time.

The Way

Matthew Firth and Andy Dykes tell how a dual ministry in Cumbria is affecting the lives of growing numbers of young adults.

Matthew Firth: I am chaplain to the University of Cumbria and minister of The Way church for young adults aged 18 to 30. I work full-time in this dual role, half with the university and half with the Diocese of Carlisle. They had worked together to form the job description identifying these two distinct parts of my ministry and – as a far as I'm aware – it is a unique appointment in the way it is framed.

My role with the University involves the pastoral care of students and staff; I also oversee chapel worship and provide opportunities for people to explore the Christian faith. The diocesan job focuses on the planting and growing of this new church in Carlisle with the aim of reaching out to people in what’s known as the missing generation, the 18-30s.

I'm now coming up to two years in the role. The first year was a learning curve of finding out how the University works, getting to know what had previously taken place through the chaplaincy and looking at how things might develop – and also appointing an intern. Andy took on that internship in September 2013 and a lot of the work has taken off since then, including that of our fresh expression, called The Way. That had started to take shape about a year ago and we are still in the very early stages but there are now signs of things moving forward.

Within the field of university chaplaincy, I find that some chaplains want to reach out evangelistically but a lot don't – some because they feel a bit hampered, maybe because of a strong secular atmosphere in their universities, but others because they feel that chaplaincy is, first and foremost, about pastoral care.

It's up to individual chaplains to say that, for them, it's also about personal evangelism. For me, it was a different situation because my role was set up with a clear evangelistic aspect – it's something that I not only believe in but it was also written into my contract of employment within the dual role.

There are two very distinct roles but one person was appointed for both and it was made clear right from the start that I would be looking at ways in which we can do chaplaincy in a pioneering way.

Looking ahead, we're very much hoping that Andy's role will be able to transition into a role for a Young Adults Missioner when the internship comes to an end.

We're so grateful for all that we've seen God doing here so far, especially with the Student Dinners project. Originally started by a local YWAM team, I got involved when they decided to pass on that mission work to us as a chaplaincy team. The dinners, where food is available for £1, attract about 50-60 students each week.

Very early on out of that we did a Student Alpha Course that attracted a little group of students who said, 'What are we doing next?' They started to meet at my house and now we have The Way on Wednesday, after the dinners, so that people can get together and have the chance to learn and discuss together.

There's now a whole network of friendship and relationship where we can share life with young adults and have lots of one-to-one meet ups. I can't report major conversions but we have seen signs of God moving in people’s lives and what we have experienced is a sense in which there is a lot of digging of the ground and getting people on the journey and on the road to discipleship.

From September, we're also planning to get together on Sunday evenings to learn and worship as a church.

Andy Dykes: I was previously working for a church in Montreal but I had been thinking that church planting was what I was called to. The opportunity in Carlisle to do work with something in its infancy was appealing. I really liked the thought of being involved right at the start of its formation. There are lots of opportunities to get stuck in and see how things progress and lots of opportunities too to be creative.

We have got some kind of solid base of students but now we're looking at the whole issue of sustainability and how this work expands to include non-students. So far our involvement with non-students has been almost coincidental. I have been trying to get to know these young adults and develop something but of course I’m employed by the University so there's a balance to be had there.

I'm trying to raise funding at the moment so that I can stay on in a new role where I can be be more intentional with non-students. I guess the plan would be to piggy back more and more on a base of student work because I feel like there is a bit of community there.

As we've been thinking about how to reach out more widely, we also have to not lose sight of our student base. It's a bit of a balancing act. A significant thing is to continue to build contact with first year students coming in because otherwise, if we neglect that, we would be on the back foot and trying to play catch-up all the time. It's vital to establish relationships with new people but keep on looking to develop and deepen those already there.

We've been looking at the possibility of getting some kind of city centre venue, maybe a café, to give us a bit of stability outside the university. Financially, and in terms of turnover of people, it may offer wider scope as we develop the work.

Matthew Firth: One of the real challengesis to know how to take these 18-30s from not having any relationship with Jesus or the church to being convinced by the gospel and saying, 'Yes, I'm a Christian'. The Student Dinners have worked really well, and they're still at the core of what we do, but we now need to see the next stage with increasing numbers of people translating their experience into an ongoing relationship with Jesus.

There's a real mixture of people in our community. Some come from church families and know the 'language' to it all; others have very little understanding and background, with only a basic knowledge about some of the stories in the Bible.

A big challenge is to walk the tightrope that this dual role creates in that we are doing this in collaboration with the chaplaincy of the University of Cumbria. It's a Church of England foundation university but, like most public institutions, a secular approach has to be wisely worked with and navigated. We also have to be aware that a specifically evangelistic element is a new thing within the chaplaincy, so questions about that have to be creatively navigated too.

Another challenge is how this sort of ministry is perceived by the wider church. As with all fresh expressions work, you tend to get a dynamic where other local churches and ministers may not recognise what you are doing as church. I think it's important to keep remembering that the church is not the kingdom; it's the vehicle of the kingdom.

What I also have to keep in mind is that half of my role is paid for by Carlisle Deanery through the giving of local church members. I make sure that I offer plenty of opportunity for others to explore, and see what I'm doing in trying to pastor and reach out and share the gospel with 18-30s.

Deeper Network Church

Andy Poultney is minister-in-charge of Deeper Network Church, based in what was a restaurant on Romford High Street.

Deeper Network Church originated as 'Deeper' six years ago at St James', Collier Row, with St John's, Havering-Atte-Bower. Deeper, a fresh expression of church, came together as I began serving as curate with a bunch of young adults; my plan was simply to see what God was doing and join in with it.

Following much discussion and prayer, we decided that we wanted to focus on other young adults in the pub and club culture of central Romford. Night-time economy is important here; about 10,000 to 12,000 people descend on the local pubs and clubs every weekend.

We had great support from the community of St James' and St John's and the result was that we launched The Deeper Lounge as a safe space, in Romford's market place, on Friday nights. It started in December 2009 and it has continued to run most weeks; we have served many hundreds of cups of tea and coffee since then and – more importantly – met some great people and had some great chats.

Working alongside Street Pastors, we set up under one of the market stalls and operated from there. After a while, the local authority recognised that we were providing a valuable service and wanted to help us a little more so they bought us a large, pop-up gazebo. It was about a year ago that we moved to a prime spot and now we regularly see about 100 people a night.

I'm part of The Order of Mission and, using missional community 'language', I was – by this stage – beginning to think about what was to happen next because the end of my curacy was on the horizon. The Friday nights were going well and there was also a youth project called DIY (Deeply Impacting Youth) which was engaging with about 60-70 young people.

There was a very strong sense that if we moved away, the work was not yet strong enough to be led by anybody else, and in 2012 we felt God was calling us to become a permanent presence in central Romford rather than just dipping in and out.

In April 2013, ten of us were released from St James' and St John's in order to establish a new worshipping community known as Deeper Network Church. Our office base, and home to lots of what we do now, is called The Deeper Lounge and it's on the high street in Romford.

It's owned by the London Borough of Havering and we rent it from them. It used to be an Afro-Caribbean restaurant but the building has been gutted at a cost of £50,000. It's always incredible to see what God can do, time and time again I've been in the building while work has been going on and as people walk past, one in five will stop and ask what is going on. It offers a natural opportunity to get into conversations with all sorts of people. We applied to the Mission Opportunities Fund to cover our salary costs but money is tight and we are living by faith beyond 2014.

The Diocese of Chelmsford granted us a Bishop's Mission Order and this has been important in how we, and others, view the work. When talking about The Deeper Lounge I like to say, 'this is not a youth centre, it's not a community centre, I want to start calling it home – to us that home is a church'. It's a venue and the idea is that we will continue to do a lot of outward focused work and to engage with mission with different community groups.

We have got a reception area, a coffee shop-sized space, a small kitchen, an office and a prayer room. The plan after Easter is to do a bit of everything in this space, including activities for young people, homeless people and parents. Deeper Network Church will develop for all these different people groups.

Part of my previous role was to act as youth adviser to the bishop but I am now stopping that work as my wife and I will be moving into a community house because I'm becoming Young Vocations Champion for the diocese. This will involve mentoring interns and four guys will live with us and take on placements.

Basically, everything that we do begins with service. When we're out under the gazebo speaking to young people late at night at Friday, we'll say, 'would you like a free tea or coffee?' Generally the third or fourth question people ask is, 'why are you doing this?' You tell them and we get varying responses: from complete disbelief to 'oh, that's cute' or similar.

Everything we do is to move on conversations and relationships from 'Oh cute' to our vision of deepening life together as disciples of Jesus Christ. That can be a real challenge but there's nothing else I'd rather do.

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.

Soul Space

Soul Space is an initiative to engage with people interested in Mind, Body and Spirit fairs. URC Emerging Church Pioneer Tim Yau and Anglican Ordained Pioneer Minister Hannah Deaves tell the story so far.

Hannah begins:

I lead a small new monastic missional community called Morph Community. This was formed in 2000 by a group of people in their 20s and 30s who were on the fringes of, or who had left, the church.

The community has 'morphed' a great deal over the years, eventually becoming an alternative worship community of people of all ages who felt a sense of mission to both church leavers and spiritual seekers. However, for the most part we found the people we connected with were church leavers and that it was quite difficult to connect with spiritual seekers.

We began to feel more challenged about mission to those seekers and in January 2011 we had a prayer evening to really focus on where God might be calling us in mission. We spent some time exploring our local context, looking at where spiritual seekers were, who were the people attending local Mind, Body and Spirit Fairs and who might be the people we could join with in this mission.

From this, a team of people were gathered together from churches across Ipswich and the Morph Community and we began to meet and explore together. We were aware of the rise in interest in spirituality which suggests more than three quarters of the population would admit to having a spiritual experience – so the people we are connecting with are maybe most accurately described not as 'spiritual seekers' but as 'spiritually open' and seeking wholeness, healing or connection.

Now we are in a community café as Soul Space – offering card readings [see below], meditations and generally just being there and listening to people. As to where this will lead I don't know. We hope that by always being able to tell people when we will be there again and by advertising in the town, people might begin to return and relationships be formed over time.

What opportunities for Christian discipleship might these fairs lead on to? The team at the fairs meet together after each event to discuss if any interest in further contact was expressed, and if so what type of follow-up might be most appropriate.

From these discussions it might be that we hold other more regular events, such as meditation courses, therapy nights, discussion/social/card reading evenings in a pub – or perhaps something completely different will emerge as a way to enable people to explore further. It could be in the development of web-based resources that people could dip in and out of, or meditation cards and objects for people to take home from the fairs. These could well provide on-going prompts for contact points with God. Many will possibly not want further contact other than perhaps attending a future fair, but – over a long period of time – if people keep coming, relationships might be built up and an interest in more regular points of contact might be expressed.

Tim continues:

Our first Soul Space took place in January 2013 and our intention is that it will welcome people of all backgrounds and beliefs to find space, stillness, refreshment and insight at a Christ-centred holistic spirituality event.

Mind, Body and Spirit Fairs are alternative spirituality events where you would find tarot card readers, reiki healing, and crystal therapists. We want to tap into that interest in spirituality to point people towards Christ and, hopefully, develop community through that.

The Soul Space team involves people from different churches across Ipswich, including myself, Hannah – as an Anglican self-supporting Ordained Pioneer Minister, a parish evangelist, a trainee congregational church minister, several people from Morph, and the leader of Ipswich in Prayer (an ecumenical prayer network). We are a diverse bunch and have all brought different experiences and perspectives to the planning table.

On the day of our pilot event in January we ran three 'stations' in the St Lawrence Centre, a redundant church turned community café space in Ipswich town centre.

a rolling presentation of images and quotations on the theme of uniqueness;

a table with meditation cards where two of the team were inviting and guiding people on the principles of Christian meditation;

Ruach insight card readings. To the uninitiated, these may look like tarot but they are simply images that encourage people to open up and relate their life story to the cards they choose, leading into prayer if the participant wishes.

After a slow start, footfall picked up and 10 people came for card readings with very positive responses. Hopefully this is the beginning of a journey that will reach out to people in Ipswich who may never have looked for answers in the Church or the Christian faith. We don't know where this journey will eventually lead but my hope is that a new Christian community would form out of the relationships that we begin to build through these events.

Our second event on in April went very well. Many were blessed through the pamper table and the mirrors meditation on that table – as well as the free samples provided by The Body Shop and Lush. We also had Blessing Teas and Colouring Meditation sheets. There were many good contacts and conversations made. All 200 flyers were given out; we did 17 card readings and most of these people agreed to be prayed for.

At this event we also introduced The Jesus Deck of cards; this provided a useful tool for speaking to people one-to-one about Jesus in a flexible and accessible way.

Our next event is booked for July 13 from 11am to 3pm.

Heathfield cafechurch

Plans for a cafechurch came about through Churches Together in Heathfield and District, East Sussex. Follow their journey as they prepare for 'opening night' on Friday 26th April 2013.

It was a coming together of ideas when a Costa Coffee shop opened in Heathfield High Street and cafechurch network advertised a training day in the area.

Members of the 12 churches represented in Churches Together in Heathfield and District wanted to find out more about what might be possible as a result of these two 'coincidental' events. Three people attended the Network's training day last year and were inspired to look at building on what had already been happening in the community.

Five years previously, Churches Together in Heathfield and District had set up a Street Pastors initiative under the auspices of the Ascension Trust which initiated the national Street Pastor movement. The small town does not have late night bars or clubs but it was suffering increased levels of vandalism. Street Pastors started to be available in and around the town's car parks, skate park, playgrounds and streets from early evenings on Fridays. They built up good relationships with the teenagers and young adults they came across and started to ask, 'but what happens next? How can we reach these people we wouldn't normally reach from our own church settings?'

The cafechurch is now seen as the next move in these ongoing relationships with individuals – and the wider community.

In November 2012, 130 people attended a Churches Together supper at the Beehive pub, Heathfield, when Sue Mumford – one of the cafechurch planning group – spoke about the vision surrounding its launch. More than 20 people signed up to be involved.

The cafechurch is focusing on attracting 18 to 35-year-olds though all ages will be welcome if they are looking to engage with a new form of church.

Sue Mumford says,

Heathfield is a lovely town but there is very little for teenagers to do here and our churches are sadly lacking in young people. We realised that it was right to try and go to them rather than sit back and hope they would come to us. We have listened to what they have told us and – through prayer – we believe it's right for us to step out in faith in this way.

We have no idea what will happen but we just have to make a start.

Keith Miller, another of the planning group, adds,

If you have never been involved in church, going into a church building is quite an ordeal. A coffee shop, on the other hand, is a very familiar, very safe, very relaxed environment. This may provide a step towards church – or it may not. It may lead to a new way of doing church or it may fade away. We'll have to wait and see.

We are fortunate to have several, very good independent coffee shops in the town,

comments George Dearsley, Vice-Moderator of Churches Together in Heathfield and District,

but they were a little too small for what was needed to get this off the ground. We have already seen that the teenagers and young adults are accustomed to going to Costa – but, personally, we'll certainly continue to make good use of all of the coffee shops in Heathfield.

A coordinator provides prayer backing, both in the development of prayer partners in each of the link churches involved and on site. A 'dress rehearsal' for young people from local churches was held last week in order to give the planning group an idea of timings and practicalities.

Friday's session will run from 7pm (for 7.30pm start) until 9pm. Watch this space…

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.

LINK

A waterfront café in Ipswich has become home to a community of people keen to develop faith and friendship. One of LINK's organisers, Roger Eyre, explains more.

I wasn't around at the beginning – about four years ago – but LINK founders Dan Jolley and Scott Huntly had a vision to do some sort of cafe project. They wanted to reach out into the community and be very relationship and community focused, providing a place where non-Christians would feel very welcome.

I got involved when Heart for Ipswich contacted me. This group aims to link Christians from many different churches to work together more closely to help meet the social and spiritual needs of the people of Ipswich. It is run on a voluntary basis by a small team of lay people. Heart For Ipswich got in touch to tell me about this new café project idea. My vision had been about putting music into cafés and using it as a way of outreach. In spite of living in the same town, I didn't know the other guys at all so it was important to hear from an organisation who had an overview of everything that was happening. We spent three or four months getting to know each other; we became friends and spent a lot of time together after which it became clear that we very much wanted to develop a Christian project based on relationship.

At first we thought it might be a stepping stone for people moving on to church but we quickly realised that the sort of church our community now called LINK would be prepared to go to didn't really exist. For a handful of people I'd say that LINK is their only contact with Christians and they consider it as a place where you can discuss all sorts of things; however they probably wouldn't describe it as church.

We are not trying to do church in a café as such but two people have come to faith through a journey which included LINK. There are others who have definitely made enquiries and are searching. The good thing is that LINK has reached deep into people's lives and relationships have been sustained over three years.

The experience brought by people to the team is very important. There's a wide variety, such as people who have led youth work in churches and a teacher – while I've done a lot of music events and gigging. Some of us have been brought up in church and had a very purposeful vision for what we are doing; namely reaching people who felt they could not walk into a church building and also providing a place for Christians who had been hurt by church in the past. They still had belief but did not want to be part of religion.

We started to form connections with people and things have just grown organically. We usually plan no more than 2-3 meetings ahead and our LINK nights are primarily music-focused with opportunities for discussion. One of the key things that we have is unity across denominations in the team and those that attend. This is also how we draw our governance, from a group of wiser Christians from different church traditions. They are also people who have held a lot of responsibility either in church or in business.

LINK is widely known in Christian circles in the town. We did operate weekly for about two and a half years but there is only so much a small team can do. We now run from 7pm to 9pm on the first Monday of the month, at Coffeelink café on the Ipswich Waterfront. It has been quite a roller coaster ride along the way. People will turn up at any time between 7 and 7.30pm, then we have some light music or it may be a full gig night. Otherwise we might have a talk or some sort of 'interview' with different contributors. We also do practical stuff as well; a local charity might come in and give a talk on their work or a particular challenge they're facing and we will give them some ideas. The networking side of things is important as well. There is always more than one thing going on; we don’t want to just put on music events.

We were also looking at ways of anonymously requesting prayer or asking questions. We'd seen the Post It idea done many times in other organisations when people come up with ideas by sticking the notes all over a wall so we did it at LINK and it was a great way for people to find out more or ask for support without putting themselves in the spotlight.

We have had about 50-60 people, on a few occasions nearly 100 people turn up. Now we have anywhere between 10 and 50 depending on the night; we had a massive peak of initial interest, then things tailed off before climbing back again to reach the plateau where we are now.

Our age range is anywhere between 18 and 60-65 though primarily it's people in their 20s and 30s. It's a blessing to us but we don't pitch it for a particular age group. We don't particularly want under-18s to come because most churches are well equipped with groups for that age.

We are right in town next to the new University Campus Suffolk. We now have pioneer minister Tim Yau working with us, the only ordained person on the team, and we're hoping he will be able to get to know people at the university and develop contacts.

Apart from Tim, we are all lay people with full-time jobs. We have all held, or hold, responsibility within church but not as a pastor or elder. LINK is not led by ordained leadership and we do not affiliate to any one Christian denomination.

I know lots of people who lead but they are not paid pastors; they have full time jobs and they still do church and that's a great model. If someone has worked recently then they are 'real', they understand the current job market and the pain and the politics of work. I think that's a good thing and should be encouraged.

One of the biggest things for the future is for churches to learn to put aside differences and work together. In some cases they have to be prepared to sacrifice their own personal goals for a joint goal. Sadly there are some people who still want to do their own thing; they want to have their church brand on it and not work across churches.

But when you are prepared to take a risk together it can lead to wonderful things. We had a community waterfront festival in Ipswich near the beginning of LINK, three years ago, when we wanted to make LINK known a little more. We thought, 'Why don't we go there and take our lounge out to the people instead of waiting for them to come to us?' So we took our sofas, a lamp, table, and boxes of pizza and cake down to the waterfront. It was great.

The café where we meet is run by a guy who is from a Muslim background who is open-minded about faith and providing a forum for its exploration. He lets us use the venue for free and he only gets coffee money out of it. The important thing is to find people who can broker these sorts of relationships with people in the community; we need these people because they are catalysts for change.

Under the Canopy

Youth and community development worker Dan Evans tells how a fresh expression of church aimed at 18 to 30-year-olds is providing 'shelter and a place of diversity' in Mumbles, Swansea.

We have got a good mix of people; some of them have grown up in church or been 'burned' by church in some way and others have had no experience of it at all. It is primarily for the 18 to 30s though we do get people coming along who are a little older than that!

I'd say that the wider church tends to be very good with children's work and young teens but seems to be haemorrhaging people in the young adults age range. We now have a regular core group of about 20 but we can have up to 60 coming along for music nights, mostly 'post'-students in their late 20s and early 30s from the Mumbles area.

I oversee all the youth activities offered by Linden Church so Under the Canopy is only part of what I do. I lead it but I'm always looking for other people to get on board; it can be a struggle and a drain at times.

I'm trying to develop a team and there are two or three of us who are fully committed to this at the moment. Thankfully there is a real understanding from the church, and people are very supportive of it, but it's difficult to get individuals to take it a stage further and help in running it.

The name, 'Canopy', first came about because we thought of it in connection with the Rainforest as a place of refuge. We meet on Sunday evenings at the community Red Café – run by Linden Church – but we developed four very different approaches to our Sunday gatherings, saying that all these styles of Sunday come 'Under the Canopy'. They are:

branch 1 – Transmission (alternative/creative prayer and meditation)

branch 2 – Headspace (discussion and debate over current affairs)

branch 3 – Sustenance (a good hearty feast)

branch 4 – Unplugged (the best live acoustic music)

Under the Canopy is building and developing because it's fairly organic. It all started when we launched music nights on the last Sunday of the month. We then wanted to develop the faith side of things so we came up with so-called Headspace nights when we have panel discussions on major topics. At our most recent Headspace we looked at the Benefits System and Government reforms. We have people with different views on the panel to look at things from a Christian perspective. In the past we've looked at 'Is the Bible really true?' and 'Does Love Win?'

I have done a theology course and it was when I was looking at the Early Church that I realised the importance of eating together as a community. So we introduced Sustenance, a meal on the third Sunday of the month. Around 15 people come along to that; we do some slow food and spend a lot of time being in relationship with each other.

We have tried all sorts of things when looking at prayer and meditation for 'Transmission' Sundays. At one point we tried something called Nine – this centred on nine different Bible verses with a theme. We then asked nine different people to present those verses as creatively as they could in five minutes.

Looking ahead, I don't want to be too forceful in what I want people to get out of it. I'm happy if they just want to come and be together but if this is church for some people, I'm more than happy with that as well. My hope in the next year is for it to continue to develop and that people will support us, grow and come to faith.

Our seafront base at the Red Café is great because the building has been run as a community project by Linden Church Trust since 2001 so lots of people – young people in particular – use it for all sorts of activities. Partnership is very important in that Linden Church is strongly linked in with churches around Swansea. I also meet up with others involved in youth work and we support each other, which is vital. The work is demanding and we all need to be reminded we're not in it on our own'

JustChurch

A new church for young adults has been growing in Bradford since the appointment of a city centre Mission Priest, Chris Howson, in October 2005.

The church takes inspiration from Micah 6.8, which exhorts concern for justice, and by liberation theology, expressed by Chris as

get involved in your context.

Liberation theology teaches people to act first, reflect later,

he explains.

Our job was to hit the ground running, to see what worked and ditch what didn't.

One of the first ways Chris sought to grow church was through JustChurch, a weeknight meeting that focuses its worship on the writing of letters on behalf of lobby groups like Amnesty International. Around 15 to 25 young adults attend, most of them new to church practice.

The old Anglican chaplaincy centre near Bradford University where JustChurch meets is also host to a fair trade café. On the first Friday of every month up to 80 young adults – most new to church – meet there for an evening of live music and poetry called Soul Jam.

It's about being alongside people and having fun, so people discover that this is a church that lets them be themselves,

says Chris. But he is also concerned to connect people with the wider church and holds a weekly Eucharist on Sundays at noon. Soul Space is a relaxed, informal Anglican service where the Bible is told as a story rather than read and discussion replaces a sermon.

We emphasise listening and making discoveries for ourselves,

explains Chris. The service, attracting around 25 young adults, lasts about 50 minutes, then moves to the café for refreshments. Sundays also see an afternoon discussion group on faith issues and an evening service of Christian meditation.

Young adults are introduced to any of these events through friends, and through actions such as peace vigils in the city centre, work with campaign groups, and a bike repair service run by church members jointly with a local squatters' collective.

Our aim is to encourage real discipleship, to show that the kingdom of God is about showing love, and that we can make a difference in the world,

says Chris.