Tuesday 15 April 2008

Cafe Church Rationale

Different people will inevitably and rightly have different thoughts as to why they engage in particular expressions of church. Lots of people have said different things about Cafe Church - and it can certainly be and do different things. In the Cotteridge context we identified three key focus points. First, we aim to give people a hands-on experience connected to faith exploration. The hands-on can come in a whole range of ways, including discussion. Secondly, we want to encourage people - or certainly to give them the opportunity - to interact with others, whether on a one-to-one basis or in a small group setting. Thirdly, it is important to us to sum the whole thing up in worship. I am always keen to identify Biblical links or precedents - and suggested two possible Biblical precedents for what we are doing in Cafe Church, one being the Feeding of the 5,000 and the other being the occasion when Jesus shared in a meal in the house of Simon the Pharisee and had his feet anointed. A lot of this was exemplified in our second ever Cafe Church (October 2006) which took the theme "Wicked World". We had a number of poems to read, all designed to help us think about the ways of the world. We had opportunities for writing and drawing, including a group effort to write a poem. We had a space for prayer and reflection. We also produced our own "Vox Pop", answering the question "What is 'wicked' about this world?"

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