Cafe Church

One of the new genres of church that is increasingly to the fore is Cafe Church. Cafe Church means a variety of things when you get down to the detail, but the fundamental format is church in a cafe context. We have been doing Cafe Church at the Cotteridge Church (one of my current congregations) for about 18 months now. Our way works for us, but we recognise that others "do" Cafe Church in all sorts of different ways. We meet once a month on a Sunday at 8pm. for about an hour and a quarter. Our prime target congregation is young people, but everyone is welcome. On average, something like 25 people gather, with perhaps 60% of them under 18. A good proportion are between 11 and 13, but not all. A planning group, open to all, but tending to attract the same people, mainly, but not exclusively, adults works up the chosen theme for each month. Refreshments are available throughout and the way it works is that the event is a mix of chat, activity and worship opportunity, with a choice as to what you do for most of the time, but all coming together briefly at the beginning and the end. This month (April 2008) our Cafe Church theme was 'The Lord is my Sat Nav'. In a range of different ways we explored questions of choice. We iced buscuits and thought about choices in eating. We designed timetables and thought about choices in education and work. We dressed paper figures and thought about choices in fashion. We thought about choices in music and faith also. In a brief worship closedown we considered the choices we make with or without God.