“Here’s the churches chance” - yes! In response to the ‘energy price rise situation’ our church began a Warm Welcome Cafe on Thursday afternoons and its been a great success - people making a variety of cakes, school children coming in with their mums to have some fun with craft activities (we have a retired school head cum artist heading this up - who previously was not a regular at church). The spin offs are heartening. Locals getting into conversation with folk from the village they possibly hadn’t known before. And so
I’m interested to know how you started your venture. Was it top down or a grass roots idea? And if it was grass roots, how did you/they (the ideas people) go about convincing the leadership of the church?
Hi, Yes it was a grass roots initiative. Our Rector is very open to new ideas and supports this activity. Our regular cafe church, once a month, was also a grass roots initiative and has returned ‘full strength’ post Covid. The spin off is that it helps people feel at their ease when entering a church building. It is alarming how much of a hindrance those lovely big doors (no matter how beautiful) can be in creating an impenetrable barrier to newcomers. Us ‘regulars’ who are familiar with the place are seemingly oblivious to those not in ‘the know’. It’s not for everyone so once a month is a good balance. Hope the above comments are useful.
Thanks for sharing, Pat. Very helpful. Annoying, our church boiler complete packed up in November and wasn't working again 'til February. Missed opportunity, but we are in the Lord's hands! Other churches in Yeovil opened their doors.
I’m glad to hear your failed heating was restored and hope you had some back up in between times, possibly hot air blowers ? (Haha - maybe overzealous preachers....?) With the warm welcome cafe, we have benefitted equally, gaining much pleasure from seeing folk enjoying the fellowship. And the cake has been pretty good too! I do not believe we do it for any return, I.e. bums on seats Sunday mornings, but simply to share freely of God’s love.
And I couldn’t agree more about the big church doors. I’ve been on about that for years.
An ‘Open Kitchen’ runs from our church hall and kitchen and that’s really great. We attract people from many kilometres away, but there’s no transition to church. And people here can’t seem to see why there’s no transition. I’m sure that accessibility is a big problem.
“Here’s the churches chance” - yes! In response to the ‘energy price rise situation’ our church began a Warm Welcome Cafe on Thursday afternoons and its been a great success - people making a variety of cakes, school children coming in with their mums to have some fun with craft activities (we have a retired school head cum artist heading this up - who previously was not a regular at church). The spin offs are heartening. Locals getting into conversation with folk from the village they possibly hadn’t known before. And so
I’m interested to know how you started your venture. Was it top down or a grass roots idea? And if it was grass roots, how did you/they (the ideas people) go about convincing the leadership of the church?
Hi, Yes it was a grass roots initiative. Our Rector is very open to new ideas and supports this activity. Our regular cafe church, once a month, was also a grass roots initiative and has returned ‘full strength’ post Covid. The spin off is that it helps people feel at their ease when entering a church building. It is alarming how much of a hindrance those lovely big doors (no matter how beautiful) can be in creating an impenetrable barrier to newcomers. Us ‘regulars’ who are familiar with the place are seemingly oblivious to those not in ‘the know’. It’s not for everyone so once a month is a good balance. Hope the above comments are useful.
Thanks for sharing, Pat. Very helpful. Annoying, our church boiler complete packed up in November and wasn't working again 'til February. Missed opportunity, but we are in the Lord's hands! Other churches in Yeovil opened their doors.
I’m glad to hear your failed heating was restored and hope you had some back up in between times, possibly hot air blowers ? (Haha - maybe overzealous preachers....?) With the warm welcome cafe, we have benefitted equally, gaining much pleasure from seeing folk enjoying the fellowship. And the cake has been pretty good too! I do not believe we do it for any return, I.e. bums on seats Sunday mornings, but simply to share freely of God’s love.
Yes, very helpful.
And I couldn’t agree more about the big church doors. I’ve been on about that for years.
An ‘Open Kitchen’ runs from our church hall and kitchen and that’s really great. We attract people from many kilometres away, but there’s no transition to church. And people here can’t seem to see why there’s no transition. I’m sure that accessibility is a big problem.
And so on. (Not sure what happened there!).