The Context
Many churches and Christian projects are now running wonderful community cafes, welcome spaces or community hubs which welcome everyone of any faith or none. These projects demonstrate the love of God through all kinds of practical, spiritual, emotional and well-being support. The church or charity’s vision and/or charitable objectives may also include intentional Christian mission or “advancing the Christian faith.”
How can a Christian community hub or similar be developed to be welcome and inclusive of all whist also being intentionally but appropriately missional or evangelistic?
Also, what are the problems and contradictions that may occur if such projects are run by churches or Christians, whilst appearing to intentionally avoid any form or evangelism or faith provision.
Developing life together centred on Jesus – a rhythm of prayer
It’s always best to begin with gathering around Jesus in prayer – Jesus being our foundation, guide, hope and salvation. Its really good to begin each day, activity or community café opening with a time of prayer. I particularly want to encourage this to be done in a way where everyone can choose to participate or not. All are welcome, but without imposition. One of the easiest ways to do this is to have an open prayer time, with doors open to all, before the established opening time of the project. For example, if a café starts serving breakfast at 9.30 then doors open for prayer at 9.15. Anyone can come in and join in that prayer time if they wish but no-one has to.
This sets the scene for all activities; it establishes the identity of the community and seeks to do this in a way that welcomes anyone to join in and be part of every aspect of the community if they wish. However, the services and activities offered are not in any way conditional upon anyone engaging in prayer or any other religious activity. Equally it does not undertake prayer in an exclusive way, only for “members” or “believers.” For example, if a Christian leadership team decided to pray together and then open the doors to all afterwards, they would be communicating to others that they are actually excluded and given no choice of whether they can join in or not.
It is wonderful and truly life-giving to begin every day of a Christian community hub in this way. This sense of Christ-centred community can also be reinforced by having a further time of prayer at closing time. Again, anyone can choose to stay for this if they wish, but no-one has to. Our experience is that this is usually a very short time of prayer, but occasionally people in the community will wish to offload or seek prayer. We have often found that giving everyone the choice to join in with our prayer times is a real blessing for all. For some it is the starting point of them choosing to consider their own faith and spirituality.
Beginning and ending with prayer in this way does set the context for the whole community activity. It gives people the freedom to seek spiritual support at any time. It creates an environment where everyone can be relaxed about the possibility of praying for each other or having faith conversations if they wish, without any sense of pressure or imposition. Prayer and spiritual support can be offered in a normal, natural way alongside other services, whether that’s a cup of tea, a Citizen’s Advice appointment or just a listening ear.
The core team can also support each other through regular times of team prayer, fellowship and retreat so that the whole initiative remains rooted in Christ.
Be your true selves
Undoubtedly the best and most trustworthy way of welcoming and including people into a community activity is if the staff/volunteers are completely authentic – being honest about themselves, their beliefs and interests without expecting agreement or conformity – but allowing guests/visitors also to be themselves. In the case of a Christian led community project this means leaders/volunteers can be genuine and open about what matters to them – whether that’s faith or football. When we decide that it’s not ok to talk about faith we are deciding on behalf of our guests that they don’t need to know and that we are excluding them from something that could bring them great comfort and hope. We are also not being truly ourselves, like we’re keeping our own greatest source of life and hope private. It is much better, more honest to learn how to talk openly about faith when it feels natural to do so and allow people to talk about their own faith or lack of, and to ask questions too.
Offer the choice of welcome and full inclusion for everyone
One approach might be to pray together only as the core Christian team, or to decide that we won’t offer prayer or initiate faith conversations. When we do this, we are intentionally excluding people from the heart of our community. We are not giving them any agency at all. If a church or Christian community initiative offers a welcome café or similar but in a way that avoids any faith content or reference, then it is in fact offering only a selected part of the whole life of that Christian community, thus selling their visitors short and quite likely undermining their own vision and/or charitable objectives.
Conversely, we can lead times of prayer, offer personal prayer and have informal, unplanned faith conversations in a way that allows guests/visitors to join in or not as they wish. Essentially this means that they have complete agency over how much they want to be included in the life of this Christian community – or not.
Facilitate Faith exploration
My experience is that when a Christian community hub functions with an open rhythm of prayer and freely offers prayer, faith conversations and spiritual support, then it becomes natural to offer ways for people to explore faith further, to pray more intentionally together and to worship.
Some community hubs might prefer to facilitate this by encouraging people to go to church, whether this is in the same building on Sunday or elsewhere. If this works then its wonderful! There is also an encouraging and exciting opportunity to offer this in a more immediate way, perhaps directly after a community café session, or even alongside it in an adjacent room. Again, it is imperative that this is not imposed on anyone, but people can choose to join in if they wish. A big advantage of doing something more immediate is that it becomes possible to adapt style and content in a way that best suits the people who want to explore faith and join in. This means they are much more likely to be blessed by the experience and have greater agency of how they might go deeper in faith. This in turn begins to grow a new Christian community among people who previously had no connection with church at all – and its beautiful when it happens!
It is really important to offer such faith exploration opportunities. Without this our visitors may pick up aspects of faith from our community in a piecemeal and incomplete way – and ultimately because Jesus has called us to “make disciples” – and this is just a great way to do that!
Christian Community Hub Movement 