Well it has felt like a busy weekend to me. Good but busy. It was great to be able to put on a “marriage vow renewal service for Mark and Dione, and their girls Eleanor and Bethany. It was a really special occasion i reckon. And didn’t rain at the wrong time!! thanks to all those who helped.

We also went up to an emcf celebration in Derby on Sunday. It was a fun event and great to go out for a meal afterwards together. We [the norridges] then took the opportunity to visit a good friends Adam and Karina. They are planting a church amongst the asylum seekers & refugees of Derby, as well as the ethnic minorities, called International Community Church. They do an amazing work, with incredible amounts of different types of people in, around and through [and living in] their home. It seems they have a significant group of Fasi speaking Iranians. It all blows my brian!! They also run the Beat Cafe in Derby’s Arboretum Park.

While on the subject of Cafe’s, we are getting set up for our very own Cafe Alpha. We are plannning to have a ‘welcome’ event next sunday at 4pm, and then kick off for real the week after that [at 4pm upstairs in the cafe in the centre of town that isn't nero's!]. We’re pretty excited by this ;o). More planning/training tonight at my place!

Along with my general habit of noting cafe churches, here is another: The Kubik Cafe. Seems like they have been running church that way, but not yet open to the public.

Apparently Moot like the idea too.

In keeping with my general tradition of posting about examples of cafe church that I find, here is another. By the look of the website this looks to be a great example.

FRWY.ca café is an innovative, non-profit coffee house and community commons that was started by a progressive, urban, artistic, missional church community called The Freeway

Their selling points are great!:

great coffee | art space | live music | dj showcases
wireless internet | resources | sacred space
deep community

This is a really interesting outline of the idea of Third Place. For example:

There are essential ingredients to a well-functioning third place. They must be free or inexpensive to enter and purchase food and drink within. They must be highly accessible to neighbourhoods so that people find it easy to make the place a regular part of their routine — in other words, a lot of people should be able to comfortably walk to the place from their home. They should be a place where a number of people regularly go on a daily basis. It should be a place where the person feels welcome and comfortable, and where it is easy to enter into conversation. And a person who goes there should be able to expect to find both old and new friends each time she or he goes.

Do places like this really still exist? Clearly the good old English pub is the prime example - but things are changing on that front aren’t they?

Anyway, to appreciate it all you also need to see their church blog, the colloquy. Enjoy! The only downer of the whole endeavour is that they haven’t got a good grgaphic that I can put on this post!!

Malt Cross

[this reminded me of the matrix]

[amazing glass roof]

On Tuesday it suddenly came off for us to finally visit the Malt Cross in Nottingham. So Maddy, Asher, Rhoda, Michelle and I went on a mission to find out what this place was like and what it was all about.

For a small entrance, the building is very tardis-like, concealing an amazing interior - a place with real character and interest. It is a fairly unique setup in many ways, not least in that the building is owned by a trust, and the ‘business’ is run by a team on the ground, but under the auspices of an ecumenical setup involving many churches in Nottingham.

I guess the heart of it and the interest factor from our point of view is it’s raison d’etre. It is not a cafe-bar ofr a cafe-bars sake but rather, i think, a place, or better a “space”, for life. They talk about creating a safe place to create: relational space, creative space, thinking space, sacred space. I guess the foudnation of this is the ‘community’ that is created within the cafe that people can be part of place in the midst of that the opportunity for creativity, thinking, and spirituality. Those relationships are built within the staff and the staff’s relationships to the ‘guests’. Creativity is explored through the bands and acts they have on their stage and the art gallery they have in a back room. Thinking is encouraged through the relationships, and, they said, discussions events. Finally they have a ’sacred space’ prayer room out the back as well. It sounds early days in their journey, but there is much to be inspried by and learn from.

Things that struck me:
- one of the main guys prayed for 5 years around nottingham for a place like this, before the Malt Cross became a possibility.
- the heart and vision of the guys running it to see disciples being formed in the context of the cafe community
- crushed maltesers and coffee beans sprinkled on the mochas
- the similar ideas to what are in my head
- great building, but even so they felt constrained by it

Anyone else?

All of my photos are here [you may have to register to view them, but it is a great service anyway. I recommend clicking slideshow]

Malt Cross

[this reminded me of the matrix]

[amazing glass roof]

On Tuesday it suddenly came off for us to finally visit the Malt Cross in Nottingham. So Maddy, Asher, Rhoda, Michelle and I went on a mission to find out what this place was like and what it was all about.

For a small entrance, the building is very tardis-like, concealing an amazing interior - a place with real character and interest. It is a fairly unique setup in many ways, not least in that the building is owned by a trust, and the ‘business’ is run by a team on the ground, but under the auspices of an ecumenical setup involving many churches in Nottingham.

I guess the heart of it and the interest factor from our point of view is it’s raison d’etre. It is not a cafe-bar ofr a cafe-bars sake but rather, i think, a place, or better a “space”, for life. They talk about creating a safe place to create: relational space, creative space, thinking space, sacred space. I guess the foudnation of this is the ‘community’ that is created within the cafe that people can be part of place in the midst of that the opportunity for creativity, thinking, and spirituality. Those relationships are built within the staff and the staff’s relationships to the ‘guests’. Creativity is explored through the bands and acts they have on their stage and the art gallery they have in a back room. Thinking is encouraged through the relationships, and, they said, discussions events. Finally they have a ’sacred space’ prayer room out the back as well. It sounds early days in their journey, but there is much to be inspried by and learn from.

Things that struck me:
- one of the main guys prayed for 5 years around nottingham for a place like this, before the Malt Cross became a possibility.
- the heart and vision of the guys running it to see disciples being formed in the context of the cafe community
- crushed maltesers and coffee beans sprinkled on the mochas
- the similar ideas to what are in my head
- great building, but even so they felt constrained by it

Anyone else?

All of my photos are here [you may have to register to view them, but it is a great service anyway. I recommend clicking slideshow]