FOR YEARS, the Jesus Fellowship church in Coventry has celebrated our Sunday nights events as a standard church gospel service. OK, it was lively, often powerful, good band, knees-up, etc. But all too often there were hardly any new people there to share the good news with.

When we moved to the Jesus Centre and we carried on the same, some of us realised that even if we went out and brought visitors back to the meeting, they came into either a wall of noise – I mean music and singing - or rows of peoples’ backs and someone talking at them from the front. It was both hard to talk to them and, more important, the visitors could not talk about themselves. And people need to talk.

So, eventually, we proposed a radical change - making Sunday nights into a cafe style event, called ‘Solid Rock Café’. This meant that people would sit around small tables and talk, free drinks and snacks would be served for much of the time, evangelists would go out, intercessors would pray, and the preach would be brief and worship at the end shorter, too.

We gave it a trial period after explaining to the congregation and it was the core members that found it hardest. It’s easier to sit in rows and sing or listen. Now we had to be more involved. Plus we had to cater for the youngsters, manage drop-in visitors who came along… It was harder work all round. But now, some time has passed and we have got used to it and it really works - more visitors, more involvement, more happening. We’re not just ‘having a meeting’; we’re meeting the needs, in Jesus’ name.

At the end of each month we still have a traditional-style celebration at which we baptise anyone who is ready. That’s good too. But it looks like Solid Rock Cafe is here to stay!

This article has been extracted from Streetpaper and Jesus Life publications

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Turned inside out
Nomads no longer
Heat in the Red Light district
Creative Wings
God Said: "Here come the Boffs and the Goths"
Live at the Well