St Godwald's Church in Finstall, Bromsgrove has been running Café Church since January & the new congregation continues to grow. Team Rector, David Ford, explains a little about their journey.
"In January this year St Godwald’s embarked on creating a new congregation – Café Church – specifically designed for families with children: people for whom traditional church on a Sunday morning simply doesn’t work. We recognised last year that it is impossible to build a new congregation within an existing one and that only an entirely new worshipping community could offer St Godwald’s a promising future beyond the 10-15 year life span of existing worshippers.
Eleven months on, and thanks largely to the determined, prayerful and creative energy of curate, Richard Sandland, and ALM, Kerstin MacDonald, Café Church now attracts almost 40 people, nearly all of whom are completely new to the worshipping community of St Godwald’s. Last Sunday, 14 children and 23 adults enjoyed lively and sacramental worship in our church hall, using for the first time, a new sound system purchased entirely through the reserves held by St Godwald’s.
With a total church community of around 80 people, St Godwald’s now has three congregations of which Café Church has just become the largest. We are achieving this entirely on our own without subsidy or imported leadership. It’s not a walk in the park, and we’ve torn our hair out a few times, but it can be done!"
