Developing Community Engagement - Church Growth Research ...

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Jun 1, 2013 - The Coffee Tots project had its beginnings in the realization by ... to go into a coffee shop than to join
Developing Community Engagement into a Christian Community Case study written up by the staff of the (Resource) Strategy and Development Unit in discussion with Catherine Bartlem, CoManager of Coffee Tots (diocese of Coventry)

Introduction This case study describes how a community project for low income families in Coventry city centre is developing into a Christian faith community.

Background The city of Coventry has one of the highest teenage pregnancy rates in the UK. Family breakdown is common and there are many single mothers who frequently have no contact either with the fathers of their children or with their own families. There are high levels of deprivation, with a quarter of children living in poverty. Smoking, drinking and obesity levels are all above the national average. The Coffee Tots project had its beginnings in the realization by Catherine Bartlem of the lack of community provision in the city of Coventry for young low-income families. Catherine had had her first child in 2007. Talking to young mothers at the baby clinic, many of whom were single, she discovered that none of them went to any toddler groups. They appeared to live largely isolated lives, with little or no contact with other mothers. These conversations prompted Catherine to go into the city centre as an observer. She saw many parents with young children sitting around aimlessly, not shopping but appearing simply to be whiling away the time. Catherine started to talk with them. The first person she spoke to was a lady called Sue who lived a mile north of the City Centre. Like many of those whom Catherine had spoken to at the baby clinic Sue was a young single mother and had no contact with her parents. Every day she walked into the city centre, sat in the central shopping area for a rest and a cigarette, walked around, had another rest and then went back home where she spent the rest of her time. Catherine was the first adult she had spoken to for several days. She described to Catherine how she lacked the confidence even to go into shops, fearing that if her baby started to cry she would be judged as a bad mother.

Developing the Community Project Many of the young mothers whom Catherine spoke to were in a similar situation to Sue. Reflecting on what she had seen and heard, Catherine felt that these young mothers would find it far easier to go into a coffee shop than to join one of Coventry’s many toddler groups catering for middle class parents. Starbucks was about to open in the city centre, and it agreed to allow Catherine to use its premises once a month to meet with young mothers and to provide free tea and coffee. With the support of Coventry Cathedral, Holy Trinity Coventry, and Christ Church, Cheylesmore (traditionally the Three Spires of Coventry), the project was born. 1 June 2013

The format which the group arrived at was a monthly gathering at which young mothers met for an hour for coffee in Starbucks followed by an hour of messy play at Coventry cathedral (where Catherine worked at that time) or at the Holy Trinity Church Centre. Prayer cards were introduced to the coffee time at Starbucks and the messy play included time for worship usually expressed through singing Christian songs. The format worked well. Catherine personally invited the mothers whom she had got to know during her time spent wandering around the city centre and an average of 20 attended each session. They enjoyed the social side but the Christian element was clearly very important to them. All were keen to have their child prayed for using the prayer cards, even though, if asked, many described themselves as ‘anti-church’.

Expanding the Project Members of the group were keen to meet more often and to have a more permanent base. So, in the summer of 2009, Catherine left her job at Coventry cathedral to concentrate on taking the project to its next phase. She formed a working group which in January 2010, started fundraising and negotiated with Coventry City Council to lease a unit in the City Centre, with the first year being rent-free. The unit was very well situated for the people that the project aimed to serve, being located in a thoroughfare in the poorer part of the city near Iceland and Argos and near the bus routes. During this interim time the project maintained its relationships with parents, some of whom became involved in the preparations for expansion. The project became a charity by the end of September and Coffee Tots opened in October 2010 1.

Coffee Tots’ vision is to help parents enjoy raising their children by helping to create confident, positive parents who feel well supported and loved, removing them from isolation. The emphasis is very much on helping parents to engage with their children (many find it difficult to do so once their child reaches the age of 18 months or two years). Coffee Tots focuses on demonstrating Christ’s love in pastoral and practical ways, reaching out to a group of people who previously had no interaction with church. It works 1

http://www.coffeetotscoventry.co.uk/Welcome.html

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in partnership with a number of other organisations to offer a variety of services, including feeding support, money management and parenting courses. Other typical activities on offer throughout the week are craft sessions, cookery sessions, a knitting club, a club for Dads, and themed days/weeks, e.g. in 2012 for the Diamond Jubilee and the Olympics. Coffee Tots also assists individual families both pastorally and practically in coping with the particular circumstances in which they find themselves, for example helping to find accommodation for those who are homeless and living in hostel/B&B accommodation, getting equipment for people when they find a home, and recently helping to make funeral arrangements following the sudden death of a young mother who had been a regular customer at Coffee Tots. Coffee Tots has helped a number of people back to work. Many of its employees are young single mothers who can identify with the customers. Coffee Tots also has many casual workers, helping people back into employment by giving them work experience. It also now employs a children’s and families worker. Worship at Coffee Tots is through messy play, singing and story-telling. There are relatively high levels of illiteracy amongst the families who use Coffee Tots and so there is little or no story-telling at home. In this context, Coffee Tots has found that using puppets to act out stories works better than reading aloud from a book. Catherine, and her co-manager, Catherine Jupp, wanted Coffee Tots to be ‘owned’ by the parents that it aimed to support. They continued the approach followed when running the initial project based at Starbucks, namely wandering around chatting to people and inviting them. The parents who came to Coffee Tots got to know each other and, as they became more confident, so their own networks grew and news of Coffee Tots continued to spread by word of mouth. From its initial beginnings in Starbucks with a group of around 20 parents meeting for a couple of hours monthly, Coffee Tots now welcomes an average of 200 adults and 170 children each week.

Developing a Christian faith community Through Coffee Tots’ practical outworking of the Christian faith, a growing number of its regular customers have expressed an interest in finding out more about the Christian faith and exploring the possibility of attending a church. However, for most, attending a traditional church is impossible for a variety of reasons, including lack of transport to get 3 June 2013

to church on Sundays mornings and low literacy levels meaning that church services are hard to follow and to participate in. There is a need for something different. In response to this need, a new Christian faith community is now being developed at Coffee Tots, in partnership with Urban Hope, a fresh expression founded by Catherine’s husband, Greg Bartlem, who is an ordained pioneer minister. Urban Hope grew out of Greg’s former ministry to teenagers in the Goth community in Coventry. That ministry developed into a youth drop-in centre based at Bardsley House next door to the cathedral which now serves around 700 young people, many of whom are marginalised by society. From that work it became clear that there was a need for a new kind of church for young adults who wanted to explore their spirituality but who chose not to engage with traditional church. Coventry diocese asked Greg to set up a fresh expression of church to meet this need and to link particularly with Coffee Tots. Urban Hope, which began at Easter 2011, aims to gather and disciple marginalised men and women in their twenties and thirties. It meets on Sunday afternoons at Coffee Tots (and elsewhere throughout the week), starting with tea and coffee and followed by a service which varies in format but which typically includes a short presentation followed by discussion in small groups and then some quiet time. Children’s activities are run concurrently. The meeting finishes with a meal which includes time for prayer. There is a prayer tree and requests for prayer can be faced upwards if the person wishes everyone to join in their prayer or downwards if it is for God alone. For practical reasons, however, some of Coffee Tots’ customers struggle to attend a Sunday service. The bus service on Sundays in Coventry has been cut and few of Coffee Tots’ customers have a car. Many come from a family background of domestic violence and Sunday is often the day for supervised contact time with children. This highlighted the need for a midweek service to complement the Sunday Urban Hope service. The mid-week service at Coffee Tots began in January 2013. Again, the format varies but the emphasis is very much on the family worshipping together (in line with Coffee Tots’ general aim of helping parents to learn to play and engage with their children). There might be, for example, a story from the Bible using a Toddlers Bible which the adults will then act out with puppets for the children. This will be followed by a children’s activity whilst the adults explore the theme together. The mid-week Coffee Tots service and the Urban Hope Sunday service focus on the same theme each week, helping to provide continuity between them, especially for those who sometimes attend on a Sunday and sometimes in mid-week.

Attendance Attendance at the Urban Hope Sunday service at Coffee Tots is between 30-45 adults plus 16 children. There have been six baptisms since the service began at Easter 2011. The midweek service at Coffee Tots, which has been running for nearly six months, now has 15 adults and around 4-6 children regularly attending.

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Funding Income generated by the café meets 24% of the cost of running Coffee Tots. Alongside this, Coffee Tots is developing the ‘Building Blocks’ side of its income, whereby its supporters commit to giving £10.00 a month or more. In ten months this has moved from generating 5% of Coffee Tots income to 23%. Most of the Building Blocks givers come from the congregations of the three founder churches of Coffee Tots. New givers are generated through regular presentations to churches in the diocese and beyond about the work of Coffee Tots. Nine families who are customers of Coffee Tots have also become Building Blocks givers. Coffee Tots receives grant funding from Coventry diocese and has received grants from various grant-making bodies, including the Bishop Radford Trust, the Church and Community Fund and the Church Urban Fund. It also receives funding from the three founder churches as part of their regular giving. Over the next 5 years Coffee Tots aims to move towards covering all its core costs from the café income, Building Blocks, regular giving from local churches and local grant funding, with additional grants being used for development projects.

Conclusion This case study has described how a community outreach project has started to develop into a Christian faith community. For further information please contact Catherine Bartlem at [email protected]

5 June 2013