I went to a new ‘church’ yesterday. I use the term church about as loosely as I can. This was, I guess, real cafe church in as much as it was in a real cafe, by it didn’t feel much like church.
This is the latest offering from the Sanctus people in Manchester city centre and is aimed at young families. Sanctus has always intrigued be but at the same time has scared me off a little in the way it describes itself as being for city centre types who live the city life and want a city style spiritual activity. I am not a city type (apart from my football allegiance obviously) so whilst the idea of it appealed to me, I thought I would get fingers pointed at me and I would be escorted to the train station and sent packing on the first train back to suburbia.
That didn’t happen, at least not this week, even when I confessed to not living in the city during the many conversations I had with Al and the rest of the people there.
The great thing was this felt so much like the early days of BCLC, it was a tad shambolic at times, but no one was expecting anything different, I don’t think anyone was expecting anything to be honest.
Speaking to Al and his wife Sarah afterwards it was really interesting to hear them speak of people not being building centric and looking at the whole of the city as a series of potential locations for things to happen.
Early days but I think I could get quite attached to this activity for a bit and in Al I think I have found someone in the clergy (he is a Methodist minister) who actually gets what is happening and, more importantly, what people of faith (not necessarily churches) need to do to share their stories with the wider community.
As always, I will keep you posted.
