Who are we
We meet together to build a hopeful, welcoming honest community that worships God and learns to be more like Jesus so that we can carry His love, compassion, grace and passion into the lives of others.
The problem is that many of the words above carry with them certain understandings which need fleshing out and our endeavours to fulfil them are laden with struggles questions successes and diversions.
Here is the short version.
On the theological spectrum we are all over the place individually. There
are Mild Pentecostals, Anglicans, and YWAM-ers With Questions amongst us.
There are refugees from churches that hurt and hopeful questioners exploring
another form of Christian community.
I would argue that Café church adheres most closely to evangelical Protestantism with some mild deviations. We believe that the Bible is inspired by God but are still working out what that means. {For example we are encouraged and challenged by what Jesus says but some of us struggle with the ethnic cleansing in Joshua and there are parts of Revelation that seem loopy.} We are hopeful for God’s supernatural expression and the power of the Holy Spirit amongst us but are a little nervous about that. We are for Justice and sacrificial social action although some of us struggle to reconcile that with our nice houses. We believe that our appropriate response to God is worship and we think worship can take many forms - primarily obedience. We probably talk about stuff too much. We value community and communion. Almost all of our gatherings include food. (Can’t find a verse to support that yet but we are working on it…) We like each other a lot, even the weird ones. We all seem to be busy but would like not to be. We enjoy hearing about how others interact with God and are inspired by Jesus. We are not an alternate church just an alternative community within the wider Church. We believe that there is no line between evangelism and discipleship. We meet to remind each other of His life and we disperse so that we can creatively make it known to others. We believe that we are pretty stuffed up and incomplete and that God likes us extravagantly. We like the idea that God’s power shines through our weakness but desperately pretend not to be weak just in case…
We have trouble finding a permanent a venue. This can be good because it reminds us that we are the church (and we can feel cool and edgy - but it can be a pain in the neck….
Café church currently exists in 3 communities. One meets in a café on
a Tuesday night, the other two in homes on a Sunday morning and a Monday
night.
We think Community, Devotional life and Mission are important. We meet to experience and build an honest, hopeful community, to worship together and reflect on God’s Majesty and Grace to learn more about Jesus and what He thought was important and to connect that with our lives now. We do that so we can more faithfully represent Christ and his love in the lives of others. We want to create an environment which inspires and encourages and resources us to take risks in being more like Jesus with people outside Church.