INNOVATIVE worshippers are planning to launch a new church – in a coffee shop.

Barney Barron and Gary Chapman outside Waterlooville's branch of Costa Coffee

Café Church will meet in the Waterlooville branch of Costa Coffee in January, after potential churchgoers are given a 10-week taster course in the basics of the faith.

Worshippers from the Church of the Good Shepherd in Crookhorn are launching a weekly Alpha course there next week (Oct 7). It’s thought to be the first Alpha course in the UK to take place inside a Costa Coffee shop.

Participants will meet each Wednesday night from October 7. They’ll get a free coffee plus the chance to hear more about Christianity, enjoy some low-key worship and take part in discussion groups.

At the end of the course, they’ll be invited to continue to explore their fledgling faith at a monthly Café Church meeting in the same venue from January. The idea is to encourage those who might feel uncomfortable in a church building to worship in a more neutral environment.

Organiser Gary Chapman, from Church of the Good Shepherd, had the idea after attending two separate training sessions about Alpha and Café Church.

He’s joined forces with fellow worshipper Justin Osmond and Barney Barron, who already runs a café church in Warren Park and helps to create new churches with the Incarnate network.

“It’s church, but not in a church building,” said Gary. “It’s taking the idea of church into the wider community.  It removes that barrier that people sometimes feel about walking into a church building, and helps those who want to find out more about their spiritual side in a place they already feel comfortable.

“Most Alpha courses provide food. We’ll be asking people to eat before they come, but we can give them a nice coffee! 

“And the programme for Café Church is quite similar to Alpha – low-key worship, the chance to build relationships and have discussion. So people won’t notice a huge difference between what happens in the autumn and what happens once Café Church started.”

People attending the annual Alpha launch at Fratton Park on September 28 run by the charity Faith and Football were among those invited to join the Alpha course at Costa Coffee. 

Anyone else interested can contact the Church of the Good Shepherd parish office on 023-9225 6814 or office@cogs.org.uk.

The Café Church will be part of the national Café Church network, which embraces 21 churches across the UK.

They are part of what the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, describes as the ‘mixed economy’ he wants to see in the Church of England – innovative new versions of church alongside more mainstream traditional services.

Other innovative ‘Fresh Expressions’ of church in Portsmouth’s Anglican diocese include: Messy Church, after-school worship for children at St Wilfrid’s, Cowplain and elsewhere; Blesséd, multi-media, sacramental worship based at St Thomas, Elson, Gosport; Friday Fridge, a late-night spiritual chillout at St Jude’s Church, Southsea; and Ethos, multi-media sensory worship at St Nicholas, North End, Portsmouth.