Lattes pray: Church of England to deliver sermons in coffee shops

THE Church of England is holding services in coffee shops in an attempt to reinvigorate congregations.

As part of a £27million expansion, new congregations will be set up in coastal areas and housing estates, with more relaxed meetings designed to appeal to millennials and attract new worshippers.

Many of them will follow the example of a “café-style” church in Margate, which was set up 10 years ago and offers churchgoers coffee and cake before an evening service.

The south coast of England is to be targeted with a string of similar churches in Herne Bay, Sheerness on the Isle of Sheppey, Sittingbourne, Maidstone and Ashford, as well as St Peter Port in Guernsey, in plans costing almost £900,000.

Trevor Willmott, the Bishop of Dover, said he had been “astonished” by the project’s success. The project is part of what is thought to be the greatest expansion by the Church of England since the Victorian era, with plans to create 2,400 new churches by 2030, many of them with non-traditional.

Some dioceses have already branched out into the coffee shop business, with a café church being set up in Stoke Newington, east London. Other churches also meet in bookshops and community centres.

Another £1.69million will go to fund churches around Plymouth, and a project in Newcastle will reach out to its 67,000 students as well as young professionals with a £2.6 million new church in the city centre.

In Manchester there are plans to open 16 small churches over six years in the poorest areas and those with the lowest church attendance across Greater Manchester and Rossendale.

Senior figures such as Philip North, the Bishop of Burnley, have previously raised concerns that the church has been too focused on middle-class areas at the expense of poorer people.