All who are thirsty…
How the Well’s Spirit Café is reaching the unchurched with the power of prayer
Photo by Ben Elliott
“A moment with Jesus can change everything.”
That’s the good news according to the Spirit Café, a special outreach project at the Well, Sheffield, which reaches the unchurched with the power of prayer.
The café team offer a menu of spiritual treatments to those passing by the church building on Ecclesall Road, including spiritual direction, physical healing and peace.
Those thirsty for authentic spirituality and an encounter with Jesus - but perhaps aren’t used to traditional church - can come in and receive prayer from the team over a cup of tea or coffee.
The project - which is currently being run one Saturday a month - reaches about 10 people each session, and aims to relate classic Christian ministry to today’s generation who are often open to spirituality but unsure about organised religion.
Senior leader at the Well, Marjorie Allan, says the café outreach project has Jesus’ ministry at its heart and has made quite an impact for good in the local mission field.
A number of attendees have become Christians for the first time and many have experienced the blessing, healing and freedom Jesus can bring.
“People just come in off the street with their pizzas and cans of beer, and their shopping,” laughs Marjorie, “They don’t plan to come in 90% of the time but they are drawn by God’s Spirit or by the street team inviting them.
“We have fun stories of people having passed by thinking the Spirit Café is a regular café or bar, and then have powerfully met God.”
The vision of the café is simple: “Our heart is to introduce the unchurched to the fact there is a God in heaven who really loves them,” explains Marjorie. And this can be communicated through the treatments on offer.
“Our experience of Holy Spirit is that God is wanting to reach people,” she continues. “We have people coming to the café after being stirred by God in supernatural dreams, or through suddenly meeting a Christian, or on reading the Bible - all different ways.
“But it shows me the Spirit of God, Holy Spirit, searches after people, runs after people, collides with people.”
The Well’s Spirit Café was started in 2015 by Marjorie and church team member Amanda Curtis after they had come into contact with Harvest Ministries’ Spirit Café model based in Birmingham.
The duo attended the ministry’s training course to learn more about running a Spirit Café themselves, and then, in turn, trained their own team of volunteers in Sheffield.
The cafe team is now divided between the street team, the reception and cafe host team, the ministry team and the intercessory prayer team - each with an important part to play on the day.
The language and experience of the café is very much tailored to the unchurched, and is like both a café and a clinic. People drop in and choose from a menu of treatments and then have the opportunity to connect with three-person ministry teams around café tables for around 15 minutes.
“People often encounter God’s Spirit and experience His love and transforming presence,” says Marjorie. “The teams are trained to share the gospel and, if appropriate, lead people to a relationship with Jesus.”
Visitors to the café are also invited to sit in the sanctuary and experience a worship set, as well as receive a Bible and ‘Why Jesus?’ booklet.
The Well firmly believes God can heal and perform miracles through the Church today - and the team has seen that first-hand at the café.
Says Marjorie: “Our whole ministry is the ministry of Jesus. And He is unchanging. In Matthew 10 he said: ‘Heal the sick, raise the dead, drive out demons. Freely you have received so freely give.’
“Of course we have to be appropriate for our context and our culture. We have to be very careful with how we do that with the unchurched. But the whole message and call is unchanging - that’s who Jesus is and we’re following Him.”
Leader of the Well’s Deeper school of ministry, Naomi Fennell, says there have been many “incredible” healings which have taken place at the café when the team have prayed for people - both Christians and not.
She said: “A lady who was actually a Christian travelled to the church to see what we were doing and she had arthritis quite seriously in her hand, so she couldn’t pick up a cup.
“We prayed for her; in fact we prayed for her a few times, because each time we prayed for her, it was getting better, incrementally. By the end of the evening, she had picked up a cup with one hand, no problem.
“She stayed in the city to come back on the Sunday, two days later, to testify she was still healed.”
The prophetic, where God conveys His heart and direction to a believer for someone else, is also powerfully at work at the Spirit Café.
Says Naomi: “Many times people have come in and a member of the team has given them a prophetic word - or a word of knowledge - where they’ve spoken into or prayed for something which they couldn’t possibly have known about that person - they’ve not revealed anything.
“And generally what happens is that the person sitting there receiving the word bursts into tears and are kind of like, ‘Wow!’ because Holy Spirit has been able to point at something in their lives which has brought them a level of freedom, or helped them make a decision or brought them peace.”
Article continues below…
Helen Osbourne: The Spirit Café changed my life
“Before I visited the Spirit Café, my life was a complete nightmare. I had been involved in the New Age, and I felt really under a lot of spiritual oppression. I was disillusioned and felt like I didn’t have anything to live for.
“I was struggling with the idea of ending my own life, and I was doing everything I could possibly do to feel better. I was obsessed with healing and therapies. And nothing was getting me anywhere.
“I spoke to a woman over the phone, who told me to pray to Jesus and when I did, I felt the peace of God in my heart.
“I visited my friend soon after, and told her about my experience. She said, well, that’s brilliant. Why don’t we go to the Spirit Café and see what happens there?
“So we made an arrangement to go there and I sat with three people who all prophesied over me, in a very different way. And it all came together. I didn’t know anything about Christianity.
“And my spirituality at that time was everywhere, but speaking to these people and being prophesied over just brought real peace into my heart.
“They just explained a little bit about Jesus and about the Bible and how it was a great love story. And I actually really believed them, and I felt it in my heart that it was really true. It was from there that I spoke with Marjorie at the Well, and I told her how much I wanted to have an encounter with Jesus, and so after this I became a Christian.
“Then Marjorie said I think it would be a great idea for you to be baptised and also to do the Deeper course of ministry. So that’s what I did. Deeper was amazing for me. And God has been so good.”
One of the challenges of doing outreach ministry to reach a non-religious generation is for the church to get rid of its churchiness to better connect with people, says Marjorie.
“We’ve found that we need to keep it really simple, the language; so sometimes we use funny language as Christians - we all do it. You know an extreme version might be, we can’t pray for the unchurched and refer to ‘the blood of the lamb’.
“Also, describing someone as being ‘on fire for God’ - just sounds weird. Where’s the fire, we need to get out of here!
“I think, above all, love has to be the heartbeat of what we’re doing. Sometimes it's not exciting and supernatural; it’s just being out there with the street team - faithful people - standing in the cold and ice having dull conversations to love lonely people.
“So some days it's just normal; it's love, and keeping ministry grounded in that way is so important.”
The Spirit Café opening times are advertised in advance on The Well’s website.
The team is currently recruiting more volunteers and people interested in getting involved are always welcome.
What next?
If you’re excited by what you’ve read here, how might you respond? Marjorie Allan has some suggestions:
Pray:
“Pray for people to actually come to the café and then through this to encounter Jesus.”
Reflect:
“Reflect on taking opportunities to pray with the unchurched in our everyday contexts - shops; neighbourhoods and workplaces. We are increasingly inviting unchurched people to read the Bible with us.”
Read:
“'Miracle Work' by Jordan Seng - a book designed to raise faith and normalise the supernatural. We use it in our Spirit Café training.
“Also people may want to access the Well's course and online resources: 'Naturally Supernatural.'“
Reach out:
“Anyone interested in finding out more about Spirit Café is welcome to email: info@wellsheffield.com”
Phillip Dolby is a freelance journalist, editor and PR consultant based in Sheffield. His specialist subjects include: local and national news, politics, the arts, religion and international development. He loves the adventure of working in the media industry and wants to use his voice to speak up for the poor and disenfranchised. In his free time he loves reading, mountain biking, trail jogging, cooking and a round of golf.
Website: phillipdolby.com
Twitter: @PhillipDolby
