Church puts new faith in the young

From the archive, first published Friday 10th Feb 2006.

Two new churches have been launched in a £10,000 campaign to draw in young worshippers.

Bradford Diocese has set up two new churches, called Soul Space and Just Church, with an innovative approach to worship to make it more relevant to younger people.

The focus is social activism and more than 60 members have joined since October 2005.

Bradford City Centre Mission leader, the Reverend Chris Howson, said the new followers had come from a range of backgrounds from students to drug addicts, and were not typical churchgoers.

Rev Howson said: "We are trying new ways of making the Church of England more relevant. There has not been a strong Anglican presence in the city centre of Bradford."

Just Church meets every week at its Great Horton base with the charity Christian Aid to tackle a range of social issues. This has included a 12-hour protest against the Iraq war outside the American spy base at Menwith Hill, near Harrogate and letter writing to Amnesty International protesting at human rights abuses.

Mr Howson said: "We are concerned for making Bradford and the world a more peaceful place. We want people to see that the church is proactive on social justice. Young people do care about the war, international issues and peace and we want to be able to give them a voice.

"The traditional church is irrelevant for most youngsters, who get bombarded by extremists or go into services that have no relevance. We want this to be a safe place where people can explore spirituality and ask questions."

Soul Space, which meets every week, steers away from traditional sermons, and uses unconventional methods of worship, such as poetry, music, quizzes and story-telling.

Mr Howson said: "This is a new concept for the Church of England.

"The old concept bases worship in a parish or a building. I think the future lies in small groups coming together in this way. Building more churches is not the way forward, it's about building community."

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