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A church in a coffee lounge
If you pop down to the Flavel Church, you may get a big surprise. Pews have been removed in favour of leather sofas, scatter cushions and trendy light fittings. In an effort to tackle dwindling congregation numbers, new church leaders Karl and Deborah Stone decided to change the way people see and use the space. They closed the church back in January and opened it as a coffee and community hub in May. Steph Woolvin and her three-year-old daughter went to meet them …
There aren’t many interviews where it’s appropriate to turn up with my little girl in tow, but this place is different. There’s a play area in the corner with toys, books and games, music is playing in the background and the smell of fresh coffee floats up to the open timber ceilings. “Our main aim is to get a relaxed and friendly environment where mums can gather, book groups can have meetings and shoppers can enjoy a well earned cappuccino and a brownie,” Karl says with a welcom- ing smile. The couple came to Dartmouth
four years ago. Before that they were involved in church leader- ship in Basingstoke, working with various youth and church groups. The pair had done a course, called Ignite, which specialises in looking at ways of re-opening churches that have closed or are at risk of closure. Deborah says they were happily getting on with life when they got an unexpected email; “We were contacted, out of the blue, by the Flavel minister who said the church was struggling to attract new members, with numbers falling to an average of six a week.
He wondered if we would ever consider setting up a new life in Devon and help bring the church back to life.” A couple of weeks later the pair travelled to Dartmouth to meet the congregation and have a look around the town. They were liked by everyone and were formally invited to take over. “It was all a bit overwhelming, but we felt it was where we were meant to be,” says Karl. “We packed up our life in Hampshire and moved down.” When they arrived the church
was only open for an hour a week, on a Sunday, and they only served coffee after the service once a month. Karl says they didn’t come with a plan: “We knew we had to change something and open up this wonderful space to the local community throughout the week, but weren’t sure what to do. Then people started talking about start- ing up the coffee mornings again and the community café idea start- ed to take shape.” In order to go ahead with their plan, the layout of the church had to change and work needed to be done on the floor, so they closed in January for five months. In that time they removed
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