A hard road to a successful

Hard Stone Café

By Jonathan Springthorpe

The Hard Stone Café (HSC) came from humble beginnings in December of 2002. The Saint John (Stone) Church Youth Group helped to construct a stage for musicians, put up decorations, and create a menu of slushy drinks (non-alcoholic of course). As the event approached my anticipation grew. Visions of crowds of youth piling into the church ready to hear the Gospel danced in my head. Instead of crowds, only two brave souls passed through the doors of the imposing gothic revival church on Carleton Street to attend the first Hard Stone Café. Members of the youth group had not invited their friends with any enthusiasm because they feared I would use the café as a “bait and switch” evangelistic event.

We gained some credibility with the youth at the first café and they did invite their friends for the second one, but it took some time to make the café the ministry we prayed it would be.

Early on, several colleagues in youth ministry inquired if they could bring their youth groups. David (the Ven. David Edwards, rector of Stone Church) and I were committed to reaching the unchurched, and we wanted to protect the Hard Stone Café from becoming another event for church youth. We decided that, while all youth were welcome, we would not host organized Christian groups.

Within two years the attendance grew to an average of 25 or 30 youth from the community. In spite of the growth, our experience was one of frustration. We longed to share the Gospel with those who came to the café but we felt like our hands were tied. We feared that any strong witness would break the trust we had worked hard to build and we found out that our fear was justified. On one occasion the Christian musical guests, contrary to our instructions, began the evening with the intimate worship song: “Jesus, Lover of My Soul.” All but four of our youth group members cleared the room. It was as if someone had sprayed teen repellent into the air. Most unchurched youth are suspicious, and often critical, of organized religion and were reluctant to come to the café because it was in a church.

From the beginning we had hoped we could find Christian musicians who were able to play secular tunes as well. The evening would begin with secular cover songs, many of them classic rock of the 70s and 90s. Once the youth were comfortable, the musicians would play a Christian song or two, introducing them as a musical expression of a personal belief in God. Christians could share something brief about God, provided it was through the medium of music. Music is the currency of teen culture. This strategy worked well at times, but we simply couldn’t find many musicians who were comfortable playing both secular and Christian music.

We took an important step forward when a member of the youth group asked me: “can my friend’s band play at the next café?” Permitting community youth to play presented us with potential problems: lyrics and spontaneous interactions with the crowd could contain profanity and offensive material, not to mention encourage moshing (audience members at live music performances push and/or slam into each other for the purpose of entertainment) (definition available on UrbanDictionary.com). We became conscious that we were bridging two completely different worlds: the congregation of Stone Church, and the youth of Saint John. We agreed to let outside musicians play, but we drew up strict guidelines: musicians had to arrive an hour before the start of the café; lyrics had to be 100 per cent free of profanity and explicit language; and no moshing (for safety reasons). The musicians were so grateful for the opportunity to play they were happy to respect them.

Certain aspects of teen culture can be baffling. In six years of hosting teen musicians, the audiences were uniformly supportive of their peers, even when an attempt at music was painfully amateur. Subsequently, the Hard Stone Café became known as the “only all ages venue” in Saint John at the time. The youth of the community rallied around the café, helping to promote the events, spreading the word, and helping to recruit musical guests. Parents of band members stayed on occasion, and were thrilled with the Hard Stone Café. In a few years “the café” was adopted in the vocabulary of local youth — it was a milestone of acceptance in teen culture and core group of youth from the community attended the café faithfully. They were not Christians, though God was at work in them.

In May 2008 facebook pushed attendance at the Hard Stone Café to record levels. More than 800 invitations blanketed the Greater Saint John area, one friend invited another and more than 150 youth showed up. It was exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. For safety reasons we had to ask some people to leave the loft area and move to overflow rooms. Nine bands showed up to play and we came close to turning youth away at the door. There was no doubt that we had made inroads into the youth culture but we were still wondering how we could share Christ with them in this setting.

That eventually happened — not by some brilliant design but by necessity. The café began at 7 p.m. and finished around 9. The youth group from Stone Church remained till 10:30 to clean up. Many parents from Stone expressed concern about the late hour. To address that concern we added a youth group sleepover after the café. This also served to reward the youth group members who worked before and during the café in service of our guests. These sleepovers became times of natural discipleship that I relished. We would worship and talk about the Scriptures together sometimes well past 3 a.m. We began a regular time of worship that became the highlight of the evening for the Christian youth.

The next step forward happened when the core group from the community began to hang out with the youth group after the café and asked to join the sleepover event. Initially I hesitated. I would need to contact their parents to be sure they were permitted to stay, and I couldn’t help but worry that their presence might interfere with our time of worship. The first time our group was about to ascend to the upper room to begin our worship I wondered how they would respond. To my great surprise the visiting youth joined us, mostly out of curiosity. These non-Christian youth experienced in their own words: “something inspiring,” though they did not know exactly what.

In the following months this core helped to welcome other youth to the worship session after introducing it as “this God thing.” Over the following six to eight months teens who were previously hard against organized religion were softening to the Gospel. God was at work in these lives and a number of them came to faith. The Hard Stone Café had evolved into a form of church that was drawing youth from the community without having to strategize. A new Christian community was forming.

In hindsight, the program that started in December of 2002 in order to evangelize young people was the beginning of a remarkable journey. Through much of it we felt lost and unable to reach the youth of the wider community for Christ. But we learned the importance of community, to work as a team with the Stone Church Youth Group, and to reach out as partners. The seeds of a community were sown. And I learned that the way to reach unchurched young people is through fresh expressions of church.

My time in leadership of the Hard Stone Café came to an end a year ago with a move to Toronto to attend Wycliffe College. The Hard Stone Café continues under the direction of Catherine Bonham, one of my colleagues in Threshold Ministries.

Jonathan Springthorpe is an evangelist in Threshold Ministries and working toward a Masters of Divinity degree at Wycliffe College in Toronto.

 

Diocesan Communications

22 February 2011