Hope Centre, Stoke-on-Trent

Through a combination of partnership and a massive team of church volunteers, Hope Life Church  runs a well-established and respected centre offering a cafe, youthwork and range of other employment services and basic life skills. Church members grow as they see others transformed by learning new skills or beginning to believe in themselves... 

The background

Think a big vision can only be achieved by a big church? Think again! With less than 100 members, Hope Life Church runs a Centre that sees around 20,000 people come through its doors every year. Offering a daily cafe, mentoring, befriending, work experience, sports facilities, computer access, money management courses, craft groups and a huge youth programme, the Hope Centre is right at the heart of its community.

Ten years ago Hope Life church had about 70 members, a thriving youth programme but very little community presence. The church building was tucked away in a row of terraced houses and was easy to miss. For many years the church had talked about how it could get out into the community and had looked at a number of buildings around the city for its purposes but found that none fitted. The pastor at the time, Patrick Parkes, spearheaded an extensive survey to clarify exactly what the community wanted and needed. The needs were clear: somewhere for young people to go, somewhere local people could gain better skills for employment, build self-esteem, access courses, sports facilities and computers; in short somewhere that would foster real community spirit.

The church gave a huge £425,000 and with a combination of mortgages and funding the additional £1million needed to begin a purpose-built centre was raised. One of the needs the community highlighted was for childcare facilities. Feeling this was outside their expertise, the church contacted the council who gladly hired part of the building to run a Children’s Centre. This not only fulfils the community’s wish to provide a high standard, but also provides some income for the church to run the rest of their projects.

Building relationships and confidence

The cafe is often the first point of contact between the church and members of the community. It started small with just one member of staff offering drinks and cakes but demand was such that now it boasts nine employees and offers a range of hot food as well as snacks. People often come back again and again, giving plenty of opportunity for relationships to be built so church members often come and spend a few hours in the cafe simply getting to know people. Once relationships are built, the Centre can go on to offer any help needed. Catherine Smith, one of the Pastors at Hope Life says, “Many people come to us with extremely low self-confidence, often related to learning or physical difficulties. One woman we met recently couldn’t even lift her head to say hello but since she started working in our cafe she’s changed completely. She’s really chatty and now loves volunteering in the parents and tots group where she welcomes people in. It’s amazing to see transformations like that.”

Work experience is often the key to building self-confidence and the Centre works with individuals, giving them roles in the cafe, doing administration and reception jobs in the offices or care-taking the buildings. Catherine says, “It’s amazing how much confidence it builds in people and we can then help them apply for other roles and often go on to permanent employment.”

Working with young people

Even before the Centre began, working with young people was always a priority for the church. Now the youth work is thriving and reaching around 250 people a week, 90% of whom are from non-churched backgrounds. Weekly activities focus on building social skills and offering a fun and safe place to hang out, whether that be through football, drop-in youth groups or evening groups for different Key Stages which involves games as well as teaching on the Bible. While the young people are enjoying their groups parents are invited to use the cafe, giving an opportunity for the church members to get to know them too. The Hope Centre also works closely with local schools and helps out wherever needed whether that’s running assemblies, lunch time clubs, helping with RE lessons or a recent initiative to gather a team to paint some of the classrooms.

One of the centre's distinctives is that they encourage the young people themselves to take leadership roles in the work and there are now around 15 youth who volunteer every week. Kirsty who now heads up the youth work was herself part of the youth group and she says, “The parents tell us their children are really different after they have spent time at one of our youth clubs. They thank us all the time for creating such a positive environment for their kids to reach their potential.”

From its humble beginnings in a small church the centre now has nine fulltime members of staff as well as 90 volunteers. There’s something for everyone to get involved in whether it’s chatting to and befriending people in the cafes, or helping someone manage their money better. The Hope Life team acknowledge that the whole project is a real team effort and there’s no way they could run all the support services they do without the church volunteers. The work can be demanding but their steps of faith have paid off; they have had the privilege of seeing many embrace the Christian faith and many lives completely transformed through their efforts to make the church a real part of the community.

Inspired?  The team at Hope Life shared their top tips:

• The most important thing is to know what God has called you to do. This will help you keep focus and keep you going when you encounter complications. Unless the vision is from God, there’s no point in venturing down the road but with God you can achieve more than you would ever dream possible.
• Spend time developing a thorough business plan and make sure it is realistic. We completely underestimated everything from the number of people we would see in a year, to the amount it would cost us in gas every month, to the amount of parking spaces we would need in a car park. Think it through again and again and again. And again.
• Don’t get swayed by funding that’s available. It’s easy to try to adapt when money is in the equation but you ultimately lose focus on your vision and the things God has called you to. Likewise, be careful who you partner with and make sure affiliations don’t water down your purpose even if they do provide income.
• To borrow the title of a TV programme, the key to success is location, location, location! We are ideally placed as our buildings are near the town centre, next door to a Health Centre and opposite a Job Centre. Location can make or break your project.
• Spend time building good relationships with the community, schools and agencies. Explain to them what you’re doing, how you can work with them and people that they can refer to you for help.
• Sustainability is crucial – you need to plan for the project to still be around in ten years' time.
• Talk to as many different churches who have done something similar as you can. Learn from their mistakes and successes.
• Keep going back to God. He gave you the vision and he will sustain you as you fulfil it. Things can get really tough so you have to really believe in what you’re doing. If we didn’t have a real passion and commitment to the community we would probably have given up a long time ago.
• You have to believe there is hope for people. You will hear lots of difficult stories and you will encounter some heart-breaking situations that really affect you. You have to do what you can and ultimately trust those people to God.

Want to talk?

The Hope Life team would be happy to chat if you’re thinking about setting up a similar project and would like some advice. You can email them at hopelife@hopecentre.info. 

Discover more

Would your church value help from Tearfund to consider how it can become God’s hands and feet in your local community? The Discovery course is a practical process, led by skilled practitioners to help you maximise the strengths and aspirations of your church. Find out more about Discovery.

Liza Hoeksma, summer 2010

For more information on the church visit www.hopechurchstoke.co.uk