U2, coffee and dialogue meetings

During the week from Sunday 29th of April to Sunday 6th of May the Cathedral is getting a group from Moore College in to help us with a mission we will be running for the week. They will be helping us to think about our mission to the city and we will be helping them by giving them the opportunity to get some experience in our unique location. Can you give some thought to the following?

Coffee
There will be a coffee stall which will distribute free coffee and donuts and be a place where people can stop and chat about Christianity. This will run for most of the week during the day and may be something you might be interested in serving at, either in the coffee area, the chatting area, or in listening in on a college student having a conversation with a visitor (in a non-weird, non-stalking type of way).

U2
There has been some thought (mostly just in my head) of running a U2: fans, faith and food night on the Wednesday night. We could have a couple of people singing and playing covers at various points during the night, a big screen concert dvd playing on the data projector, banks of laptops on desks with ear phones playing interviews and other U2 gigs, a fans corner where people (like my friend Andy Nobbs who has a photo of him playing guitar with U2 at a concert) display their connection with U2, and a talk at some point during the night that covers some of their beliefs and why their interest in Jesus is something you might want to consider…We'd need to get some graphicy people to make a leaflet that was good enough to distribute on George St and really try to pull in a crowd.

What do you think? Is U2 a band that appeals to people or am I out of date in my love for them? Do they appeal to a broad enough group of people? Could we pull it off? Would we be keen enough to make it work?

Dialogue Meetings
These are meetings that bibles studies can hold where everyone brings a friend and one of the college students comes, talks about Christianity for 5 minutes and then answers questions for the rest of the time. Another option, that seems to work even better, is that one person from a Bible study invites their friends from a specific friendship group (eg. old school friends, work colleagues, etc.) and you get one college student in and then run the same deal. It works a little better than the other way because your friends are in the majority and there are only 2 Christians there so they feel they can ask all the questions they've wanted to but never been able to.

I've listed 3 different events/activities they'll be involved in and I'd love it if you could give some feedback on each of them...

Fixed Location

OK, so I'm not the most regular blogger in the world. Anyway, it's time to think about where Fix should meet. We've been meeting in the foyer of the school for the last 3 weeks and will have the chapter house available for next week, the question is: do we want to move back? Here are some thoughts about pros and cons for the Chapter House (hereafter CH) and the Foyer.

Pros for CH
More space, easier sound setup, closer to kitchen, no distractions from outside, carpet helps homely feel and helps people hang longer after church,

Cons for CH
Harder to find, feel dwarfed in a large space, singing gets lost in large space,

Pros for Foyer
Smaller space means it feels 'fuller', singing sounds better, it looks new and classy, it's visible for people walking by to drop in and easy for them to see what's happening, by standing outside beforehand we create a buzz in the square,

Cons for Foyer
Sound setup more complex, can be distracted by outside happenings, more setup work, less homely setting so people less likely to stay for longer (though last time 4/5 stayed more than an hour)

Not all these points carry equal weight, some are far more significant than others. Also, some of us love change, others of us hate change.

There are probably many more points that could be made, why don't you make them? Any thoughts? Click on the comments link below, leave a comment and let's think about this!!!