Coffee House Outreach
Recently one of our church members looked at me and asked, “Bu revivaldir?” “Is this revival?” We had just prayed with six Muslim people to accept Jesus over the course of one weekend. As I looked around people were clustered into little groups of three or four praying and crying and smiling.
After many years of seeing very little response to the gospel in the Muslim country where we serve, our team has been shocked and surprised to celebrate 11 people total committing to follow Jesus in 2025! All of these new believers connected through our team’s Coffee House Outreach that started this year.
Last fall, our team was brainstorming with our local house church about how we could have a greater impact.
A place to enjoy coffee, desserts and spiritual conversations.
Our house church members are Muslim background believers who are passionate about sharing their faith in Jesus. But their Muslim friends and relatives are oftentimes reluctant to attend a church service. They may also be unable to talk about Jesus in a public place, or even at home around relatives who might disapprove.
We started praying about how to create a place to have open conversations.
We realized that over the last few years, coffee shops have popped up all around our city. Young people enjoy the warm ambiance and the relaxed atmosphere.
This simple idea began to emerge. What if we created a safe, private coffee shop setting?
We did some work in our yard and strung up bistro lights outside. Our team purchased an espresso machine. We borrowed and purchased tables and chairs and downloaded a cozy playlist.
The believers in our house church prayed together about who to invite among their unsaved friends and loved ones. The invitation was simple: come for coffee, desserts and spiritual conversations.
The night of the first Coffee House we baked cookies and lit little tealights around the room. We had a bad thunderstorm, and only three people came. But they had an amazing conversation, and each month attendance grew. By May we had over 30 people, and in June we had over 40.
We tried to be very intentional to create the right atmosphere for good conversations. We put little cards with a variety of spiritual discussion questions around the table such as:
“How do you feel about God?”
“What would you like to know about Jesus?”
“What would you like prayer for?”
We discovered that since everyone who came was expecting to have spiritual conversations, they came ready with their own questions too. Many of them came telling us that for years they had been longing and searching for ways to know God better. They came ready to engage and ask for prayer. We saw an openness we had never seen before.
Now we are discipling 11 new believers! We have already held two baptism services, and we are planning another one this fall. To accommodate these new believers, we will need to launch some new house churches. We also have a new men’s Bible study, and a new children’s program that started in September. Our house churches have an exciting momentum that they have never had before.
We created the space, and the Holy Spirit brought the revival.