Sanctus1 serves up Christianity for clubbers at Manchester 's newest venue

 

Sanctus1, a fresh expression of church supported by Church Army, in conjunction with The Methodist Church, launched Nexus, on Wednesday September 14.  Nexus is Manchester ’s newest creative arts centre and night time venue for film, art and gigs; in addition it is also host to Sanctus1.

 

“We have this amazing space that we want to use in a practical way to serve people who live and work here,” said the Rev Cris Acher of The Methodist Church. The Methodist Church began renovating its little-used basement which opens onto Dale Street earlier this year and today, the basement has been transformed into Nexus.

 

“ Nexus is a venue in the city centre which has got three purposes”; explains Ben Edson of Sanctus1. “One is to be a venue for Sanctus1, secondly, a venue for creative arts and lastly, a venue for a night café.  The night café is a way that we’ll be reaching out to the clubbing community of Manchester city centre. On a Saturday night, at about 2 o’clock in the morning when pubs and clubs are closing the city centre can feel quite unsafe because people have been drinking. Nexus is a safe place that they can come to relax and chill out; we’ll be serving fair-trade tea and coffee and organic juices whilst a DJ provides ambient background music. Whilst they’re drinking their coffee we’ll call a taxi for them so that they don’t have to wait in the streets and compete for taxis.

“The night café at Nexus will be staffed by volunteers from  Sanctus1 and we hope that people will discover Christianity through the encounters that they have with  Sanctus1 members. We’ll also be hosting our ‘reel-spirituality’ film night in the venue, again with the aim of facilitating encounters with Christianity.”

Eighty per cent of people who live in Manchester ’s city centre are aged between 18 and 40, presenting a key challenge to the Church to offer something specifically for them. 

Sanctus1 has a growing congregation in this age group in which meets across the city centre in St Ann ’s and Sacred Trinity Church and Manchester Cathedral. The community is supported by the web and their meetings are mostly midweek rather than Sunday.

 

For more information on Sanctus 1, visit www.sanctus1.co.uk or email info@sanctus1.co.uk

For more information about  Nexus see: www.nexusonline.org.uk