Cris Rogers

Fresh expresso of church

For Cris Rogers the branch of Costa in Harrow is a second office, as it is the perfect place to meet the members of his youth congregation.

"It just works so well," he says, sipping a cranberry and raspberry frascato, "to come and have a drink and a coffee with young people in such a lively atmosphere."

At 27 a church pastor, Christian author and conference speaker, Cris felt called to youth ministry at the age of 17, so followed up an art foundation course in Leeds with a theology degree at Trinity College Bristol, and a masters at King's College London; he punctuated his studies with pioneering youth work, such as establishing and leading The Gathering in Boldmere, Birmingham, a project which launched a skateboarder ministry offshoot.

"When I was a teenager," he says, reflecting on his initial inability to tick the right box when it came to moving into ministry, "you were either a lay reader or you were ordained."

These time-tested classifications of ministry were modified recently to accommodate the likes of Pontefract-born Cris, ordained earlier this year as pastor of Soul Survivor Harrow, and the army of up-and-coming leaders appearing on the scene with mission-specific ideas and vision.

"I really started to think through ordained ministry properly about four years ago," he says, "when the Church started thinking through ordained pioneer ministry and ordaining people to different forms of ministry.

"They are being very creative in ordaining people to the ministry that God is calling them to."

Branded by a series of slogans such as 'leave religion behind' and 'no perfect people allowed', Soul Survivor Harrow - a Church of England youth congregation - attracts up to 90 young people to a Swedish log cabin for well-supervised culture-current worship.

"On a Sunday night we turn it into a gig venue," Cris says, "and we do church in a very loud and raucous way but it seems to work."

Having found faith at the age of 15 at a CPAS youth camp, Cris has a particular passion for unpacking the Bible for young people - and his books Naked Christianity, Am I a Freak? and A Monkey’s Orientation offer easy-to-digest inspirational reading, reflecting the friendly feel of the lively services, and the faith-building conversations at Costa.

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