166: Church Spotlight: We Added Dignity To A Food Pantry With A Sit-Down Cafe | Alastair & Nicola Bruce

Alastair and Nicola Bruce from a small church in Scotland share how they transformed a coffee shop space into a community pantry, cafe, and pre-loved shop to provide support with dignity and build relationships. 

They offer practical advice for other churches to start small and match resources to community needs. 

The community pantry became a platform for long-term support and missional engagement beyond just providing food.

Connect with Alastair and Nicola Bruce:
www.ellonparishchurch.co.uk

Join our free Facebook Community: www.facebook.com/groups/smallchurchministry


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Transcript

Laurie Graham: 0:01

Hey, welcome to the small church ministry podcast, where we help volunteers and ministry leaders experience less stress, more joy and greater impact as we share strategies that actually do work in smaller churches. I'm your host. Laurie Graham, let's dive in. You. You. Hey, hey. Welcome to another episode of the small church ministry podcast. We are just gonna dive in with our guests today. We have with us today, Alistair and Nicola Bruce from Scotland. I'm trying to say it with your accent Scotland. But would you two like to introduce yourselves and let us know what you're doing in Scotland. You want to go first? No,

Alastair Bruce: 0:46

I'm Alistair Bruce. I'm the Minister in a church in Ellen. So Ellen is half an hour north of Aberdeen in Aberdeenshire, rural Aberdeenshire in Scotland. And I've been here for nine and a half years or 10 years in in May. So we're part of the Church of Scotland, part of the Presbyterian Church. And, yeah, it's, it's busy and fun and and crazy and, yeah, lots of stuff that that we that we do.

Laurie Graham: 1:20

Awesome. Nicola, what do you do there? So

Nicola Bruce: 1:23

when we moved here, so I was a youth worker before, and when we moved here, I looked after our son, our eldest son, James, he was 18 months at a time. We've got a little one, Daniel, he's six now, so that's always busy, but we couldn't quite heat the house. So helpfully, there was a job vacant in our church, and I approached them and said, I think that your job descriptions not what you're needing. I think you should change it to a mission worker. And I happen to have a degree in that so I would go for that job. That'd be really helpful. But so the church agreed

Alastair Bruce: 2:00

I had to present this to the I had to present this to the leadership team, and then, and then leave the room while they had the conversation about whether they they wanted to do that or not.

Laurie Graham: 2:11

Wow. So you're both on staff at the church where you're serving,

Nicola Bruce: 2:15

but yeah, so I, so I'm what they call a parish worker, just part time, and my remit is mission development, but what that realistically means is reaching out into the community, seeing the needs in the community, the gaps, and trying to link that up with the church of what can we do, what can't we do? What does it make sense to do? And within that naturally, it just opens up ways that we can be kind of a living witness, which then just opens up for conversations and whatnot and drives our mission forward. So yeah,

Laurie Graham: 2:50

I love it well. Alistair you, when you reached out to me by email, the first thing you were you were asking about was, you know, your development of volunteers and maybe a ministry handbook and things like that. But I was just so excited to talk to somebody in Scotland who had been listening to the podcast. And I was like, so what we're talking about is relevant to you, and do you want to tell people how you found us, or what it was that kind of meant, that kind of, I don't know, like, got you hooked into our community here.

Alastair Bruce: 3:19

I think I found I found you from googling I am or or just searching on on podcasts, and I was looking for, for some podcast that would be helpful for me as a parish minister and as trying to lead a church that needed to kind of move from From being a minister orientated and minister centered to being more laiety Center. I wanted to try and find ways to equip people who people in the congregation, and to equip volunteers, particularly with their role. And I was just looking for advice, and your your podcast came up and and because it was so practical and so helpful in that way, that that that I really enjoyed listening to to begin with, but then I love the fact that that I could then take the ideas and be able to implement them or or take the ideas and adapt them to Our situation, and was able to send the links off to various other folks in our leadership team to say, listen, listen to this. This is, this is really helpful for your team and for your your situation.

Nicola Bruce: 4:32

On my days off, he would be like, You need to listen to this. I have a clear memory of hanging up the washing outside while listening to one of your podcasts and volunteering. And you're like, I've just sent this to two other people. You need to listen to this. I'm like, This is what I'm doing and watching. But it was I did. It was so helpful. The things that things I remember specifically, it was about that your limitations, that that's not about the. Okay, but that empowering thing to know what you can say yes to and what you can say no to, and that that's okay. And I think that that was really helpful. And I actually was talking about that with another volunteer, just with one of our volunteers, just this weekend, and

Alastair Bruce: 5:12

it's been really empowering to be able to reflect some of that back to to our Kirk session, which is the leadership of the of the church, the things that I picked up on on specifically that podcast episode about, you know, what was a church without children's work? Well, it's still a church. Was without money. It's still a church. It's it's not all about the buildings, the money and the things that we that we do in the programs it's about, it's about how we love Jesus and how we build community and do that together. And I think the so much of the church is built on on volunteers, although we have paid staff, locally paid staff, and centrally paid staff. So Nicolas job is centrally paid by the Church of Scotland, and we're really blessed to have two people in the in the church who are centrally children's children

Nicola Bruce: 6:10

and families workers as well. We're both part time, yeah,

Alastair Bruce: 6:14

but, but everything else is run by volunteers, and I think that we had got to a point in the church where we realized that we could support our volunteers better, that we needed to change the culture of how we were looking at that, and not have this kind of duty based culture, which can be quite Scottish and quite Presbyterian, and it's

Nicola Bruce: 6:37

a generational thing, isn't it? Like our parents were very much, you know, brought up with the duties and the right things to do, and you got on and did them, and you then judge other people who are not they're obviously lay about, yeah? Love anyone, and this is, and you why you're not doing that and can't wrap their head around it and and why are they not coming back, even though you've judged them and shouted at them for not doing their duty? Yeah? So, yeah, definitely kind of looking at people just have, they don't, they're doing the community is different. You know, people aren't necessarily living where they grew up. And we do have a lot of people who are from Ellen. But the way, you know, people travel, people move, people, it's you don't just stay where you are so much the time and and so you don't necessarily have the same like rootedness and commitment to where you are, but also expectation from when you were little that you were going to grow up and be this and do this and do this, you know, in one town kind of thing. And so there's, there's also competition for people's time. They it's not just the done thing to go to church and be on this rota and whatever, people have to make a choice, and that's a positive thing, because they're actually choosing to be there. But yeah, being like, right? Well, instead of moaning about the people who aren't doing a duty, let's value the people who have chosen to be here and their motives for it.

Laurie Graham: 8:00

I love hearing you talk, because there's so much in common. You know, the generationally, you know, the generation, you know, my age and up is, you know, we have this duty to the church, and we're gonna do our thing, and we're gonna, you know. And then you said, lay about, which we don't use that word, but you know, that kind of like, people just aren't as motivated or or maybe they're lazy or they don't want to be involved. And so it is. It is a really different thing. And I love that you said, like, but the choice is a good thing. So that people, you know, when they're choosing, you know. And I love what she said about not judging. I could just go on about that, but I want to hit what I invited you all to come talk about, because the first conversation I had with Alistair, I'm like, Oh, you have to be on the podcast because we have to talk about what you did. And so now, how fun is this that you all were sharing episodes with people, and now you're going to get shared like, people are going to be like, Oh my goodness. Listen to this couple from Scotland. Look what they did their food pantry. And it's, it's, this is our community, right? We love sharing what's going well. And so thank you for taking the time to be on here with us to share your story, the people listening all over the place. But can you tell us first about your food pantry, you know, maybe how it came about, or what the needs are around your community? And then we'll talk about the shift that you guys added and made, which is what I'm super excited about.

Alastair Bruce: 9:21

We we, we used to so the years ago in the church, the the Kirk session made what I think is a really wise decision, which was to try to find a way to to have a revenue, a revenue stream that would take some of the pressure off people to bring money into the church, to keep the church going. So the idea that they had was that they would, that they would, they would open a coffee shop in one of the one of the halls. Yeah. And so 25 years ago, they opened a coffee shop that ran as a eventually ran as a separate business because, because they wanted to separate it for, I think, tax purposes and choose purposes, things that I don't really understand. And and it was really loved by the community of and people really, really enjoyed coming to it was a place for people to meet, and it had this kind of community sense about it, and it

Nicola Bruce: 10:28

had a mixture of staff and volunteers. That was always a big Yeah.

Alastair Bruce: 10:33

And so over COVID, it died and and that was really hard for for folks, and especially the people who were who were in at the ground level and had had run it. And so there's a bit of grief that that went on with that. And we had to kind of work through some of the, some of the grieving process of the of the coffee shop not existing, um, anymore, um, but it did mean that we had this space in our in our church hall, and because of the way that the that the coffee shop closed, and all of the stuff that goes on with that, there's a technical word. It meant that we were left with the with with all of the infrastructure of our coffee shop, so

Nicola Bruce: 11:23

basically, like the church, for a small sum of money, bought all the stuff left over kind of thing.

Alastair Bruce: 12:01

And we thought, Well, what do we do with this, with this space? Do we just franchise it and open it up as another coffee shop? I invite somebody else in to come and do that, and and as we were praying about it, and as we reflected on what had happened over COVID with with the town of Ellen and with our community, we realized that God was asking us to do something much more creative with The space.

Nicola Bruce: 12:28

Yeah, my turn, yes. So enter Nicola previous to COVID. At the start of my job, I did a big bit of research in the town, a kind of community audit, and just basically spoke to anyone who would speak to me that does anything with people and with the community. So town councilors, people you know, head teachers, social workers, people in health, people in education, people in just anybody, really, that had been around a lot and just asked them a lot about the community, and what they felt were the challenges in the community. What they felt was done really well. That doesn't need to be done. And out of that, one of the things, there was a lot came out of it, but one of the things, and this is pre COVID, that came out, was a raft of people in Ellen that just make ends meet. Not you know, they're just getting by. But the problem with that is that then you only takes for one thing, for the washing machine and the dishwasher to break in one time for a few extra snow days, and so the kids just eat out a house and home. You know, somebody has an expected growth spurt, or has gone through their shoes again, or that your mot and your insurance on your car happens to come up at the same time, and suddenly they're totally scuppered, and they haven't got, they haven't got the money to get through the month. And so for people like that, they are then in absolute crisis. So they haven't been in a benefit system, or they haven't been in a support worker system or whatever, and therefore they just fall through the net, and there's a huge amount of shame and guilt that goes along with that, because they have to pitch up somewhere and say, this has happened, and I can't do it anymore, and that's just hard. So particularly from the schools, this was something that was reflected back. And so we knew that this was kind of out there, and there was sort of some things with young people and all this kind of stuff. And then COVID hit, and suddenly everybody had all of their children home all of the time, eating them out of house and home, and they were furloughed at best, so their income went down by 25% so that, in itself, was a struggle, and I was helping our we, we've always had a sort of food bank that our church has existed for 900 years, right?

Laurie Graham: 15:04

Wow. And like, yes, yes,

Nicola Bruce: 15:07

you're, you're American. That will be big for you. That's normal.

Laurie Graham: 15:11

So that's not normal for us. Well,

Alastair Bruce: 15:14

building hasn't existed for 900 years. Yeah, the worshiping community for 900 years. Yes,

Nicola Bruce: 15:20

so, but we have the church has always, you know, back to the New Testament, the Old Testament, the church has always given out food and help people with this. It's not new. I. A but we have, in fact, you found out, you did find, and you'd found a cool article from about 100 years ago that talked about it was, like some wheat embargo or something. And so the church did a deal with the local brewery, and, like, got a heap of barley and gave out the town square, like outside the church. It's in the legacy, it's in the DNA, and we had a wee Food Bank that ran just quietly, got on with the job alongside our friends in the Catholic Church, actually, and I just got on with things. But when COVID hit it, we had gone from helping four families out to suddenly, 30 to 40 every week, and there is another food bank in the time who are like they are our food bank, as opposed to, you know, a church doing a thing, and they were the same, and, you know, nobody could cope. And so we all banded together and worked really well. And this was all fine, and you're doing this temporarily. But what was temporary then turned into redundancies, which then turned into unemployment, which then turned you know, and we've already had the downturn in the oil industry, and then energy crisis came in, and so nobody can heat their homes. And, you know, the less just went on.

Alastair Bruce: 16:46

The downturn of the oil industry is a big thing in Aberdeenshire. Lots of people in Ellen work, work in the oil industry, or have worked in the oil industry. It's one of the slightly schizophrenic things about about Ellen as a town of the town of about 14,000 people that that grew up from a farming village. And so there are, there are lots of people who are farmers. The rural life is what they're what they're used to. Massive influx of of people that that that started working in the oil industry from all over, all over the world, and almost used Ellen as like as a kind of commuter town, and then found themselves becoming part of the community. So there's, there's this sort of slightly schizophrenic kind of

Nicola Bruce: 17:33

old Ellen, you? Ellen? Yeah, yeah. So you find yourself with people who are what you might call classically poor So, but then other people who you think, oh, but they've got a big house. It's like, yes, but they're trapped in their big house because there's nobody coming to buy that house. So they're acting this, and now find themselves looking like they're wealthy, but actually they're living in poverty. And so there's this whole kind of mess of stuff going on. And you kind of fast forward a bit. We, you know, we set the church hall up basically like a like a grocery store kind of thing. I mean, we farmed all this stuff out that's all grand, but there's not a lot of dignity in somebody rocking up on your doorstep with a bag of food packed by someone else that you and your family may or may not like, and you have to be terribly grateful every week for this bag of food. And what I found relationships I had with people was that they all had a bag of shame next to the door. So a bag with men, they'd immediately take out the chickpeas and the kidney beans. Why is people's obsession with chickpeas and kidney beans in a food bag? This is ludicrous anyway. And so they would just have this bag of food going out of date that they had to be terribly grateful about and we just kind of were looking saying, There's got to be another way. This isn't emergency food anymore, it's long term. There's got to be a better way for us to do this. So we looked around a lot of different ways that you can do this. And we were really inspired by a group on the other side of Aberdeenshire, who had set up a community larder, and it was open to anyone. There was no referral, and it was basically just sharing. And they also did a lot to reduce waste, so food surplus from shops, you go and collect it and then make it available to other people. So we have something over here called the Community fridge network, and that's various different places to different degrees have, and they collect the at the end of the day, collect from from local shops and what would have gone to waste. If it can be frozen, we freeze it, relabel it. If it's fruit and veg, it just goes into the fridge. And you know, you can kind of eyeball that and see how it's going, kind of thing. So we had this one prong of right community larder. That's where we're going with, with the fridge in the freezer, right? But what else? So, of course, we have this coffee shop just lying around so knowing the grief and whatnot that people were going through, we says, look, what do you miss? The mess, the welcome, the volunteering, and what we'd call the fine pieces, so your cakes and bakes and what. And so we wanted to bring that back, but we wanted it all to look this was really. A bit I would have set up with folding tables and deck chairs. However,

Alastair Bruce: 20:36

I need the place to look really nice, because I think that that's part of the dignity of of inviting people into a space that feels really lovely to be in and and do our best for for people, no matter where they're coming from, and so that was, that was big for me, was that that we need to whatever it is that we do, we need to think really creatively, really carefully about how, like, don't just line the walls with with shelving. Let's think about how we can set up the shelving so that it feels more like, more like the gap, and less like, like a church hall. And so there's thoughts about how we could do that. So I've been around it'll go around various places in Dundee, there's, there's a VNA Victoria and Albert Museum, and I was in for a coffee there when I was there for a meeting, and and they've got a massive, big open space that they've divided up into a coffee shop and into a shop and various things. So I started looking around, how are they doing that? And how do they do it to make it feel nice and to look nice and to and to help people feel like this is a this is a really lovely space to be in. And we were on holiday with with our kids in Ireland and Belfast. But we gone to the to the Titanic Porter, and we looked, you were looking for somewhere. No, you're

Nicola Bruce: 22:04

on holiday with your kids, and you're like, they're not going to eat anything, so they're hidden, you know, pack lunch up your jumper for them that you're feeding them under a table, and a cafe that you're not allowed to bring your own food into. You know, it's really stressful. And I we've kind of, I Googled, and was like, a chaplain runs this cafe. We'll be safe there, so it's fine then. So, and this place was your deck chairs going the other kind of thing. It was to meet a need. Yeah, there was to meet a need of no staff room being in in the area. And so it was a place to build community. But it was the first time we've come across an honesty cafe. So it's just pay what you feel in your own fit. Because it started as kind of like a staff room sort of thing you could bring your in. But they had a delicious soup, and they bakes and stuff. They had a prayer garden. The kids were free to be and

Alastair Bruce: 23:00

this, this was in in the the kind of purpose built office blocks that are surrounding where the Titanic Museum is called a dock cafe and, and so they had this, this kind of lovely, bright space that they're obviously filled with, with furniture and things that they could, that they could pick up. And it just felt like somebody had had a really creative idea, and that God had moved them to do this. And, and, and we went for lunch, and it was lovely, and it was everything that you had

Nicola Bruce: 23:34

talked to would be classically. We then paid over the odds, because we were so grateful and we really believed in what they were doing. So we had the larder model, we had the honesty Cathy model, and we also, for years, it had a nearly new sale, like, kind of like the church's own thrift store, if that there. And we thought, okay, is there a bit of a revamp kind of needed here? Can this come in together? And so as a third prong, I have a pre loved boutique. So those things have all come together. We took it to the session. We formed a big team to develop it all forward. And a couple of years later, here we are. So the big thing was to increase was, was about generosity, dignity and respect.

Laurie Graham: 24:21

Generosity, dignity and respect. And I want to go back and just hit a couple things that you shared. So first off, you're seeing things other people are doing, other places had done, and you're like, in your mind, you're like, creatively thinking, not, how do we copy that, but how would that work in our space? The other thing I love that you said is a couple years later, you know, sometimes we feel like it just has happened right now, and if it's not going to happen right now, it's not right, or we're pushing things through. So I just want to applaud you on a few of those things. And I really want to talk about this word dignity, you know. And Nicola, when you said earlier, like, people take a bag of food and they're left with a bag of shame. Like, how do you define dignity and and how do we miss it? And just going to throw this out there in the US, we have this little saying that we say to kids a lot, you get what you get and you don't throw a fit. You get what you get and you don't throw a fit. And I feel like that translates sometimes into helping people in need, but on the flip. Side. How do we honor people, you know, like, sometimes we say we You should be grateful for whatever you get, and yet, it's so beautiful to be honored. And I think, I think of when you know, Jesus was walking around the planet, I don't see him saying that, get what you get. You don't throw a fit, you know. So could you two both just talk a little bit about that word dignity, like what that means, maybe, where you see it lacking, and maybe, maybe you've seen some stories where you've just seen something change with people. I

Nicola Bruce: 26:05

can definitely talk about the people with with the things that that we had. I remember a health visitor, so I don't know if it's called the same thing. So basically, like, beyond a midwife, so you've had child and but below nursery age, there'll be somebody like that will kind of support you. And I remember the local health visitor saying, We love your newly, new sale, because a mom can take her kids in there and to do the thing of taking your kid to a toy shop and like, 10 p, like 50 P kind of thing, like sort of $1 kind of thing. You know, they all come away with with something new, be that in inverted commas, new or whatever. But they have chosen something and they've been able, and that is that dignity of doing something that is normal for everyone else and have an opportunity. And so in our in our community, shop, it's it's pre loved, but it's what you might call symbolically priced. So there's a dignity in I have paid for this, and also that I've gotten to choose this, but also that you that you have the ability to pay for it because it's pennies. And

Laurie Graham: 27:23

you said pre loved. Is that a different way of saying yes, because I love it a

Nicola Bruce: 27:28

big part. So what we talk about in the when people come and join the larder. Anyone can join, absolutely anyone and those. And we did that on purpose, because we wanted to make sure that if you were walking into the Kirk Center, which is our halls, if you walk into the Kirk center, that nobody's saying, Oh, they must be on hard times. They're walking in the Kirk center kind of thing. It had to be that you're walking in like anyone else, if they were walking into a cafe or a shop or whatever. And so it has to attract everyone and and it means that people can walk in, and often you can tell like they're really nervous, and they kind of go and browse around the shop. And I you learn to spot them. Of going, you're going to come and speak to me in the larder soon, but I'm going to give you a bit of space because something's gone wrong, but you've managed to walk across the door, because there's no stigma to walking across this door, and that's where this dignity comes in, and it's dignity to be able to access that help without feeling like everybody's Looking at you and wondering and talking about you,

Laurie Graham: 28:34

yeah. And you talked about, you talked about three prongs. And I just want to go back, because I literally, while you're talking, I'm looking up the word larder, like, what is a larder? Because that's just not a term I know, and that's a food

Nicola Bruce: 28:48

a food cupboard or a storage. So that would be, like, what we would call a food pantry. Yes, so and so you might have a pantry. We might a lot a larder is like a big cupboard that you have that has your food in it. So,

Laurie Graham: 29:03

so your three prongs is the larder, the food pantry, the cafe, and then the the pre loved shop. So

Nicola Bruce: 29:10

we call it the Community Cafe, community shop and community larder. It's those. It's those things together, also as the center as a whole, because it is a suite of halls of community spaces trying to work to make those spaces lovely. And that whether people are there booking for a birthday party or a counseling session, or they've come to whatever they've come to access that it's we try to make it, yeah, welcoming and kind of lovely with that.

Alastair Bruce: 29:39

And I've got a wee bit of way to go with with some of those, some of those things, I think I'd love to have some kind of innovative theology and something quirky and all that. But I, but I think it's really simply love God and and love your neighbor. How are we loving God? What we're loving God by? If we, if we believe wholeheartedly that that every person has made an image of God, then what is it that we are doing to display that image to to show that that image of God in more than just how we worship or how we show that, or how we do funerals or how we do this, but how are we showing that, and even in our buildings, even in in how we how we order. Our buildings, to me, people feel the minute they walk through the door that there is that level of dignity I was really impacted by. And I hope that I've got the name right. There's a lady called Maggie Jenks who passed away a number of years ago, but she she died of cancer, and she remembered she was given her cancer diagnosis sitting in a hallway in a hospital with horrible lighting, and it was worst experience of our life. And her husband was an architect, and either they worked to to to make cancer centers, places that felt that the architecture felt like like it was a place of nurture, and so there are no Maggie centers all across the country. And possibly should have done that. We're coming on. And and that really impacted me to kind of go, Well, how, how do we, how do we show that in in our buildings? And are we showing that in our buildings? Because there are people who are not necessarily getting cancer diagnosis in our buildings, but there are people who who have come into our buildings, who've been suicidal, who have been who've been at rock bottom, and and I want them to feel when they come in that that's the that, that everything that they, that the experience is, is showing the love of God. I

Laurie Graham: 32:03

I just love this so much. And I love earlier on, Ally, when you said Nicola, or Nicola said, I would have just done folded tables and chairs, but, but but Ali wanted to make it look look nice and have more dignity. And I think there's so much beauty in that. I've been to very few food pantries or mission organizations or soup kitchens. I can't even remember one right now, off the top of my head, that really looked like a place that was prepared, that wasn't just for people grabbing and going and things like that. And I really, I think what you're sharing is something that is simple enough and doesn't necessarily take a whole bunch of budget. Because, you know, people listening right now, you might not have a cafe space at your church. You might not have a place for this, but you can certainly make whatever you're doing. A lot of churches will call that like benevolence, those kind of things to make it to make it nicer, to give some dignity that we're not just all just, you know, handing things out to people who are less than, like, I love when you talked about that, like we're all created in the image of God. We're all like and how different an environment even makes when we walk into it and we feel like somebody cared. I mean, that's really what it is, right?

Nicola Bruce: 33:24

Absolutely is. And we hear that all the time from people that come in, whether it's to do with how they were welcomed or what they found, whether they were given space or interrogated. But I remember one lady who we had been helping for a good, for a good, maybe over a year, and she said to me, I had no idea how much, how it would feel to choose my own things.

Unknown: 33:49

Wow, oh yeah, it's heartbreaking. I

Nicola Bruce: 33:50

know, yes, there's stories I'll not tell you, because you will. You'll you will, you'll cry your eyes out. But there's also, like with the cafe, and it being the honesty cafe, the thing that's great about that is, if you can't make ends meet, you can't do that thing that is so normal in, certainly in Western society, of going out for a coffee, you know, and and so for people to be able to, when people say to them, oh, you know, let's go out for coffee, they have to then go. I'm afraid I can't. And then it's this like, it's this shame, it's that I'm not normal. I can't do this bloody blood. But being able to say, oh, let's go and let's go and support down in the Kirk center, then they're part of being able to be a part of something bigger than themselves and to support, yeah, and you find that the people who we had supported before brought their bags of shame down, because they then go on the shelf, you see, so therefore they're able to give as well as being able to take what they need rather than what they're given. And those when they're in good times like we've had. We've walked with people through bereavement. We've lost folks, we've celebrated births, we've celebrated new jobs and moves and things like that. And it's so lovely to see them in times that are better. They're like, I'm coming, I'm coming in this time, and I'll, I'll see you at the end, and I know that they're talking about, they're going to come to the Donation Point at the end. We have one, one Donation Point for cash, a card on your way out, and so nobody knows if you have or if you haven't paid, or whatever. I'm over, and they're like, I'm putting this in today, you know? And they're so staffed because they are like. No, no, I'm getting back to this just now, and it's really amazing to see the generosity of that when you know, when you've worked with them for so long, and you know what it is like, what they've come through, and you just their generosity is then huge. You know, it's the widow's mic, you know what? I mean, it's that kind of, yeah, out of, out of nothing they have, they give so much compared to the little. That's kind of the loose change that's thrown by somebody with lots Do you know what I mean? But always kind of said it's so much more than food, and it's so much more coffee, and we'll only do it as long as it makes sense. It doesn't make sense, we'll do something else. But for now, this makes sense in the community. This makes sense as a good stewardship of what God has given us and for now, yeah, how God is asking us to bless, and God

Alastair Bruce: 36:16

is not calling us to do something different just now. It's very clear that this is that this was God placing on our heart and showing us that to begin with, and and he has not called us out of doing that just now either. So we so we continue to do it. The other thing is that we only run on a Thursday morning and a Saturday morning. Again, it's not it's not massively all the time. It's not every week. And that was something that that was quite important in in thinking about volunteers, was, how do we and I spent my life thinking about, how do I keep things sustainable? How do I make things sustainable? How do I kind of manage all of this? From a minister,

Nicola Bruce: 37:00

let's do this.

Laurie Graham: 37:05

So those of you who you know, you can't see them because you're only hearing them. Ali, just rolled his eyes when Nicholas said, Let's do this. So Ali's keeping things manageable, and Nicholas got the big dreams, but I'm really glad that you mentioned you only do it on Thursdays and Saturdays or Thursday mornings and Saturdays, because in my head, I was like, how many churches could manage that? But we definitely have churches who can manage a morning a week. It was

Nicola Bruce: 37:32

because we were running, so all of our food bank stuff happened on it, both basically because of my working hours on a Thursday, predominantly, and then on a Friday morning. And when we did this, we said, Well, look, the people who are already volunteering want to come with us on this. We are keeping the Thursday, but we know we have to hit the weekend. So therefore the Saturday morning came in, and so much fit has been what makes sense at the time. So eight thoughts at once, but so much of it is what makes sense at the time. And I'll circle back to that one. But

Alastair Bruce: 38:05

I'm Nicolas line manager. You can imagine how difficult this is.

Nicola Bruce: 38:12

I'm a separate line manager as well, but start me off. Nick sorry. Circle back. Big said yes. So the other thing, part of that too, is about reliance. So if we open this every day of the week, people would become incredibly reliant on it, and then, and not like you have to also have a responsibility to to to change your situation in any ways that you can do. It means, yeah, we're we're not being the emergency food bank. We totally support the current one, and that's grand. But this is a development of what we were already doing, and there were long term things, so we help a lot of people a little, yeah, and a term with that. And so it's important to us that we're not gonna gonna do it every day of the week, because as a church, we are called to more than just this. So it's, it's trying to kind of, do, you know what's manageable and what makes sense, but also what's going to meet the goals of what we're doing. And so there was that. But the other thing was, like, I was thinking, you know, obviously not everybody has a cafe lying around, but, um, but so much of it was just what God brought it to us. So on a, on a on a Thursday, we do a soup over lunch time. It's all done on site, which uses a lot of the surplus that comes in. So if one had like a mass of broccoli, then it's going to be broccoli and tiny soup, broccoli and potato soup. And, you know, for example, on it. Or if there's like a heap of lemons, then they'll get zested and whatnot, it'll be a lemon drizzle cake. Do you know things that, that people know, but certainly in the past, like when I was growing up, like that was how my mom cooked and things like that. You know, yeah, we have these wonderful women who this is how they have run their households, and so it's just translated in a slightly bigger bit. But really, yeah, coffee morning,

Alastair Bruce: 40:02

the beginning, yeah, no, it is so much

Nicola Bruce: 40:04

more than that. And when we admit that, we get overwhelmed. So, but coffee morning, it's, it's, it's sharing food that's been surplus, and it's, it's sharing out clothes and goods that that still have some life in it. You know, it can be simpler than what we've done, but made sense with the resources that we had to do it like this, and on a Saturday morning, we do bacon rolls and sausage and. Softies, and where that came from is being a part of our big community Gala. Like, does it? Does a gala make sense? Sort of, yeah. Okay, so big community Gala, and at the end of it, the lads that organize it all, they had been doing pool port roles, and they said they shout this over. They were like, I you can do something with 500 rolls. 500 rolls. Can't you like, 500 bread rolls? Like, so we got, like, every, every freezer space in anyone's house. Oh my gosh. And thus was born the bacon roll, because we had all the circus rolls. And it's definitely like, reminiscent of a feed of the 5000 kind of thing. You know that you're just all of a sudden, you have all of this, and so, well, we need, God has given us this. We now need to do something. And,

Laurie Graham: 41:18

well, it's so much that principle of do what you can with what you have. But the other thing I just want to mention before we totally run out of time is, I think part of the beauty of what you all have done, as you talk about the food, about the cafe, about the shop, about people giving back out of the little they have, about people saying, I'm going to come back and contribute, is you've really grown a community. This isn't just a place where people come and grab stuff and leave like there. There seems to be a lot of relationship happening and even ownership. And I talk, um, you've probably heard me say it, you know, it's not about doing ministry to people or for people, but with people. And it seems like you have done this with with these three, this three prong, you know, strategy that you have in your space people, that it's beautiful

Nicola Bruce: 42:11

they belong and that they're part of something solid. Friendships have been made, and what's lovely is being able to see people then connect with other things that we do, whether that's youth organizations or coming to church or like the bereavement course and things that you've been doing

Alastair Bruce: 42:30

well, people, people have moved from coming into the into the larder because they were in need, and now being a volunteer. So, so there's people that I've used to deliver food parcels to over over COVID who are now washing the dishes and serving and things. So, so, yeah, absolutely that, that ministry with people that is definitely a kind of significant part of that, circling back just quickly to the to your comment about the being like a glorified coffee morning, that was definitely something that that kind of helped with trying to set this up, because the church culture could have been and they have this Ellen parish church previously has this culture of doing everything big, and so they could, could have, quite quickly, have gone to the So, so we'll set up a separate charity, and we'll, and we'll, and we'll do this. We'll do that, and we'll pay people to come in and run all of this and and part of what I felt my calling as minister here has been is to is to pull some of that back and to think much more humbly about it. So, so the the it's a glorified coffee morning, help to pull all of that back without taking away the dignity and an ugly space and all of that. But just go, this is we're not looking to set up something huge. We're looking to to do something quite small and and let God expand that and see where, yeah, yes, people have come to the bereavement course that we that we run, who've come through the the people are coming on our alpha course that we're running just now, because they've come through the through the Laurie so there's this missional part of hell

Nicola Bruce: 44:23

and and it's not like massive and it's not not explicit. We've got big cross right on all our aprons, who we are absolutely, yeah, yeah, but it's there in that relationship, as people get to know you and get to think about it, and what church was suddenly doesn't seem like that anymore, and they suddenly find themselves a part of the church which they had never thought they would be. People who did that, you know,

Laurie Graham: 44:47

yeah, yeah.

Alastair Bruce: 44:49

Find it quite hard to to to speak about faith, but, but they'll speak about what they're doing in the larder, in real enthusiasm and with real love and and through that, they're talking about about faith, because they just sort of trip over into and have a conversation. It's been so lovely as minister to be able to see the see the development of people over that, over that time, yeah, how, how, how, folk, folks, faith, has really, really flourished over that, and then they're seeing the changes that have been made and get more enthusiastic about it, and

Nicola Bruce: 45:28

having that opportunity to use their gifts as well. You know, whether that's just listening, you know, I'm just thinking of the pastoral care that's happening in there, just people who are there specifically to listen. You know, it's just really encouraging. All right,

Laurie Graham: 45:41

yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, thank you so much for taking the time and just being on the podcast. And it's so encouraging to hear a smaller congregation so far away from where I am, doing the same, reaching out, loving others, bringing them in, building community and and really just being a light, like right where you are. So if there's people listening and they're like, Oh, I wish my church was more missional in our community, or I wish we did something that could build this type of feeling of dignity and meeting needs at the same time, I'm going to have each of you give your one piece of like where to start, or how you would encourage them from wherever they're listening right now. So Nicola, I'll let you start. I remember,

Nicola Bruce: 46:31

I think it was John Darin, one of my professors, once saying, if you're thinking about mission, stand on your doorstep and look out and see what needs done, and then that. And I think that's probably it. And it kind of sums up what we did of looking out and going well, what is it and asking and taking the time to do that and going, Well, what of this? What can we do? You know, we're a church that makes what could we do with that? So it is just God has already given you the stuff, the tools, the people, and it's just a matter of matching it up.

Laurie Graham: 47:07

Yeah, yeah, I love it. Ali, what do you want to leave us with?

Alastair Bruce: 47:11

I think, I think to not let anything stand in your way. I think, I think nothing has to be complicated. Nothing has to be huge. You don't have to you'll have to make massive changes to your to your building. You don't have to get and get 100 more volunteers. The people who you have, who you've built relationship with are the ones that that will get enthusiastic about this. And whatever space you have, you can make it look incredible just with a bit of creativity and and and look around other places, and pick up what you see in other places and and then apply that to that to your space.

Nicola Bruce: 47:52

Yeah, I love it most things with a lick of paint and an Ikea plant,

Alastair Bruce: 48:03

yeah, yeah, some Fauci lights up like, yeah, yeah, yeah. So

Laurie Graham: 48:09

sweet. Thank you so much for spending so much time with us today. I'm just excited to have you in the community with us. It's so fun to be in touch with with people like you. So if, if, if anybody has any questions or wants to look you up, is there a church website or how would they get in touch with you? Or maybe it's just through our Facebook community, I don't

Alastair Bruce: 48:30

know, yeah, well, definitely, through the Facebook community, can private messages or anything like that. Ellen, parish church has a has a website, so it's E, L, L O, N, parish church.co.uk, but if you just Google that, then it'll then it'll come up. And we're North East of Scotland, we're on Facebook

Nicola Bruce: 48:50

and we're on

Alastair Bruce: 48:52

YouTube as well, yeah, and details and everything are on the website.

Nicola Bruce: 48:58

You can see Blue Dogs in Ellen, aren't you? Yeah, they broke into America.

Alastair Bruce: 49:04

Headquarters are in Ellen. Yeah, local land

Laurie Graham: 49:09

that's so beautiful. Well, you all keep being a light in Scotland and for everybody listening until next week, be a light. You