IT’S just after midnight on Sunday morning, but the foyer of Hereford Baptist Church is teeming with life. Young men eating fast food sit on the wall outside, while girls laugh hysterically on benches nearby, wearing skirts that will do little to ward off the chilly night. Inside, one young man stumbles drunkenly about, dropping chips on the carpet near a couple who kiss in the corner.

This is Nightshift at the church, where the drunk and disorderly of Hereford’s “clubland” stream through the doors for some warmth, a cup of tea, and a safe place to sober up after a Saturday night. And, while it’s not their main priority, there’s also a little God-talk thrown in for those who are interested.

Some churches may disapprove of inviting in rowdy young people who may not respect their faith, but the founders of Nightshift are adamant that they are helping to improve young people’s lives, and revitalising the ministry of the church in the process.

“If you had told me before this started that we were going to open the foyer of the church and staff it with old people, I would have said that you were having a laugh,” says Claire Hailwood, the church’s youth pastor. “But it just works, because people come in and love to be talked to. And the different generations’ volunteering here has really worked.”

Brian and Mair Granthier, both in their 60s, took the initiative two years ago, when the church was being vandalised on Saturday nights, and members were finding it surrounded by rubbish on Sunday mornings.

Between 70 and 200 young people descend on the church every Saturday night/Sunday morning, and it is obvious that many come for the playful banter with Mrs Granthier, who taught some of them in primary school. She playfully disciplines those who get too rowdy, and welcomes in those who are nervous first-timers with a warm, motherly approach.

The young people, mostly men in their early to mid-20s, either joke with Mrs Granthier and the volunteers, or present their friends politely to them as if in the sitting-room of somebody’s home.

But surely there are those who enter the church and abuse the service provided? Can the anti-social element in Hereford’s nightlife have been reformed overnight?

“We don’t really have problems with that, because they keep each other in line. If one person gets loud and aggressive, the others will tell him to be quiet, that this isn’t the place,” says Ms Hailwood.

Among those who come to the church, there are regulars whom the volunteers know by name. Ms Hailwood describes one girl who came to its door drunk and crying one night. Several weeks later, after the volunteers helped her to put her life back together, the girl came in to show them all her first pay slip.

“The church is more than just a place that offers a cup of tea,” says the minister of the church, the Revd Anthony Wareham. “It’s also a safe place. If someone is chasing them down the street, they can come in here, and we’ll hide them out the back while the other person hangs around outside.”

Behind him, beyond the foyer in the chapel itself, a church member and nurse, Michelle Tydeman, is speaking with a man in the chapel. When they emerge after 2 a.m., someone says to the man jokingly, “So were you converted?” They had been talking about serious matters: he had come into the church drunk and depressed, and talking of suicide.

“At least he says he’s not going to ‘do himself’ tonight,” says Ms Tydeman, smiling like all the volunteers, even though there are frequent tales of exclusion, deprivation, and loneliness behind the late-night laughter.

IT’s obvious from walking through the foyer during the night that Christianity is not the first topic brought up in conversation. But, when it is, it’s the young people who raise it.

“We don’t jump on our soapbox and preach or force it,” says Ms Hailwood. “Actually, we’re here to offer a safe place and a cup of coffee, and for some that’s the only level they take it. But nine out of ten people bring up the topic of God themselves.”

One young man, Adam, brings God into the conversation after speaking to Ms Hailwood for only a few minutes. After talking about the lyrics of Bob Dylan, he then begins to recite, at random, some lyrics of his own — “Deep love, deep night, God’s shadow cuts at me like a knife,” he says.

There is a big difference between getting these young people to talk about God momentarily and getting them into regular worship at the church. The jump from dropping into a church foyer after a nightclub on a Saturday night, to sitting in a service the next morning is too big for most of them, and so the team decided to set up an alternative service on a Sunday evening.

“We can’t expect them to come too quickly out of their culture,” says Ms Hailwood. “If, for some, their church happens at 2 a.m. on a Sunday morning, that’s fine, because what’s more important is that they are growing with God.”

At Christmas and Easter, the church has late-night services at 2 a.m. as a part of Nightshift, which last Christmas had an attendance of 70 more than slightly drunk young men. They sang “Away in a manger” with cigarette lighters waving in the air as if they were at a rock concert, and followed this up with a rendition of “Glory to God”.

Ms Hailwood doesn’t see this as irreverent, but as a way of making church accessible to people who would never otherwise set foot inside one. “A lot of it was just fun, but there was also worship of some description going on,” she says. “They don’t behave like other people behave in church, but there is something there. I feel that they have a belief in God, but don’t have the words or experience or knowledge to form it, or to describe it.”

THE Café Church on Sunday nights is specifically for people who have been to Nightshift, and want to hear more about God. The seats in the church are arranged around tables much like a café, so that participants can discuss their beliefs and have a short worship session.

But the church hopes to enter into drugs- and alcohol-awareness, as well as other advocacy work. It has some social remit at the moment, as it offers coupons for a chip shop across the road to those who are hungry, and provides sleeping-bags for the homeless.

Social-advocacy organisations within Hereford are interested in working with the church because it is taking “decisive action”, says one volunteer. Pleasantly surprised by the level of orderly activity both inside and outside the church, Vicky Barnes from Hereford Community Safety and Drugs Partnership says: “We really want to support them. We want them to know that there are pockets of money they can tap into.”

Eventually, the foyer empties at 3 a.m., the rubbish outside is cleared away, and the church’s lights go out. It’s almost 4 a.m. by the time Mr and Mrs Granthier reach their house in the countryside outside Hereford, but they are still enthusiastic when they rise for church the next morning at 9 a.m.

Although Mr Granthier, who operates a sound desk at the church, jokes about falling asleep in the middle of the service and hitting a microphone, he and Mrs Granthier are eager to see if there are any familiar faces from Nightshift in the congregation.

“If not, we’ll see them next Saturday night,” says Mrs Granthier, laughing again.

A version of this article first appeared in The Baptist Times .