“Young adults don’t automatically come to the church; but we’ve noticed that once young adults come to our group even once, they stay.” Riley Bos.
A few years ago, Daybreak Church applied for a grant from the Imaginarium at Indiana Wesleyan University, Marion, Indiana, hoping to launch a listening experiment in their community. Daybreak is rooted in Hudsonville, Michigan (close to Grand Rapids), and rather than engaging emerging adults through a new program, a few of their young adults fanned out into the community to ask their peers what they need and believe them when they responded.
Many survey respondents were unchurched or “de-churched,” having grown up in the Christian faith before walking away. The listening tour asked some simple (but not easy) questions, like: “What’s one of the biggest challenges in your life? What do you wish the church would do about it?”
The results were sobering. The resounding theme was a struggle with mental health.
“These young adults told us the truth about what they’re carrying,” said Reverend Ryley Olson, then Daybreak’s youth pastor, who began the grant application before transitioning to senior pastor for another congregation. Rev. Olson shared in his grant report: “What floored us most was how surprised they were that a church would care enough to ask.”
Daybreak responded by using the grant’s second phase to cultivate safe space around mental health, hosting an event called “Stressed Out.” This event was designed around their community’s questions: How did we get to a place where people are struggling with mental health? Why are we staying here? How do we get out?
The night included interviews with local counselors, round-table conversations, a catered meal, and a live question and answer session. Around 30 people attended, including 10 with no church connection. Seven participants expressed interest in joining group therapy and follow-up resources included counselor lists and financial assistance.
“We saw young adults open up in ways we never expected,” said Rev. Olson. “It met a real need and gave people hope.”
Based on the event feedback, one of the greatest challenges many emerging adults face in their space is loneliness — a sense that they’re facing their challenges alone. “Sometimes, the problem isn’t keeping young adults in the church,” reflected Chase Groothuis, Daybreak young adult. “It’s helping them know the church cares about them at all. How do they know that if we don’t go to them?”
Their team then took their listening work to Florida for a “Hatchathon,” gathering with other churches who’d done listening work, and hoping to emerge with a clear plan for the next grant phase. They left the gathering having hatched an idea for “The Happy Camper,” a pop-up coffee shop, hosted in a refurbished camper, that would show up on college campuses and other gatherings attractive to young adults, staffed by Daybreak’s cadre of volunteers.
“The idea was to go to young adult gathering places, connect them with people who care and resources that encourage good mental health,” said John Hodgson, Hatchathon attendee.
When Daybreak’s team returned home, they received a $15,000 grant from the Imaginarium for seed funding and were met with enthusiastic congregational support. One Daybreak congregant donated a camper to the project!
But beyond that, they received something totally unexpected: an invitation to remodel the church’s small café, turning it into a proper coffee shop housed in the church but open to the community throughout the week.
“We were absolutely stunned,” shared Riley Bos, Daybreak young adult and shop manager. “It was beyond what we imagined when we pitched the camper idea,” said Holley Malone, another young adult who helped launch the shop.
The team set to work launching Daybreak Coffee Company, using the $15,000 Imaginarium grant and raising funds to remodel the existing café, purchase equipment, get barista training and begin hosting events to support the community.
One fundraiser included selling “supporter boxes” in amounts of $75 (a mug, 4 oz. bag of coffee, sticker and t-shirt), $250 (a mug, 8 oz. bag of coffee, sticker and a sweatshirt) and a “legacy box” for $2,500 (one red legacy tumbler, 8 oz. bag of coffee, sticker, t-shirt, sweatshirt and free coffee for life).
That fundraiser raised over $30,000, allowing them to renovate the café, begin partnerships with MadCap Coffee (one of the nation’s premier roasters), conduct some barista training and continue renovating the “Happy Camper” trailer.
Open every Sunday during Daybreak morning services and Monday through Thursday mornings; the shop is frequented by several “regulars.” The shop entrance faces a local school, and the baristas have come to expect school staff members to come over on a Gator utility vehicle and take back beverages to school employees. To intentionally cultivate partnerships, Daybreak Coffee has done employee appreciation initiatives for local schools and developed relationships with bus drivers who park in their lot and come in for a morning coffee.
As incredible as these connections have been, one of the best ingredients in Daybreak’s success has been behind the bar. When Rev. Ryley Olson left to become senior pastor at another church, he trained some young adult leaders to run the shop.
Now that they’re running the shop, this team is recruiting the next wave of leaders. “We’ve started bringing in other young adults; or high schoolers even before they become young adults, so we could create internships. The idea is that as they head toward young adulthood, they’re able to help out at that cafe and serve in their community, and we’re able to walk with them into the young adult group we have so they don’t go into young adulthood alone,” stated Riley Bos.
Every Tuesday night, a young adult group converges on the shop, meeting around specific questions, biblical topics or themes, depending on the night. “The group is so different from each other; but we’re in each other’s lives so much, supporting each other,” said Holley. “If you see us out to dinner together, you’d never think of this group as people who would be friends with each other,” agreed Riley. “But it just works; and people can be vulnerable with each other. One of our best nights was around the question: What’s your greatest fear?” she continued.
That culture of openness is one way Daybreak Coffee continues in the spirit of the grant’s initial stage: helping the church have a gravitational center that pulls people closer, helping connect them with God and with each other.
In the next stage, they hope to finish renovating the “Happy Camper” trailer, plan mobile pop-up events and continue dreaming around how Daybreak can use their developmental culture (honed in the coffee shop) to cultivate resources and connections that help emerging adults feel support in the church. They’re also excited to get an outdoor sign for the building and keep experimenting with seasonal specialty drinks (their most recent “Easter Egg latte” was a seasonal hit).
For more spotlights on young adults finding fresh ways of loving God and neighbor, visit imaginariumiwu.com.
Rev. Ethan Linder is the pastor of discipleship at College Wesleyan Church in Marion, Indiana, and contributing editor at The Wesleyan Church’s Education and Clergy Development Division.
