So it began, like most things do, with an idea.

Our church had a vision weekend and a guest speaker encouraged us to think of an unmet need on our doorstep and then to begin to witness to our community by meeting those people at their point of need.

As a secondary school teacher and a member of the church youth team I suppose it’s not surprising that the first thing that came to my mind was a safe place where teenagers could hang out with their friends.You see our church is just a short walk away from a beach, a common and a skate park – all areas where young people congregate in the evenings.

It wasn’t just that speaker who had got me thinking. I had been helping with our Friday night outreach project, the Friday Fridge. Essentially the Fridge is a late night café and chill-out space staffed by church volunteers. It opens from 10.30pm till 1.30am on a Friday night and although it is aimed to appeal to adults in their 20s to 40s heading home from the pub it primarily attracted under 18s in its first year. In fact by 10.15pm a crowd of up to 30 young people would often be sitting outside the Church doors and would impatiently knock if we weren’t open on the dot of 10.30. Most of them had spent the evening with friends on the common but as it became darker and colder welcomed a coffee, a bacon sandwich and a comfy cushion to sit on while they continued to chat. We were basically providing a warm, safe, alcohol-free venue for them. On one particular evening a teenage girl even celebrated her birthday in the Fridge café zone, bringing a cake and telling her friends to meet her there.

As we had regularly prayed that God would bring the right individuals to our door, those who he had selected, I began to wonder if he had had young people in mind all along.

In our Youth Team meetings we started throwing about ideas. So, what if we created a “Portable Fridge” which we could take to the common, the seafront or anywhere else where groups of young people were? What did those young people need? What if we took bottles of water? Doughnuts? A frisbee or kite? Would they talk to us? When it began to get dark and cold would they come back to the Fridge for a coffee and a bacon sarnie? Would they talk to our Christian volunteers and discover they were fairly normal after all?

It looks like we may soon find out.