A food parcel, a cup of coffee, and a door left open: Oikos in Brigg

Every so often a document lands that I want to read twice. The annual report from Oikos in Brigg was one of those.

*Oikos* is the Greek word for household, and it suits them. Tucked away on Wrawby Street, this ecumenical Christian charity is part bookshop, part food project, part advice centre, part prayer room. Mostly it is a household, a community, with the door left open.

This year Brigg Food Bank became 'Food & More' and Hannah Mitchell, who leads it, puts it better than I could: "Food can often be the reason someone first walks through our door, but it is rarely the whole story." Emergency parcels are still there, but around them has grown a Community Pantry, a Community Fridge, shared meals, social groups, cooking sessions and help finding the right support. Over the year, more than £126,000 of food and practical help went into local households. Around 335 households used the Pantry. Volunteers gave over 3,000 hours, that's roughly two full-time posts' worth of love and elbow grease!

Then there's the advice given at Oikos too with Citizens Advice now running sessions there twice a week. Around 115 people were helped this year, with an estimated £330,000 in financial gains, from benefits people were entitled to and never claimed, to debts written off and bills brought down. Behind every one of those numbers is someone who can breathe a little easier. That's not something that should be overlooked because helping people is an incredible act of grace.

What moves me most in what's happening at Oikos is the breadth of life that happens under one roof. There's a new Grief Café, where, in Revd Enid Knowles's words, people are "free to laugh, cry or punch a cushion". There's a new neurodiverse group and a Ladies' Breakfast. AA has met there on Monday nights since 2021. And alongside all of that sit ls Bible study, Tuesday prayer, the Pilgrim Group, Café Fellowship and a Men's Breakfast. No one has to fit a single box... It's that breadth in one building that's there for the community that makes me wonder how much of this can we replicate around the county.

I love that they live their faith out in the community, with Good Friday just another way they do this as the Oikos team and many ecumenical and community friends took the Passion story into the Market Square. The crucifixion was staged on the town bridge and afterwards, 200 people shared fish and chips, which feels very Gospel to me...

Here's a question... Could you do this too?

This, for me, is what New Places for New People and church at the margins work might also look like. It isn't a programme we take out to people. It's a household and community where people are fed, heard and welcomed, and where faith is lived out loud but never used as an entry fee.

Oikos didn't become this overnight, and nobody is asking you to copy it wholesale, but many of the ingredients are within reach of many churches and even done already in part...

So for potential pioneers in your local communities maybe there's a step already there to build upon and develop...maybe you are ready to start pioneering too all it really needs is:

• people who notice

• a kettle or a cuppa

• a willingness to listen before assuming what someone needs

• a door that opens

• a heart for your local community

• an attitude of prayer to discern Gods call and will

So if something is stirring in your church or circuit, or heart, I'd love to hear about it. That might be a warm space, a grief group, a breakfast that's quietly becoming more than breakfast, or a question you can't shake, then drop me a line at missionNPNP@lincolnshiremethodist.org.uk and let's see where it might lead.

Thank you to every Oikos volunteer. And thank you to Mary Knaggs and Malcolm Bailey, who steps back after years of faithful service.

If you want to visit then they are found at:

Oikos-Brigg,Lower Ground Floor, 67 Wrawby Street, Brigg DN20 8JE.

They are a Registered charity 1184594.

Melanie Carroll – District Mission Enabler & New Places for New People Lead.