Forming a Shop

“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, 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 the congregation’s young adults fanned out into the community to ask their peers what they need, and believe them when they responded. 

Many of the respondents to their survey were unchurched or “de-churched,” having grown up in the 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 of the results was a struggle with mental health. 

"These young adults told us the truth about what they’re carrying," said Ryley Olson, then the youth pastor at Daybreak – who began the process of applying for the grant before transitioning toward a position as senior pastor at another congregation. Olson shared in his grant report. "What floored us most was how surprised they were that a church would care enough to ask."

So Daybreak responded by using the second phase of the grant to cultivate safe space around mental health, hosting an event called "Stressed Out", designed around the questions their community was asking: How did we get to a place where people are struggling with mental health? Why do we stay here? And how do we get out?

The night included interviews with local counselors, round-table conversations, a catered meal, and live Q&A. 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 Olson. “It met a real need and gave people hope.”

Based on the feedback they received from that event, 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, one of Daybreak’s young adults. “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 with them for a “Hatchathon,” where they gathered with other churches who’d done listening work, hoping to emerge with a clear plan for the next phase of their grant. 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 places young adults gather, and connect them with people who care about them, and resources that encourage good mental health,” said John Hodgson, one of the young adults who attended the Hatchathon. 

When they returned home, they received a $15,000 grant from the Imaginarium for seed funding, and were met with enthusiastic support from the congregation. One Daybreak congregant donated a camper to the project!

 But beyond that, they received something they never expected: an invitation to remodel the small café within the church and turn 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, one of Daybreak’s young adults who now manages the shop.  “It was beyond what we imagined when we pitched the camper idea,” said Holley Malone, another of the young adults who helped launch the shop. 

The team set to work launching Daybreak Coffee Co, building on 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 (one mug, sticker, and t-shirt), $150 (a mug, a bag of coffee, and a sweatshirt), and a “legacy box,” for $2500 (one red metal tumbler, bag of coffee, t-shirt, sweatshirt, and unlimited coffee for one person). 

They raised over $30,000 from that fundraiser, which allowed them to renovate the café into a  shop, begin partnerships with MadCap Coffee (one of the nation’s premier roasters), conduct some barista training, and continue working to renovate the trailer for the “Happy Camper” idea. 

The shop is open every Sunday during Daybreak morning services, and Monday-Thursday from 7 AM - 12 PM; several “regulars” have been frequenting the shop. The shop entrance faces a local school, and the baristas have come to expect staff members coming over on a Gator utility vehicle, and bringing 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 enthralling 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 a few young adult leaders in skills they’d need to run the shop. 

Now that they’re running the shop, the current team is recruiting the next wave of leaders. “We've started bringing in other young adults; or high schoolers even before they come 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.”

Every Tuesday night, a group of young adults converge 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 others’ lives so much, supporting each other,” said Malone. “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 Bos. “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 in the shop is one of the ways Daybreak Coffee continues in the spirit of the initial stages of the grant: helping the church have a gravitational center that pulls people closer, and helps 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).