The lines between church and café are blurred when volunteers care and there’s great rhubarb pie. Laurence Wareing reports

Why do a job miles away when you could do it at home? This was one of the game-changing questions that the Covid pandemic left many individuals and communities to ponder in its wake. Norma Brown and the members of Livingston United Parish (LUP), an ecumenical congregation in West Lothian, put the question a little differently. Why do ‘faith in hospitality’ somewhere else when you can do it on your own doorstep? ‘The Barn’ community café was the result….

The Barn, Livingston, was awarded £2,000 in the 2024 United Reformed Church Community Project Awards, sponsored by Congregational. urc.org.uk/awards

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This is an extract from an article published in the October 2024 edition of Reform

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