Creating Space to ‘Just Be’: INSPIRE’s Impact in Chemnitz

In October 2024, I did my international trip as Youth President and visited the INSPIRE community centre in Chemnitz, Germany. INSPIRE is a fantastic community centre, while I was there, I experienced some of the many events and activities that help create a community for the people who attend.

Barry Sloan, Methodist Church in Britain's Partnership Coordinator for Europe, and Gillian Sloan, his partner, started INSPIRE in 2015 and began with ‘bring and share’ meals and singer songwriter evenings. Over the last decade the community centre has grown into a vibrant space where people feel at home. When I talked to Barry about how the centre addressed the need in the area, he told me that it was a very atheist area.

“We do not see people as mission objects; it’s not about trying to buttonhole people. It’s basically just that we do what we do, we serve people, we love people. We share God and God’s love with people, and we do that because we’re Christians.”

INSPIRE was a safe space, to talk about faith, to have fun with friends and above all a space just to be for people that might not have many spaces for community.

When I talked to Barry about the priorities of INSPIRE, he talked about their way of doing mission, that they aimed to reach the people that could not be reached by traditional models of Church, especially in areas where religion is not as normalised. To the people at INSPIRE, getting people to come to Church is secondary to making both community and a difference for the people in their city.

At Chemnitz the people involved felt at home, with the lack of pressure usually included with religious outreach. They were able to come and get involved without expectations, making the space feel authentically welcoming. One of the ways INSPIRE is so welcoming is by reaching out to people that need that space locally, which for Chemnitz means a focus on students and migrants.

The Sprachen Cafe was a great example of this. Chemnitz is home to a lot of migrants and refugees, so the community centre set up a space for people to come and practice their language skills as well as having other people to speak their language with. The atmosphere was incredibly friendly, and I managed to sit with a group who knew very limited English and still learn about each other and make conversation. Chemnitz’s influx of Ukranian refugees left a lot of people that were new to the area and in need of community, and the Sprachen Cafe became a safe space where they could ‘just be’ and have the option to improve their language skills with no ulterior motives, simply the desire for people to feel at home.

Local community was in everything I experienced in my week in Chemnitz. From the Church hosting a tyre changing event where a mundane mechanical requirement to prepare for winter became a place to catch up and offer skills, to the quiz night where international students had a space to feel at home, offer their perspectives, and get involved in something outside of university.

Another way INSPIRE serves the local community is with their student interns. A few students who were already involved with INSPIRE mentioned to Barry that they needed internships for their degree courses and asked if they could do something with INSPIRE. Barry set up internship programmes, and they began new events such as a Mario Kart night, the Dungeons & Dragons sessions, and quiz night. These types of events were just beginning as I visited and already were bringing new perspectives and appealing to a wider group of people.

My experience when visiting INSPIRE was incredible. The events were varied and fun, the outreach was a beautiful example of how mission can be selfless, and above all the people were the most welcoming and friendly you could ask for while travelling to a new place alone. Whether it was with complete strangers practicing German and learning words at the Sprachen Cafe, or the patience shown while trying to teach me the rules of Dungeons and Dragons several times, or just chatting to the interns and volunteers before and after every event – the people made my visit incredibly meaningful and memorable.

To learn more about INSPIRE click here