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Freedom of Belief

23 June 2023

4 min read

Away from home, cut off from home

As Refugee Week concludes, Belle Tindall moves beyond the headlines and learns the story of Azer and the thousands of churches who are providing a sense of home for those who have fled theirs.

Belle Tindall

Belle is the staff writer at Seen & Unseen and co-host of its Re-enchanting podcast.

Welcome Network

No refugee alone – that’s the vision, that’s the hope, that’s the end game.

That is what is fuelling Welcome Churches, a charity that is encouraging, equipping and resourcing local churches to support refugees up and down the country. In the past twelve months alone, over one thousand churches have partnered with Welcome Churches to help ensure that their corner of the UK is a home fit for the people who are seeking sanctuary within it.

As a result, nearly eighteen thousand people have been welcomed into and supported by local churches in the past year.

One of those people is Azer.

Azer came to the UK in 2022, along with his wife, to study in Birmingham. The plan was to stay in the UK for two years, complete his studies, and then return home to Iran with the qualifications he needed to obtain a promotion in tow. However, just two months into his time at the University, Azer found that his bank account had been frozen, and he was unable to pay his fees, and therefore attend his classes. After assuming that this was down to some kind of technical fault, or perhaps a legal complication, Azer was horrified to learn that it was the Iranian authorities who had intentionally cut him off from his finances. Not only that, but they had also raided and seized his home in Iran, as well as raiding the home of his wife’s family.

He and his wife had been targeted.

Azer and his wife are Christians, which is a dangerous thing to be in Iran. Christian gatherings are prohibited, and any rumours of secret Christian activity is heavily monitored. In fact, practising Christianity can lead to imprisonment for ‘crimes against national security’. The pressure that Christians are under in Iran has led Open Doors to rank it as the eighth most dangerous country to be a Christian in the world.

Azer describes it this way,

Being a Christian in Iran and participating in the communities will have consequences, such as prosecution or execution. Converting from Islam to Christianity will have a price and your life is entitled to be taken by Islamic government agents. That's why house churches are held secretly. Absolutely, you fear. That's why everything is done in confidentiality regarding the worship services, and Bible readings.

As Helen, an Engagement Officer for Welcome Churches, says, ‘for some people it (Christianity) is literally life threatening, the persecuted church is a real thing’.

Despite the immense risks, Azer’s wife covertly practiced her Christianity while living in Iran, keeping Christian literature in her home. Something which, it seems, did not go unnoticed. As a result, returning to Iran is no longer a safe option for Azer, nor his wife. When asked how it felt to learn that his own government had targeted him and his family in this way, and to realise that his home could therefore no longer be his home, Azer described it this way,

We felt like all the organs of our body dismembered, and on the other hand, like something inside you has been lost which was your identity obtained during past years by your efforts. A mixture of helplessness, frustration, being thrown into the void, and implosion inside. Dealing with losing all your possessions and all your plans is very hard. Like somebody who survived after an earthquake and lost his family and home. On the other hand, feeling your life is in danger is harder to tolerate. We feel at any moment you can be killed by the agents. These threats last for a long time which is more difficult to cope with.

Because of the profound dangers that Azer and his wife face, they have applied for asylum here in the UK. Azer speaks powerfully of how being a refugee feels,

Even though being an asylum seeker carries legal status all over the world, you immediately have no social status and must navigate this extreme loss of identity in an unknown territory. Sometimes I cannot talk, think, or even concentrate and my wife and I often feel lonely and homesick for our parents and siblings.

The UN Refugee Agency reports that in November 2022 (the most recent statistics), there were 231,597 refugees, 127,421 pending asylum cases, and 5,483 stateless persons in the UK. Each with their own stories, their own fears, their own hopes. Each one having to juggle copious unknowns on a daily basis, navigating risks that many of us cannot fathom. The depth of emotion in Azer’s words as he speaks of his experience, it is hard to comprehend such trauma multiplied by such huge numbers. Yet, that is the reality that many local churches are coming face to face with, supported by Welcome Churches.

Believing that refugees are people to be supported, not problems to be solved, churches have been providing for their new neighbours in numerous ways: providing toys, clothes, food, warm spaces, games nights, social hubs and so much more. They have taken the biblical mandates to ‘welcome strangers’ and ‘love their neighbours’ incredibly literally, showing hospitality to people of all faiths, and none.

Of course, there is a political component to this that cannot be ignored, and one of Welcome Church’s core values is institutional justice for refugees and asylum seekers, believing that the Church/Christians should be at the forefront of ensuring that the Home Office is in a position to hear every case presented to it and respond with compassion. As Helen says,

It’s not for us to decide the validity of their claim. But neither is it for us to deny the validity of their humanity.

This Refugee Week is an opportunity to move beyond headlines, statistics and culture wars and ensure that people are seen, and stories are heard. It therefore seems only right that Azer gets the final word,

We ask Humbly that the UK (government) put themselves in our place, and then judge and treat us. In the meantime, we are thankful for all the love and compassion we have received from most of the British people. We pray to God to help and give us the power to reciprocate for this nation in the future.

Article

Change

Community

Eating

29 September 2025

4 min read

Why cafes are sacred spaces

Socrates had the agora, we have the cafe

Joshua Nurcombe-Pike

Joshua is a church planter and DPhil student at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford.

Cafe culture.

Autumn’s here. I can smell it before I even find a seat. The waft of pumpkin spice lattes hangs in the air of my favourite coffee spot – the unofficial sign, for me at least, that it’s time to wrap up warm.

Personally, I’ll stick to my batch brew coffee, but I get the appeal.

And while these drinks may change with the seasons, the ritual doesn’t. We keep coming back to cafes and coffee shops. To me, it feels as if we’re craving something more than just the caffeine.

Cafes that fail to ride the wave of seasonal trends suffer – as the high street giant Costa found this summer, when it failed to cash in on the TikTok-accelerated bandwagon of matcha lattes as the summer “it” drink and saw profits plummet.

But it’s about more than just what’s on the menu.

Starbucks has just announced plans to close branches across the UK, citing an inability to create the kind of physical environment customers now expect.

Indie cafés, on the other hand, are growing in popularity, with the Observer putting this down to the “lifestyle experience” they offer. This is certainly true, but only half the story. From where I sit, these seasonal drinks appear to be the latest frothy disguise for our very human need for meaningful connection.

Socrates had the agora. We have the café.

Think about it.

Cafes have become shared spaces where people work alone together, catch up with friends, debate, discuss, purchase, and consume. We signal loyalty with stamp cards, publicise our purchases on social media, and even join communities that gather around the cafés – running clubs;, book groups;, new parent meetups.

A sweeping glance from my current table offers an insight into this hive of connectivity.

The walls are home to a temporary art gallery paying homage to local landmarks.

The noticeboard is stacked with volunteering opportunities, mental health classes, indie gig flyers, and an invite to a Halloween party.

A mother attempts to photograph and feed her child a babycino at the same time.

A job interview, or perhaps a painfully awkward first date, unfolds quietly in the corner.

Two young women laugh at last night’s antics.

The barista explains the tasting notes of the latest batch brew to a customer redeeming a fully stamped loyalty card.

An empty chair sits opposite me, waiting for a friend who, I know, will soon be bearing his soul.

It all tells me that cafés have commodified our desire to belong. And we’re more than willing to buy into it.

But I reckon there’s still something missing.

Coffee culture doesn’t just tell us about our habits. It tells us about our humanity. In a world that longs for belonging but can’t stop scrolling, cafés hint at something deeper: that we were made not just for surface-level connection, but for something more lasting.

In ancient Athens, the agora wasn’t just a marketplace or social hub. It provided a context for people to explore big questions of truth, beauty, virtue, and justice. It was the setting for public dialogue and philosophical inquiry. It was noisy, informal, often disruptive but always a space for serious thought.

I’m not suggesting you take a soap box with you on your next caffeine fix. But I do think our modern cafés, for all their cosiness and cinnamon, are agora-like spaces which offer us an opportunity to go deep.

They invite us to pause, to talk, to really think.

Could it be that cafés offer us a place not just to consume or connect, but to consider the unseen things? To get beyond the froth and to the things of real substance?

Over the years, I’ve found cafés can be unexpectedly sacred spaces.

I’ve sat across from friends as they’ve wrestled with doubt, grief, purpose, and belief. And friends have sat across from me as I’ve worked these things through too.

One tells me he’s started going to church, but doesn’t exactly know why.
Another wants to read through a Gospel with me and figure out who Jesus is.
One doesn’t really know who he is any more after a breakdown but is glad for the company.
Another says his doubts about God began when a childhood friend was killed in a car accident.
One wonders if God might be nudging him toward a big move to Cardiff.

None of these conversations happened in a church. They happened here, in spaces designed for comfort but used for something far more courageous.

This isn’t a new idea. Some of the earliest stories about Jesus show him not just teaching in temples, but sitting at tables, sharing meals, asking questions, listening. Real life. Real conversations.

In my line of work, if Jesus does something, it’s advisable to follow suit. And I’ve found doing exactly that immensely rewarding. So much of my own spiritual formation has happened within the confines of a café.

So perhaps the café could be a place where the unseen comes close. Where, over a batch brew or a seasonal latte, you might find yourself not just connected, but known.

Maybe, like my friend, you’re not exactly sure what you believe. Maybe, like many of us, you’re just trying to make sense of it all.

Either way, next time you’re in a café, don’t be afraid to go beyond the froth and get to the stuff with real flavour.

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