From Bubbles to Church GPT: A New Chapter for Swansea Minster

It is quarter to ten on a Sunday morning at Swansea Minster, and a two-minute countdown has just begun. In the nave, families with under-fives are settling onto their mats - their bubbles - after croissants and coffee. A puppet team is ready. Someone is manning the big foam dice.

When the countdown hits zero, the dice goes first. Children scramble to put an elbow or a knee on their bubble, and the room loosens up. Then come the action songs, led by the puppets. Then the sorry song, the God spot, the story, a creative response, another action song — and a closing encouragement to pray, to help, to give.

Bubble Church came out of the Covid period, when families attending church were required to stay within their household bubbles, each occupying a designated space. The format stuck, and has been refined into something deliberately structured and, in its own way, liturgical.

"You have the same elements every week that would make up a morning prayer service," says Rev'd Rachel Bunting, the Minster's director of ministry for under 25s. "Confession, thanksgiving, the word, a response to the word, prayer, a blessing. We're just making it more approachable and easy to interact with for those really small people."

It is run by a team of seven or eight - a puppet team, a tech team, people on hospitality - consistent from month to month. Rachel is the Bubble Church champion, which means she plans the story, builds the PowerPoint, and stands at the front. Recently, a cohort of six-year-old girls who had been coming as part of the congregation started crossing the invisible line and joining the team instead.

"It's really nice to see them develop and grow that way," Rachel said.

Rachel arrived at Swansea Minster around eighteen months ago, taking up a role that is new both to the Minster and to the diocese. The early period was, by her own account, one of learning as much as doing.

"We've tried a few projects that just didn't quite work," she said. "But it's been a really helpful and supportive place to be able to say, actually, that's not working, we're going to try something different. We've had a lot of time to try some different things and be a bit more creative."

The Church of the city

Swansea Minster sits at the centre of the city rather than within a defined residential parish, and that shapes everything about how Rachel thinks about the role.

"Being in the city centre, it's not quite the same as a parish church, because you haven't got that resident community," she said. "But we open a lot of doors, and we have the capacity — both the physical space and the amount of time that we're open — to run a huge range of worship."

That range runs from the 11am Eucharist to guided meditation, lunchtime express services, and adoration during the week. The building itself is part of the offer. Although Swansea Minster is not an ancient structure, the site carries the weight of long use, and Rachel thinks that registers — particularly with younger visitors.

"You've got that meeting of the tradition of Christian worship in the space where we are, whilst meeting the needs of the modern world," she said.

The Minster's worship spans both. "With liturgy, it's the same as with any age group — different people like different things," Rachel said. "There are some under-25s who come in and really enjoy that style of worship. There are young people in the choir who clearly find something there."

Part of what liturgy offers, she said, is continuity — a structure that holds, week to week and season to season, regardless of what else is in flux. "The familiarity can be quite helpful," she said.

For younger children, the building itself works differently. "There's a freedom to move around, to explore, to nurture their curiosity," Rachel said. "And if someone asks why we do something — and they do ask, because they don't have the history we do — if I can't answer that, it's a good challenge to me. Is the reason a good one? Could we do it better? Could it be more inclusive, not just for young people, but for anybody who walks in?"

That question — what does this mean, and why are we doing it — is, she said, one of the more useful things younger people bring with them into the life of a church.

"Any time you have young people coming in, it forces you to look at what you're doing. If they ask why, and I can't answer, that's worth paying attention to."

What's taking shape

Bubble Church now runs on the third Sunday of each month. Over the eight months since it launched, families have been finding their way in and coming back and a regular following has quietly built. From that has grown Little Explorers, a toddler group run jointly with Hope Pugh, the Minster's director of musical engagement.

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Beyond Sunday, the Minster has been thinking about how to reach people who are curious about faith but not yet ready to cross a threshold. The answer Rachel has arrived at is deliberately low-pressure. She is calling it Church GPT: an open evening, planned for the pub next door, where anyone with questions about Christianity can come and ask them, without signing up to a course or walking into a church for the first time.

The name came from a friend. "Whenever she has any questions about faith or church, she'll say, 'Hey, Christian, can you answer me this?' It occurred to me that not everybody has that person in their lives."

Church GPT launches on 14 June. Before that, on 24 May, Haven launches — a new contemporary service developed with Hope Pugh. "It's that safe space," Rachel said, "where people can come and meet with God in a different way."

Also in June, the Minster is running a transition week for Year 6s, with a drop-in session on Wednesday 10 June, 4–5.30pm, for anyone who would like some extra support outside of a school visit. Later in the year, there is an eco day, a holiday club, and an urban village fete.

The logic connecting all of it is deliberate. "We're making sure that we always have: right, what next? Where is the next thing they can join us in?"

Where young people actually are

Part of meeting under-25s where they are means being present in the spaces they actually inhabit — and increasingly, those are online.

"Young people are online a lot, and so that's another space the church needs to be inhabiting," Rachel said.

Being in the right space is only part of it, though. The more important question is what the church does once it is there. "Young people don't just want things advertised to them or content to passively consume," she said. "It's that desire to be able to interact and feed into content. How can we be in those spaces to open conversation, rather than just showing what we're doing?"

There is, she thinks, a particular responsibility on churches to be a positive presence in spaces that can do real harm. "We hear a lot about social media being very negative. There is a role for churches and for Christians to be positive influences in those spaces. And if that's where our young people are, that's a good motivation to be there."

The same questions, a different starting point

A challenge facing the Church is bridging the gap between a generation that is spiritually curious and the institution it may never have thought to walk into.

"Research suggests that young people are very spiritually seeking," Rachel said. "The idea of church being irrelevant — I think that's churches maybe as an institution, rather than Jesus, or the Bible, or faith, being irrelevant to them."

What faith asks of someone under 25, she thinks, is not fundamentally different from what it asks of anyone. "How does what you believe impact the way that you live? How does your faith affect your relationships, your decision making? How does the Holy Spirit convict and inspire you?"

Church, at its best, is one of the few places where those questions can be explored across generations. "Churches are one of the most intergenerational places you're likely to find," she said, "that actually give you the space to talk to people who might have had very similar life experiences to you, even if it wasn't as recently."

To a young person who thinks the church has nothing to say to them, her answer is practical before it is theological: try one. If it isn't right, try another. "We all have different spiritual needs, different spiritual learning styles. There is nothing wrong in trying to find your own home."

At the Minster, the aim is to hold as many of those different needs together under one roof as possible — so the distance between where someone starts and where they might end up is a little shorter. But it is not only a job for the clergy.

"It's a whole church body thing. It's not just the leaders being welcoming. The whole church needs to be ready to welcome young people into what should be the family of the church."

Youth Nights at Swansea Minster: the next evening is on 8 May. Bubble Church runs on the third Sunday of each month. Haven launches on 24 May. Year 6 drop-in: Wednesday 10 June, 4–5.30pm. Church GPT launches 14 June. For more information, visit swanseaminster.org