Salvation Army’s Listening Post Marks One Year in Liskeard Pub

Walk into The King Doniert on a Friday lunchtime and you might spot something you’d never expect to find in a Wetherspoon. A small table. A simple sign. Free coffee, biscuits, and someone ready to listen.

It has been there every week for a year now.

A church that left the building

The Salvation Army’s Listening Post in Liskeard recently marked its first anniversary, having spent the past 12 months offering a confidential ear to anyone who needs one, set up quietly inside the town’s busy local pub.

The thinking behind it came from church leader Teresa Conway, who decided that waiting for people to walk through church doors was no longer enough.

“Why would I expect people to walk through my door?” Teresa said. “People go to the pub, families, the lonely, those with no heating at home, those escaping noise or silence. Jesus always went to where people were. So that’s what we do, meeting people where they are.”

The drop-in runs every Friday from 11.30am to 1.30pm at Wetherspoon – The King Doniert.

A different kind of nourishment

Over the past year, the volunteers have done far more than pour coffee. They have prayed for healing, helped write eulogies, signposted families to food and gas vouchers, and listened to stories of loneliness, addiction, and domestic abuse.

The team also hands out “hospitality boxes” to vulnerable people. Each one contains toiletries, snacks, towels, and a comforting gift.

Joe, one of the volunteers, said the stories of healing and transformation he has witnessed are proof of God working in amazing ways, often in the most unexpected places like a listening post inside a local bar.

The pub itself has embraced what’s going on. The bar owners have welcomed the team, who often muck in and help clear tables when things get busy.

“God’s waiters in Wetherspoons”

For Teresa, the point has never been to fill pews on a Sunday morning. It is about meeting one person at a time.

“People will never remember what you said, but they will remember how you made them feel,” she said. “We’re God’s waiters in Wetherspoons. We give good customer service and genuine love.”

That said, the year has produced some results she didn’t necessarily set out to find. Several people have asked about faith, started attending church online or in person, and some have made commitments to follow Jesus.

“We’re not a building. We’re a movement,” Teresa said. “The Salvation Army is a movement, it goes to where people are, listens and helps people in their spaces.”

Alongside the Listening Post, The Salvation Army in Liskeard runs Employment Plus, a service offering tailored support to help people become job-ready, find work, and stay in it.

More information about the church, including how to support the hospitality box fund, is available at The Salvation Army Liskeard.