There is something quietly radical about the Salvation Army's latest piece of outreach equipment: a reconditioned van, previously used for emergency response in Scotland, now transformed into a mobile coffee shop and parked outside university freshers' fairs across the North West of England.

The 'Brew Van', as it has been affectionately named, is the brainchild of Darren Highton, youth specialist for The Salvation Army in the North West. His reasoning is disarmingly simple: students are spending their time in coffee shops, having conversations over hot drinks, building community around shared tables. So why not bring the church to them?

"This is doing church differently," Highton says, "and getting to the very heart of young people's communities, giving ourselves a presence within their circles." The van will attend freshers' fairs and Salvation Army events across Greater Manchester, Merseyside, Lancashire and Cumbria, serving specialist coffees, teas, cold drinks and biscuits — all fair trade and ethical, from Hope Espresso coffee beans and Clipper tea bags to fairly traded biscuits from Half the Story. A chaplain will travel with the van, offering pastoral support and signposting to other services for anyone who needs it.

It is worth pausing on what this represents. The Salvation Army has always been a church that goes to people rather than waiting for people to come to it — that instinct is written into its DNA, from the soup kitchens of the Victorian era to the food banks of today. The Brew Van is that same impulse expressed for a generation that is, by many accounts, spiritually curious but institutionally wary. YouGov data published by the Bible Society this year found that under-25s are now the age group most likely to believe in God, and that a third of non-Christians say they would attend church if a friend invited them. The Brew Van is, in its own way, that invitation — low-pressure, warm, and meeting people exactly where they are.

All proceeds from the van go back into The Salvation Army's children and youth team across the North West. For a church that has always understood that mission and service are inseparable, that feels exactly right.