When Michelle Walter asked her friends to the jazz night at her church, many refused to come. So she took matters into her own hands.

She organised two gigs for the Steve Morrison Jazz Band at a popular city venue, The Basement, one of which was last night's launch of Mr Morrison's latest album, Live at the Basement.

The launch featured well-known jazz singer Jeff Duff, who opened the show, with Steve Morrison on double bass and Con Campbell on horn.

Ms Walter, a member of St Stephen's Willoughby, figured her friends were much more likely to come along to an event that was held on on "neutral ground'.

And she was right " 50 of her friends came to the first jazz event she organised at the Basement in May, and the same number rolled up again last night.

"It became really apparent to me that my non-Christian friends, which I have a lot of, just had this real aversion to going to anything church-related, and I was really shocked by that," she says.

"This gives them a soft connection that makes it easier to say, "hey, you know that band you saw, they're doing a gig at the church " why don't you come up and see what it's like'."

The next event in September will be held at St Stephen's, Willloughby, and Ms Walter is confident that many of her friends will come.

Indeed some have already come to church after going to May's gig.

"One friend in particular looked around her at the Basement gig and realised that everyone in that room were her kind of people and she suddenly realised that if she walked into church, she was going to be with people who were like her and had similar interests to her, which made it feel much safer and more comfortable," Ms Walter says.

The Basement and the big picture

Mr Morrison, who is also Willoughby's associate minister, asserts these gigs must be part of a greater plan.

"Playing jazz and doing gigs at The Basement isn't evangelism " what's really important is that we do tell people the gospel " until we do do that, we're not really connecting people to Jesus at all," he says.

"But at the thing about The Basement is that it is a bit unusual and it does generate a lot of interest with friends " through it, we’re hoping that having met me, people will be keen to come to the jazz night at church, where I do do some talking about Jesus.”

Overall, Ms Walter says coming along to the events so far has changed many of her friends’ views of Christianity and Christians. 

"There's one friend who used to make fun of me for going to church, and those jokes have stopped " she doesn't see church as a weird thing now, and maybe that means in five years time she'll feel comfortable walking into a church," Ms Walter says.

Mr Morrison says Live at the Basement, his third album after the release of So Quiet in 2007 and Silently in 2006, has “a bit more energy than the other two”.

He initially formed the Steve Morrison Jazz Band as a way of funding his Moore College studies.