“PUT 2,500 people aged 18-30 in one area for six hours on a Friday night and you don’t know what will kick off,” says Julian Holyoake. “It might be a domestic, or we might have a flood. Once we even had a clubber who died from heart failure. Occasionally you’ll have to deal with staff in shock.”

Holyoake is manager of Ikon, a nightclub and bar in Maidstone, Kent. As a job, it sounds like a headache at the best of times. In November, when 24-hour licences are introduced, the lot of club managers is bound to get worse.

But at Ikon Holyoake has a secret weapon to battle the excesses of overindulgent drinkers: a nightclub chaplain. As a concept, it sounds bizarre: combining spirituality with a wild night out. But Diana Greenfield, the chaplain at Ikon, seems completely at ease in the nightclub, and seemingly oblivious to the huge TV screens broadcasting videos of raunchily dressed dancers. “Clubbers basically divide into those who come to party and those who want to escape, through drink and less so through drugs — the main problem today is binge drinking. Perhaps clubbers are out for sex or are trying to forget their problems on the dancefloor,” she says matter-of-factly.

Petite, spiky-haired and with a silver ring through her nose, Greenfield is in Ikon three nights a week. She is one of a handful of Christian nightclub chaplains in the UK. “People often think I’m joking when I tell them what my job is,” she says. No, she doesn’t drink — “I want to show you can have fun without alcohol” — and she doesn’t dance either — “It would distract me from what is going on.”

“My job is to be God’s presence in the club,” Greenfield says as she walks through the club, alert for signs of distress: the girl upset in the toilets, the drunken lad trying to start a fight, the lonely soul desperate for a chat.

Sometimes regulars will approach her. She is not hard to spot — the words “club chaplain” are emblazoned in silver on her dark T-shirt. When she sees those in need, Greenfield gently offers help. First, she tries to listen: “I will pray while we’re talking,” she says. “If I get very stuck I’ll take a break to think about what God is trying to say and come back. My work is intuitive.”

Frequently clubbers pour out their anxieties: loneliness, financial difficulties, relationships ending or divorcing parents. Alcohol, of course, helps people open up — “but if they’re drunk I’ll ask them to call me so we can have a coffee and chat the following day. This job is also about offering friendship, and much of it involves building relationships with clubbers week in week out. Usually I try to do this gradually, but sometimes people are at rock bottom when they reach me.”

If a problem requires professional help, for example, in cases of rape or self-harm — Greenfield will refer the clubber to an expert.

It sounds like a modern version of confession, with Greenfield in the role of a priest, and indeed everything she hears is confidential. She sends an e-mail prayer list to her supporters soliciting prayers, but their names and identifying details are always changed first.

A trained evangelist with the Church Army — her proper title is “Sister” — Greenfield is an evangelical Christian. She admits that sharing the Gospel in a nightclub requires a sensitive approach: “You have to be really friendly yet challenge people without being judgmental. You hear things that batter your Christian faith, like people saying ‘I’ve had an abortion’, but it is God’s place to judge.”

Now 33, Greenfield is convinced this is her calling. She first had a sense of vocation to clubbers as “an 18-year-old Goth” who felt alienated from the mainstream church. “Church Army researchers talk of people being de-churched, meaning they once went to church but have now left. As a teenager, I was de-churched. If I’d been pushed hard I would have still admitted to being a Christian. But the Church wasn’t helping me in any of my needs and I was terribly disillusioned. What I want to do now is go beyond church, offering hope to the third generation of de-churched people.”

But how easy is it to talk about God in a nightclub? “God often arises naturally in conversation. The rewarding part is seeing people become Christians. That’s happened with one girl who works here. Others are searching, they’re on a spiritual journey. Many people believe in something but wouldn’t call it God because of the baggage associated with the traditional church.”

Greenfield’s solution is to introduce the Gospel to non-church settings, for example services held in bars, clubs, even cafés.

“The Gospel can be applied in any culture. The church needs to be creative in today’s world,” she says.

Holyoake, Ikon’s manager, agrees: “The Church has to adapt to modern life to survive. Saying Sunday is sacred is not going to work in a world where places are open 24/7.”

He describes Greenfield as a great asset: “She is very experienced in clubs and spots potential issues such as someone drinking too much, and because she’s more approachable than, say, a doorman, is more likely to be able to talk to people.”

She also helps members of staff, he says: “When they talk to her it saves them from major stress, and when they’re stressed they don’t perform at work.”

Often, before work, Greenfield will get tip-offs that a staff member seems a bit down, or might benefit from a chat. She will make time for staff, swapping banter in the smoking room or catching up with the security men. “She’s brilliant,” say the staff. “She always pitches in when times are busy.”

A seasoned chaplain, Greenfield has also worked for three years at the Bournemouth club Slinky, after training in her native Norwich. Her current post is funded by Maidstone Borough Council, the local free churches and the Anglican Diocese of Maidstone.

Now Greenfield is building teams of volunteers, committed Christians who accompany her to the clubs. “There is a real need for this,” says one. “Young people need to know God is there as well as partying.”

www.churcharmy.org.uk (020-8309 3519), e-mail: info@churcharmy.org.uk