Questions...

I was contacted yesterday by Rev Gareth Edwards, a Methodist Minister in the West Somerset Circuit. He came across us through the Fresh Expressions directory and wanted to ask some questions for his doctoral research. I thought I'd post my reply here to see if you all agree with me!

How is your ‘fresh expression’ authentically church - or even Methodist?
 
Whether we are a church or not is being discussed at the moment... In the sense that we are a community of believers meeting regularly to support each other, then I would say that we are. Part of the idea of SofaChurch was to strip away as much of the churchiness of church as possible to make it accessible to anyone regardless of their prior experience. Most of our regulars do also attend a ‘normal’ church and see SofaChurch as a valuable add-on, rather like the original Methodist movement was an add on to Anglicanism. We don’t try and cover every aspect that you would expect from a normal church.

However, we do have a few people who are a part of SofaChurch who don’t attend a regular church for various reasons. For them SofaChurch is all the church they get!

We are always open to SofaChurch developing into a full church over time. As the (mainly elderly) congregations in our normal circuit churches dwindle, maybe SofaChurch will become increasingly central.

As for its Methodist credentials, we are nicely ecumenical at the moment. We have people coming from a range of churches within our Methodist circuit, as well as Anglicans and Pentecostals.

We do have several core values of the Methodist movement; we are a grassroots, small community looking to develop each others’ faith. We have a strong social justice emphasis and we are very inclusive. We discuss quite complicated theological issues, using reason along with Biblical understanding, experience and tradition. We have informal links with and the support of the local circuit, and hence the connexion. We don’t sing, however! This is mainly to make it as accessible to ‘outsiders’ as possible. I remember that when I first attended church at university I hated the singing in services. On one level it was such an unusual thing to do, without parallels in secular culture. Also, I didn’t know any of the songs, which made me feel like an outsider. It was assumed that everyone knew this large body of songs, and it took a year or so for me to get to know enough.


In what way (if any) is it ‘Mission’?

We see ourselves well placed to meet the needs of three groups who are not currently met well by regular church.

We have set up SofaChurch to be accessible to people without much church background; there are very few of the normal trappings or rituals. We aim to have a very comfortable atmosphere; coffee shop crossed with a lounge. Our discussions and activities are designed to not require any previous theological knowledge, just a questioning mind.

A second target group is those who have become disillusioned with normal church, for whatever reason. We aim to cut away the baggage often present in larger established churches, and people have found this refreshing. One of our regulars had the idea of an ‘Omega course’ - a partner to Alpha, for people near the end of their journey with God who are thinking of ditching their faith. We hope that SofaChurch can meet the needs of these people, and it does seem to be doing so.

Finally, we aim SofaChurch at people in their twenties to forties, an age range that is largely missing from our normal churches. Hopefully, having a strong group of people meeting together will attract more.


I’d love to hear anything else you are able to share about the background and thinking behind your ‘fresh expression’.

My wife and I were originally part of the charismatic movement. As our faiths matured we found ourselves questioning more and more of the theology of the church. However, we did like being amongst lots of young people in these churches. In 2006 our Pentecostal church leaders asked us to leave their church; we disagreed over the infallability of scripture we and may have been seen as a threat.

We then had to find a new church and thought we’d try the small Methodist church in our village. Neither of us knew anything at all about Methodism, and when I researched the beliefs and values I became so excited; it seemed to match my own priorities so well, particularly the social justice angle and the use of reason in addition to scripture. When we started attending the church the people were incredibly welcoming. However, the services were quite old fashioned.

One of our ministers talked to us about his plan for starting a coffee shop in the town centre and wondered if my wife and I would help with the design and planning. It turned out to be a bit too ambitious at the time, however, mainly in terms of staffing. It would also carry quite a lot of financial risk.

I then had the idea for a lower-risk venture. Inspired by a church in America called Solomon’s Porch we had the idea of converting an under-used room at church, decorating it and filling it with sofas and art. and creating a cool space for informal worship. We realised that we could do this relatively cheaply (£1000) and quickly. We thought that it would be better to get stuck in and have a go rather than waiting for a more ambitious plan that might never happen. Also, if we did decide to do something in separate premises later on we would have some experience and a potential congregation to start off with.

We got permission and funding, and two months later we were up and running! We attracted a good group of like-minded people and more have joined since.

The SofaChurch model would be very easy to reproduce elsewhere. Lots of churches seem to have a back room with ropey decor that could be renovated. We are currently thinking about starting a second SofaChurch in another part of Crewe.