Is SofaChurch a church?

(Click here to see the pre-meeting post and discussion)

We began by discussing SofaChurch's target demographic - three main sorts of people.

Type A - people who are spiritually interested but with little or no interest in regular church
Type B - people who are generally happy in regular churches but want something extra - challenge/friendship/creativity etc
Type C - people who have grown tired/sick of regular church for whatever reason

History from similar Fresh Expressions suggests that it is much easier to find type B and C people, and this is borne out in our regular 'congregation' too. However, we seemed to agree that we still have to be striving to make SofaChurch suitable and accessible for any Type A people who might turn up.

So... is SofaChurch 'enough' for Type A or C people who don't also attend regular church; if it is someone's sole regular occasion of meeting with other followers does it meet the core requirements?

There were three main areas in which we thought perhaps not.

Prayer
It was felt that we might be lacking in opportunities for talking to and listening to God. This happens in a subtle internal way continually, but maybe we need to make more overt spaces in our meetings. I am keen to explore ways of doing this without disengaging from this world or from each other - God is everywhere, and in our relationships, and I think it is exciting to develop ways of recognising this. This could mean changing the way we speak so that we include God in our conversation - talking as if God was in the room, not some abstract figure elsewhere. We could also provide some forum for sharing concerns for intercession - areas in which we would like God to make a supernatural difference. Thirdly, perhaps we should have some kind of opening liturgy/activity to remind people of God's presence amongst us. All of this needs to be done in a way that isn't off-putting to Type A people...

Action - we will need to try a range of things out and see how they go.

Bible
Again, it was felt that while our discussions normally have a scriptural basis, this has been assumed and not frequently mentioned explicitly. For people who know quite a lot about the Bible this is fine, but those who don't know so much might benefit from being able to go and look up references later to read more.

Action - people who lead sessions should provide a few Bible references for further reading that underpin the ideas discussed. This could be on the blog, preferably hyperlinked to an online Bible.

For example, we talked this evening about God knowing what we want before we ask - Matthew 6:7-8 and the characteristics of the first Christian church - Acts 2.

Communion
This is a tricky one, since we are under the wing of the Methodist Church in which communion (breaking bread and wine) can only be officially administered by an ordained minister. We do, however, regularly share food and drink, and the occasional meal. Perhaps we should see this as our ongoing communion, rather than having set special times.

Action - make sure that we do lots of eating together in a sharing manner!

Please let me know if I have missed something, or misrepresented the discussion, or if anyone else has anything to contribute.