Ch-ch-ch-changes

Incentives for change

Most of us are very busy and find it hard to attend SofaChurch frequently, due to family or work constraints. This is symptomatic of modern society, and SofaChurch should be as accessible as possible; we should be trying our best to suit people’s situations.

Whilst we have the blog for keeping in touch, I think we can make SofaChurch better for people who cannot attend very frequently. One issue is that at the moment each meeting is on a different theme. This means that if someone can only attend one week out of four, they would not necessarily get a ‘balanced diet’ compared to someone who can make most meetings. For example, someone who only comes to the film nights would get a very different experience of SofaChurch compared to someone who only comes to the creative evenings. Similarly, a one-time visitor’s impressions would vary significantly depending on which sort of meeting they came to. I think we need to move towards a wider balance of activities in every meeting.

I also want SofaChurch to be a closer-knit group. That we might have a stronger sense of being a family of God moving forwards together, supporting each other while we try to follow Jesus. Following Jesus implies movement, and I would like SofaChurch to be more challenging in the way in which we are driven to develop and deepen our faiths. We should have more of a culture of discipleship; we should be challenging and learning from each other.

To facilitate this, I would like to propose that we change the structure of our meetings in the following way.


Discipleship

We will have a broad, challenging theme that spans three months (eg wealth, the environment, image, etc) We will consider the theme both in our own time at home, and in meetings whenever we can attend. I hope for a sense of being on a journey together, growing as disciples, whether we are meeting together or participating from home.

For each three month period, there will be a set of tasks that we decide upon as a group. These will probably include Bible study, creative activities and pledges for action. The regular meetings will offer a chance to discuss our progress (almost like a university tutorial) and hear from ‘expert witnesses’ (to borrow a cafechurch term). At the end of the period, we will collate everyone’s responses and (with permission) produce a paperback book as a record of our journey. We will finish our exploration of each topic with a dedication service, where we offer our prayers and thoughts to God and commit to making changes where appropriate.

We will run these discipleship meetings fortnightly, alternating with film nights and cafechurch. (On a month with five Thursdays we will possibly eat together, go on excursions or do other creative things.) The three month cycle would therefore look like this.


Meeting cycle

Month 1, week 1 - Discipleship meeting: brainstorm questions, Bible verses, creative activities etc that we will be setting ourselves and identify useful shared resources (eg suggest relevant books, websites etc) Tasks will then be distributed to everybody via email or post.
Month 1, week 2 - cafechurch
Month 1, week 3 - Discipleship meeting
Month 1, week 4 - Film night
(Month 1, week 5 - creative/social)

Month 2, week 1 - Discipleship meeting
Month 2, week 2 - cafechurch
Month 2, week 3 - Discipleship meeting
Month 2, week 4 - Film night
(Month 2, week 5 - creative/social)

Month 3, week 1 - Discipleship meeting: final discussions, finished responses to Andy who will collate and publish in a book
Month 3, week 2 - cafechurch
Month 3, week 3 - Discipleship meeting: final celebration and dedication
Month 3, week 4 - Film night
(Month 3, week 5 - creative/social)