FAQs

Although, to be upfront about this, I actually made up all of these questions and they haven't been asked in any way frequently...

What will happen in discipleship meetings?

Discipleship meetings will begin with around half an hour of alternative worship (creative, non-singing) which everyone will be expected to lead from time to time (unless you really don’t want to!). We will then have an opportunity to discuss the topic, possibly hearing from an expert witness or watching relevant video clips. We can also share our progress with the tasks and help each other if needed. We will finish with a time of reflection.


What is alternative worship?

Alternative worship is a creative means of relating to God and expressing our love and admiration for him. ‘Alternative’ means not singing hymns or songs. Worship could therefore take the form of words we read together, music we listen to, physical actions we perform, like lighting candles, etc.

Jonny Baker has a growing online list of ‘Worship tricks’ (http://jonnybaker.blogs.com/jonnybaker/worship_tricks/) that might give you some ideas.


What sort of tasks will we do?

The tasks will be decided by the group in the first meeting, but could include a mixture of: a written response to a Bible passage, some story writing (either from personal experience or fictional), some artistic or creative response, written prayers or a pledge to make a personal change.


What sort of standard do they have to be? I’m rubbish at art and haven’t been to theological college.

No one will judge the quality of submissions; everything will be included in the book. It should perhaps be the best you can manage, as we do want to offer God our best.


How much time will it take? I’m very busy.

That depends on how much you can give. The idea behind the tasks is to help your faith to grow, not to burden you. You could perhaps try to incorporate them into your daily ‘quiet time’ with God, if you have one. You might choose to meet up with one or two others to work through something together. They don’t have to take very long; quality is more important than quantity. (There will be fairly low word limits for the written tasks.)


Do I have to take part in the tasks? Can’t I just come along to SofaChurch with no extra commitment?

You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to! I hope as many people join in much as they possibly can, as I think it will be great to develop our faiths together in this way. I hope we will find it both challenging and rewarding.


How will we publish the books?

There is a company called Blurb who will print books to order. It is a case of collating everyone’s work in a word processor document, uploading it and then ordering copies. They cost about £3 each. We’ll buy a couple for the SofaChurch library and anyone who wants their own copy can buy one too. I think it will be a nice record of our collective journey and very interesting to read everyone’s responses. It will also help us to grow closer together as we get to know each other better.


What about visitors?

The discipleship meeting discussions should still be interesting to someone who drops in. We will make sure that they are given a sheet of tasks and the opportunity to join in with them if they wish. They might, however, prefer to join in properly at the start of the next cycle. The cafechurch meetings will probably be the best introduction for visitors, as they will be especially geared to newcomers.


What themes will we look at?

This is open for discussion, but here are some topic ideas we have had so far:

Status anxiety: importance of appearance, snobbery, self esteem, wanting to be respected
Money: responding to the recession, budgeting, world poverty
Communications technology: making our private lives public, virtual worlds, addiction
Environment: reducing carbon emissions, cutting waste
Relationships: society, friendship, sex, abstinence, homosexuality
Materialism: values, advertising, greed, shopping addiction, gadgets


What if I can only attend very infrequently?

That’s a shame for the rest of us, but we hope you’ll still be able to feel part of things and join in with the tasks at home. The blog will also have space for discussing the topics and tasks.