First theme

With the new framework (as Tim neatly puts it) we will be considering a challenging theme together for three months or so, designed to make us think about how we choose to live deliberately as disciples of Jesus.

But where do we start?

I'd appreciate any thoughts on the topic you think would be the best to kick this all off so I can prepare some resources and so others can get things together too. Then we can spend the evening of the 5th February deciding on the scope of the tasks we'll work on.

The ideas so far are...

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
Food: ethical sourcing, food miles, growing, chemicals, excess, fellowship, communion

Homer, Cartman and Bob Part 3: God, The Devil and Bob

The last Thursday of January 2009 (29th) wraps up the God 'n' cartoons series with God, The Devil and Bob.

Take a series dealing with a raft of moral and theological issues, put it into accessible language and characters, and it gets dropped by the TV networks after only three episodes are aired. Had their names been Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie the story of the show would have been different.

God, The Devil and Bob should be compulsory in Religious Education classes in my opinion, as it puts some really important basics of belief and morality across with quite a punch.

cafechurch - press release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Costa Coffee and Tesco may not be two venues you would associate with church meetings, but that is exactly where a new faith venture will be starting soon: cafechurch.

Initiated and supported by Christ Church (Church of England) in Crewe centre and part of a national collaboration between local Christians and Costa Coffee, cafechurch is a relaxed and accessible exploration of various issues from a faith perspective.

The evenings are being run by volunteers from a local alternative church group - SofaChurch - bringing a contemporary, relevant and inclusive approach to the Christian faith .

Lasting for an hour from 7pm on Thursday 12th Feburary cafechurch in Crewe starts at Costa Coffee in Tesco. Admission is open to interested people of any faith or no faith. Meetings will be on the second Thursday of each month. The regular range of Costa Coffee refreshments will be available through each meeting.

More details from www.cafechurch.net or contact Reverend Austin Janes - 01270 215 866.

Details of contacts for interview and quotes available upon request.

Job 1 - 10

Recent trials and tribulations have led Helen and I to read the Old Testament book of Job about a chapter at a time. If you would like to join us in sharing thoughts and reflections with each other on this blog as we go we would be delighted.

Use this thread to discuss chapters 1 - 10; another will be added for 11-20, 21-31, and 32 to 42 in time.


This is a purely optional, guilt-free exercise in shared faith experience - something to do together but separately.

It does not replace any of the tasks which we will discuss for the new SofaChurch framework - but is part of the journey some of us are sharing together at the moment.

To keep it clear which chapter (and if relevant, which verse(s)) are being talked about, I suggest entitling comments as appropriate in the comment box - ie. Chapter 1, or Chapter 5 Verse 2 - will help keep track of different discussions and tangents.

Tim

Spiritual Warfare

Something I've been wanting to ask the group for sometime, and recent events prompt me to do so now. Interesting comments on the Shame thread too.

What do we think about the nature of evil? Spiritual warfare, principalities & powers, Ephesians 6:12 - and all that jazz.

Do we think that as we make a positive difference to one another and begin to spread the love of Christ actively outside the established group - are there powers - as well as our own fallen natures - 'out there' to trip us up, hinder us - either individually and / or corporately?

Coming from 'charismatic' churches originally, as many of us do, I used to spend a lot of time getting excited / paranoid about this. For a long time I haven't bothered. Now I cautiously ask 'hmmmmn?'.

Fight againt sin, the values of the world - and yes - even the Devil?

Is there a 'post evangelical' take on this? A fresh expressions theology of spiritual warfare?

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)

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.

Shame

Courtesy of Jo who will be leading the evening on 15th January:

LIVING IN A CULTURE OF SHAME

‘We live in a culture that tells us we must reject our bodies, our authentic stories and ultimately our true selves in order to fit in and be truly accepted…’ writes Brene Brown in her excellent book entitled “I thought it was just me.”

Shame is a profoundly debilitating emotion. It drives many of our fears of not being good enough: our shape, our accent, our financial situation, our wrinkles, our size, our illness, how we spend our day, our desire for perfectionism and even addiction problems. But it is an emotion we have ALL experienced: that horrid sickly feeling in the pits of our stomach, the desire to run and hide or simply ‘hit out’ at all those around us. Yet, strangely, shame is a topic that we are often exceedingly reluctant to talk about.

Therefore, in true SofaChurch fashion, we are going to talk about it. On 15 January 2009 we will be investigating the myriad of shaming influences that dominate our culture and the ways it presents itself in the most mundane and visible aspects of our lives.

So if you have ever felt that in some way you are simply ‘not good enough’ this may be the evening for you. An opportunity to discover where these feelings come from and how we can best rise above them to become our best, most authentic selves and the very people we are intended to be.

Film Night: Keeping Mum

The first Thursday meeting of 2009 will be a film night on January 8th - "Keeping Mum".

A black comedy, almost 'chick-flick' and a lightweight but engaging subtext about God's grace and keeping faith relevant. A good cast too. Certificate 15. We certainly recommend it.

If you want to know more, see the entry on IMDB HERE.