11 Ways to Misbehave at a Manchester Christian Festival.

Over the next month and a bit the Christian Festival circuit will continue to burst back into life from the covid hibernation. With festivals such as Keswick, Greenbelt. Satellites, Creation Fest, there is also Festival Manchester. Or #FestivalManchester according to Twitter.

As a former Manchester student, I couldn’t resist the prompt to imagine different ways to misbehave at a Manchester Christian Festival.

Obviously if you get into trouble for any of this, well… don’t blame me.

Anyway…

1. Wear a red shirt, chant “City are the Best!”, then wait for the forbearance of Christ to be displayed around you.
2. Cosplay as a Christian Gallagher brother.
3. Bring  a petition for an annual Manchester Passion.
4. Walk around blessing everyone, in a Scouse accent.
5. Advertise a City of Manchester event. Address of the event is in Salford.
6. Spread a rumour that The World Wide Message Tribe are back. Sob quietly when you realise that young people are looking at you, with a look of confused worry across their face.
7. Bring a sign offering free hugs to Manchester United supporters.
8. Offer baptisms in the canal.
9. Start a survey asking if Jesus had a brew, what would it be.
10. Ask why songs by James / oasis / Happy Mondays / The Smiths / Joy Division aren’t in the worship set list.
11. Go the pub. Party. Ache the next morning when you remember that you’re not a student anymore, and Iittle child is jumping on you.

Any more that should be added? Please comment below.

With thanks to @DavePiperDJ for the idea…

A Guide For Christians Moving Home

Well, the Church Sofa family have moved home to what is now known as “Sofa Castle”, to celebrate we’ve put together this little collection of tips for moving home, or at least how a Christian should move home.

1. While looking around people’s homes, during the “house searching” phrase, ensure you leave Christian literature on their dining room table.
2. When looking for a house, ensure you find a place with enough space for a chapel.
3. It’s not unheard of for people to leave furniture behind when they move, as sometimes they don’t need it in their new home, or sometimes they just can’t fit it out the door. If you’re leaving a cupboard or anything with a drawer, it will always be nice for the new home owner to discover a copy of the Gideons Bible within it.
4. Don’t forget to leave your large cross behind on the wall. You can always build a new one.
5. Pass a letter on to your buyer, via your Christian solicitor, advising of how blessed you hope they’ll be in their new home.
6. Make sure anything alcohol related is covered up, this is to ensure you aren’t responsible for the faith of your removal men stumbling.
7. During your house move itself, ensure you take regular breaks for water, food, prayer, praise, and Bible readings.
8. Once you’ve moved home, ensure you drop Evangelistic leaflets down your road, or if you really want to “Move Like Jesus”, knock on all the doors in your new road and ask them if they want to go to Church with you next Sunday.
9. Has a neighbour just knocked on your door to introduce themselves? Ask if theres anything you can pray for?
10. Ensure you play a song like this really really loud, out the windows:

Obviously, dont forget to build that chapel.

Any more you suggest?

How Christians Should Host A Meal.

Imagine the scenario. You’ve gone along to Church, sat through a sermon, and found the sermon was about the simple act of having a meal. The catch is, that you’re being encouraged to invite people around for a meal with you, as a way of “doing church”.

This may leave you walking out the Church with questions rolling around your head. Mainly, how should Christians host a meal?

Here’s a few pointers:

1. Watch your guests as they’re about to eat some bread.As it goes into their mouth, lean over to them, look into their eyes, and ask “Do you know that Jesus is the bread of life?”
2. Treat the person on your right hand side far better then anyone else on the table.
3. At the start of the meal. Hold hands. Sing grace. Loudly. For at least ten minutes. Whilst looking around, deeply into each others eyes.
4. To be really Christian, sing it in Latin.
5. Serve cross shaped pasta.
6. Don’t sit in a chair. Sit on a spike. Remember, we dont want to be to comfortable at any point.
7. Ensure you serve Turnip.
8. Everytime red wine is poured, say “this is my blood”. Even if it’s not you doing the pouring.
9. Does someone need to help open a difficult jar or bottle? If you succed in helping then you earn the right to be called Samson for the rest of the meal.
10. If anyone asks for seconds, point and scream at them “Gluttony!!!”

The Church Sofa accepts no responsibility for any physical, mental, or emotional damage caused by any of the above.

10 Games To Play At A One Day Christian Conference

You’re there at a One Day Christian Conference.
You could learn something, or you could play a game or two.
If you’re here, you’re probably wanting to play a game… Here’s some game ideas….

1. Assume a different identity, every time you introduce yourself to someone. Not just a different name, but different accent, different way of walking, different way of smiling, etc…
2. Stand in the middle of a crowd, shout for “John”. When “John” answers, walk over to him and talk to him like you’ve known him for ever.
3. When someone is speaking during the conference, try and get from the back to the front of the hall without being seen.
4. Do the above, whilst humming the Mission Impossible theme.
5. See how much free stuff you can grab from the merchandise / information stands. Bonus points if you give them someone else’s contact / mailing details.
6. Sit in the middle of the hall, make sure you hemmed in from all angles, that theres people all around, with no easy way to get in or out. At that point, grab your phone, and order a domino’s pizza.*
7. Provide a service by arranging a charging station for everyones mobile phones.
8. Earn money by charging people £1 per battery percent for the above service… dont tell anyone you’re basically plugged into the venues power sockets.
9. During the morning time, offer to grab people coffee. When you return ask for a tip, if they dont tip… make them WEAR that coffee!!!
10. Throw on some really tight exercise gear and encourage people to do a 5 minute exercise session with you.

*Bonus points if you order the pizza for the current speaker… and time it so the pizza guy comes in whilst they are speaking.

Any other game ideas?

What Christians say and what they really mean

There was a slip of the tongue during a conversation the other week, where someone all but admitted that she may have once used one particular “Christian” phrase, when she meant something else.

This got us thinking, are there any other Christian phrases… which may or may not have another meaning? Here is our list of “What Christians say and what they really mean“:

I’ll go away and pray about it.
I’ll say no in 48 hours.

Is anyone sitting here?
Every other decent seat in the church is taken! Please, for the love of all that is beautiful, please do not make me sit in the front row.

Would you like to sing in the worship group?
We’re desperate, and well, you’ve volunteered for things before…

Peace of the Lord, be with you.
I feel so uncomfortable right now.

Can you serve the teas and coffees after the service?
Honestly, there’s only a slim difference between making tea for one, compared to a hundred. Honest.

May God bless us with this meal.
God, please don’t let it make me ill.

How’s your Bible reading going?
Whatever you say is a lie.

Can I interest you in a cold drink?
Please don’t ask for a tea. I really want a cold beer, but I worry I’ll appear like an alcoholic if I drink by myself.

No I don’t believe God is calling me to repent.
I’m ok with it, but thanks for asking.

Aww Bless you.
That was stupid.

Any more examples out there?

10 Things You’ll Find in a Christian Garden

Good news! Winter is starting to pass. Spring is coming*. Well it may not yet be time to work on the garden, it is time to start planning how your garden could help serve the Lord.

Here are 10 things we feel should be in your garden to ensure it is a good God Serving – Christian Garden:

1. A shed that converts into a chapel.
2. A paddling pool, for casual baptisms for anyone who may visit.
3. Space for an outside Bar-B-Q, so you can host those Housegroup Summer Socials.
4. An outside non-alcoholic bar, to assist with the above.
5. An outside office, so you can concentrate on Church work, away from your busy distracting family.
6. A studio in your garage, to record your first worship album.
7. Plenty of Daffodils, so they can be given out to the Mums during the Mothers Day Service.
8. A sandpit, for Sunday School activities.
9. A summer chalet. A large one. At the end of your garden. So you can host Church weekend aways, and as such, cut down on costs for everyone else.
10. A Cross. A Massive Cross. On a Mound. You know… For Easter…

Any other ideas?

*Well it is in South West England anyway…

How To Stay Cool in Church

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but its hot. Well its hot in Devon anyway.

I imagine its also hot elsewhere.

Its also hot in Churches around England.

So how do you deal with Church, when you turn up and its massively hot?

Here are our ten ideas of how to stay cool in church when its massively hot. 

1. Open the flipping windows!
2. Have a mass baptism service. Just get everyone into the baptism pool. If nothing else it will cool everyone down.
3. Give Pizza Hut a call, get a ice cream delivery, yes – to be delivered during the service.
4. Relocate the church service to the nearest mountain top / river bed / supermarket freezer cabinets.
5. Give out emergency water bottles.
6. Install cold showers at the back of the church.
7. Decrease the chance of any one fainting during the service and just edit EVERYTHING down!
8. Giant air fans. Everywhere!
9. Swap out bread and wine for ice cream.
10. Naked church.

Any other ideas?

When The Vicar Visits. A Checklist.

For some random reason, you have the vicar coming to visit, and if The Simpsons have taught us anything, he’s not a normal house guest. He’s the vicar!

So what do you need to do to bring your house upto scratch? Check our “Vicar coming to visit” checklist, to make sure everything is done.

1. Give the place a quick clean. Actually quite nice to do this anyway.
2. Open a Bible, leave it open somewhere.
3. Christian music. Something recognizable, Graham Kendrick would probably do.
4. Christian music not option? Stick something gentle on in the background. Classic FM would do.
5. Hide the Harry Potter DVDs.
6. Hide the empty wine / beer / vodka / whiskey / miscellaneous alcohol bottles. If needed, try selling them.
7. Get out the nice biscuits
8. Make sure the book shelf has the “Christian” books at eye level.
9. No Christian books? Put some nice cookery books on eye level. Maybe put “50 shades of Grey” to one side.

Any more that should be included?

New Ways To Accidentally Create Moral Outrage in Church

The Church. For all its faults, generally doesn’t do a bad job at being a mad wide personality ranging group of people. The thing is, there is a lot of different people involved in Church. The chances are, someone is going to end up offended in someway… and it will probably be sooner rather then later. We’ve asked around and found the following potential ways to create moral outrage in a Church:

1. Suggest changes to the coffee rota! (Or worse… change the coffee without checking with people first!)
2. Mention Donald Trump during a sermon.
3. It turns out that the day you’re doing anything “up front” is NOT the day to forget your flies AND your underwear.
4. Have a really bad week, which is then followed by a really bad Saturday, followed up by a really bad Sunday morning, during which you accidentally stub your toe and swear under your breath. Infront of the wrong person.
5. Casually mention you enjoy watching the wrong TV show or series of movies. (EG. Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter…)
6. Have a different opinion to the wrong people about the wrong things. Share these opinions.
7. Wear a t-shirt about drinking beer to a Sunday morning service.
8. Put the chairs out a little differently…
9. Click on a dodgy link in Facebook… spam the nervous-about-Facebook-old-dear with dodgy links.
10. Suggest that the worship team tries something newer then Shine Jesus Shine.

Any others out there?

10 Ways Kids Survive A Boring Sermon

In the past, Sofa has spent many a post (and tweet) pondering how to survive a boring sermon. While all that has been great for the older people in the church, to quote a panicked soul, “Wont somebody think of the children?”

After 5 years of watching, and learning from both Mini Sofa, and other kids around, we’ve collected the following list of how kids can survive a boring sermon:

If you have a bored child, perhaps they’ll find inspiration from the following ideas:

1. Crawl under the seats, and between the legs of the people sitting in them, until you reach the back and freedom! Just run faster then your grown up!
2. In a push chair? Chop the bottom out and drive it around Flintstones style! Dont have a push chair? Just pretend the seat you’re on is a car instead!
3. Does your church have pews? Bring a car in… those little ledges behind each pew makes a great race track. Ensure there are sounds effects.
4. Be so hungry you could eat a bible… (You’re never to young to digest the word of God right?)
5. When no one is looking… Check if the fire extinguisher really works! (Based on true story)
6. Wave at other little people sat in other parts of the hall. Wait till any silent moments before your shout “HELLO”.
7. Make faces at the preacher during the service. They’ll love it
8. Is your parent leading the service? Make sure they don’t misbehave by going up front and keeping them company.
9. Is your parent the hugging, needy type? Demand a hug. When they pick you up… scream that you want to be put down.
10. You and a friend, see who can run around the Church hall the fastest! See what happens…

Any we’ve missed?