yoURChurch, a United Reformed Church (URC) congregation which meets exclusively online, recently received its first members at a Communion service.
At the service led by the Revd Clare Downing, Moderator of the North Western Synod, 11 people were received.
Lawrence Heath-Moore, Central Area Mission Mentor for North Western Synod, said the event “wasn’t without its humour”.
“The very idea that a church that lives entirely online can be a ‘local’ church is deliciously ironic, but all URC churches are quite appropriately, with our own church an honourable exception, geographically defined! So, a local church we are,” Lawrence said.
“The other irony is that, technically, only church members can agree at a church meeting to accept new members and of course, prior to the end of the service, we didn’t have any church members to call a church meeting and agree that we were suitable people to accept into membership!”
Lawrence called the service a “key moment for the members” as well as for yoURChurch.
“It was a solemn moment, as well as one to celebrate: solemn because membership is a covenant commitment to share a common life as fellow-disciples in the church; one to celebrate because that was the moment yoURChurch became a local church within the URC.”
At its 2023 meeting, General Assembly received yoURChurch as a local church. Services takes place on Sundays at 6.30pm. Learn more about yoURChurch.