Going Deeper Confirm

Going Deeper: Confirming our Faith

Introduction
Over the past couple of years at house church we have covered the basics of the Christian faith through the Alpha course, Christianity Explored, The Purpose-Drive Life and an overview of the Bible in The Bible for Blockheads. This Fall we propose to go a bit deeper into the faith by having a series of discussions drawn from the book “Faith Confirmed” by Peter Jackson and Chris Wright (published by SPCK), supplemented by other materials. We may not agree on all their perspectives but the book provides a useful resource. We shall continue to meet on Sundays at five pm combining the study with worship and following it with potluck supper. Bring your friends.

We shall prepare the material ahead of time but the discussions will be informal and interactive. Rather than everyone having a book to study from, there will be questions to use as a basis for discussion.

Most of what we cover will be common to Christians as a whole. On some topics we shall present a range of opinions, attempting to be fair to the different view-points of, say, Roman Catholics and Protestants, while discussing why Anglican Christians arrived at conclusions which recognize the best of both. Initial topics are a revision exercise of what we have already covered in other discussions. We’ll get the most out of it if we try to participate every week. Depending on numbers we shall do an overview of the topic together ad then divide into groups for discussion eg teens/kids and one or more adult group. As always, feel free to ask any question.

Outline:
1 God
2. Human Nature and Sin
3. Jesus: Life and Ministry
4. Jesus: Death and Resurrection
5. The Holy Spirit
6. The Church
7. The Creeds
8 The Bible
9. Living as a Christian
10. Prayer & Worship
11. The Sacraments
12. Baptism
13. Confirmation
14. The Eucharist (ie Communion)
15. Marriage
16. Confession
17. Ordination
18. Anointing the sick (ie. Prayer for healing)
19. Life after Death