CHRISTIAN COUNSELLING

"Counseling Through the Lens of Scripture" is the aim of the 'CHRISTIAN COUNSELLING & EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION' or as it is known 'CCEF'.

Their web site is a great resource giving help on many different issues. Whilst they charge for many of their resources there is also some that is free. you can find it on:

https://www.ccef.org/

After a four year break they have just resumed their podcasts. These are all free. A recent one is on Transgender Issues.

MARCH HOMEGROUPS 'CORE CHRISTIANITY' CHAPTER 3

GOD IS GREAT AND GOOD

1. What is your favourite hymn or song that speaks about some of God's attributes?

2. Name one thing about God from the chapter that excites you and say why it does.

3. How may knowing about God's aseity, unity, immutability and eternity affect our Christian life?

4. What are some things God cannot do?

5. Discuss some reasons why people may feel that God is not great or good.

6. If God is great and good, how can there be so much evil in the world?

7. How are. the cross and resurrection central to showing God's greatness and goodness?

Remember to watch the 'Core Christianity' lesson on the web site.  

My thanks to Janet Proud for good suggestions for some of the questions.

FEBRUARY HOMEGROUPS 'CORE CHRISTIANITY' - CHAPTER TWO

GOD IN THREE PERSONS

1. Does the doctrine of the Trinity matter? If so why?

2. In what ways are our understanding of the doctrine influenced?

3. What analogies of the Trinity have you heard? What is helpful about each one and what may be misleading?

4. What does each member of the Trinity do for our Salvation? What is their role?

5. Why do we pray to the Father in Jesus' name? 

6. Read 1 John 5:14-15. How should we pray in Jesus' name according to these verses? Why should Christians be confident when we pray in Jesus' name?

7. Why do people struggle to understand the Trinity?

Questions 4-7 are from the 'Core Christianity' course. Why not take a look at it and hear Michael Horton teach on the Trinity. It is a good way of reinforcing what you have read.

www.corechristianity.com

TRANSGENDER ISSUES

The topic for our Tuesday evening Bible Study on 31st January will be TRANSGENDER. 

The Cambridge Institute have issued a helpful paper on this. You can read it by following this link:

http://www.jubilee-centre.org/gender-next-christopher-townsend/

A useful, very short book (only 75 small pages), by Vaughan Roberts, has been produced by the good book company. 

An article by Sharon James in Affinity, 'Are we all "omnigender" now' is also helpful.

http://www.affinity.org.uk/downloads/The%20Bulletin/issue-32---july-2016a.pdf

See also a paper in the Christian Medical Fellowship File 59 2016 Gender Dysphoria.

https://www.cmf.org.uk/resources/publications/content/?context=article&id=26419

JANUARY HOMEGROUPS 'CORE CHRISTIANITY - GETTING STARTED AND CHAPTER ONE

1. Why does Doctrine matter? Which doctrines, if any, would you be prepared to go to prison for, and which would you die for? (If we remember we will revisit this question at the end of the year to see if our answer has changed.)

2. In what ways does doctrine impact on our worship?

3. Why do these claims to divinity make it impossible for Jesus to be only a wise guru like Buddha or Muhammad?

4. How does Jesus have the characteristic of God?

5. There have been other people who performed miracles in the Bible, but Jesus had characteristics that only God could possess. So how do his particular powers and authority described in these verses prove Jesus' divinity?

6. How was Jesus worshipped as God?

7. Look up Matthew 16:16-17 and John 20:28-29. If Jesus was simply a wise guru or teacher, how should he have responded when people worshipped him on earth? Consider Christ's response to Peter in Matthew 16:17 and Thomas in John 20;29 as you answer.

Please note: questions 3-7 are taken from the 'Core Christianity' website. A link to this is found in the previous post. 

HOME GROUPS 2017

CORE CHRISTIANITY by Michael Horton.

You can read about it here:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Core-Christianity-Michael-Horton/dp/0310525063/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

There is a web site by the same name that enables people to go through the book in groups – see:

https://corechristianity.com/

We could sign up as many of our group as wish to do this.

In addition as 2017 is the 500^th Anniversary of the reformation we shall use the book ‘Why the Reformation Still Matters’ for some Tuesday evenings. It covers roughly the same area as Core Christianity from the view point of the Reformation.

 See here –

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1783594071/ref=olp_product_details?_encoding=UTF8&me=

MORE ON FASTING

If you would like to look more into the question of fasting then I would recommend the book by John Piper, 'A HUNGER FOR GOD'. 

This can be download for free as a pdf file from the DESIRING GOD website section on Books, or try using the following link:

http://document.desiringgod.org/a-hunger-for-god-en.pdf?1446646561

Two extracts: 

"In other words, in this age there is an ache inside every Christian that Jesus is not here as fully and intimately and as powerfully and as gloriously as we want him to be. We hunger for so much more. That is why we fast." 

"We have tasted the powers of the age to come, and our fasting is not because we are hungry for something we have not experienced, but because the new wine of Christ’s presence is so real and so satisfying. We must have all that it is possible to have. The newness of our fasting is this: its intensity comes not because we have never tasted the wine of Christ’s presence, but because we have tasted it so wonderfully by his Spirit, and cannot now be satisfied until the consummation of joy arrives. The new fasting, the Christian fasting, is a hunger for all the fullness of God (Ephesians 3:19), aroused by the aroma of Jesus’ love and by the taste of God’s goodness in the gospel of Christ (1 Peter 2:2–3)."