Christianity Explored

CCB is so committed to helping enquirers get to grips with Jesus Christ that we've taken the decision to 'cancel' Sunday Evening Church and run Christianity Explored instead! Not for ever, just for six weeks. We start on February 1st.

Christianity Explored is a hugely popular course used by churches up and down the country. You can find out more about it here. It's my preferred course for helping people keen to investigate Christianity. Using Mark's gospel, it concentrates on who Jesus is and why he came. Those are two critical questions when exploring Christianity!

In the way we run the course, there are six sessions in total

1. What is Mark's Gospel?
2. Who is Jesus Christ?
3. Why did Jesus come?
4. Why did Jesus die?
5. What on earth is grace?
6. Why did Jesus rise?

Within each session there'll be time for the following things

1. a look at a passage in Mark's gospel
2. a talk from the front by Perks, Pete or Alex
3. a time for discussion and debate in small groups
4. a chance to hear from others with interviews

We'll meet in the hall around small tables. One of the Knowing God group leaders will host the discussion and keep things moving along, though we all have a responsibility to make others welcome. There'll be no congregational singing and no corporate prayer. This is an evening for non-regulars.

It may sound a little radical cancelling church. We're not really cancelling church, we're just making some concessions. But rest assured, this is something that we tried, with great success, a few years ago in Wimbledon. We found that the great strengths were as follows

1. We were able to provide the large group setting that produced a great atmosphere for stimulating discussion and also allowed people to enjoy a degree of anonymity.

2. We found that people were more enthusiastic about coming out on the weekend than giving up a weekday. After all, have you seen what's on TV at that time?!

3. We found that it was helpful to be doing this together. There was real benefit to meeting one another's friends so that they could discover that Christians weren't the unhinged, brain dead bigots that they'd anticipated! But the different areas of expertise and different perspectives people brought to the discussion meant that the group times were hugely productive.

4. We found that we got very excited about Jesus Christ and explaining his significance to others. And that's no bad thing!

We start on 1st February. What can you do? Four things.

1. pray for its success - ask God to bring enquirers along and to help them find answers to their questions
2. invite your friends - this is a fabulous opportunity for people we hold dear to investigate things a little further
3. pitch up regardless - we need 'all hands on deck' to make the evenings work, please don't take six weeks off from church!
4. read Mark's gospel - we'll be looking at this together over the six week period

Park Party

Park Party
Location: Adjacent to the One O'Clock Club and all weather sports pitch on Tooting Triangle, Tooting Common
Date: Sunday 18th May
Time: 2-5pm
Bouncy Castle, Face Painting, Biscuit Decorating, Games, Family Church Meeting, Refreshments & Home Made Cakes
Evening church meeting @ 6.00 pm

Free Admission.
There will be a small charge for activities.

For more information contact Anna on 020 85434411 or anna@christchurchbalham.org.uk

The Bedford Carols

Sunday evening's 'Bedford Carols' was a great success. We had lots of guests who enjoyed singing and listening to an explanation of the first Christmas events. The music was especially fantastic. Thank you to all who played and sang for us. Tom Clarke's new arrangements worked brilliantly. I'm sure he'd want to single out Simeon Lumgair and Colin Hall for their help. Well done to everyone involved in transforming the room and creating a festive atmosphere. Our thanks to Claudia Demuth and her team. Thanks also to Phil Craig and his group of 'techies' who lifted and shifted loads of kit and set it all up to make sure that we could be heard. It was a terrific event and we're very grateful to God for everyone who volunteered, invited, attended and prayed.

Bedford Carols

Our annual Christmas carol event is back at the Bedford this year http://www.thebedford.co.uk/modules.php?op=modload&name=InfoPages. It's this Sunday, the 16th December. It starts at 8 pm and we're downstairs in the Shakespearean Globe, home of the Banana Cabaret. We can't promise that the gags will be as good but if you're at a loose end and fancy adding a 'spiritual' dimension to your Christmas celebrations you'd be very welcome. We'll sing many of the old favourites, hear a few familiar reading, listen to a short Christmas talk and all in the familiar setting of one of South London's best public houses. Come and join the regulars and a large number of visitors.
For more information about Christ Church Balham see our website http://www.christchurchbalham.org.uk/.