Welcome

1. Welcome God is here Make yourselves at home

2. Introduction & Practicalities

3. Introduction & Practicalities • Be relaxed here (…and have another glass!) • Not like being back at school • Opportunity to ask questions, share feelings and thoughts without pressure • Openness and Inclusivity

4. Introduction & Practicalities • Toilets outside in the hall • There will be DVDs to borrow at the end of most weeks. • We may have to share, or group together to watch these films some weeks • Plenty of opportunity to ask questions throughout

5. What is the point?

6. Everything…

8. What is the point of being a Christian? • Christianity is true. • If your faith is true, then God is the point of everything. • Our relationship with the Divine cannot be taught, but must be fostered

9. Experiences of God • The “God-shaped hole” inside all of us • Blaise Pascal: What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself.

10. Experiences of God • The “God-shaped hole” inside all of us • Blaise Pascal: What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself.

11. Experiences of God • A sense of the sacred • A yearning for something/someone Other • An awareness of the complexity of life.

12. Understandings of God • Scripture • The Experience of Christians • Theology and Enquiry

13. Knowing God • Can we ever truly know God? • God gives us his sacred name

14. Aren’t all religions essentially the same • If the purpose of religion is to point to the same God, then perhaps that may be true • The 3 principle faiths of the world point to the same God – Yahweh • Allah is just arabic for ‘God’ • The revelation of God (the unchangeable) to his very changeable people • We specifically make claims to truth, to authenticity and to the validity of our faith.

15. God revealed in Scripture • Exodus 3 • Yahweh appears to Moses • Revelation 4 and 5 • The Revelation to St. John the Divine

16. God Revealed in Ourselves

17. Free will

18. Experiences of Prayer • Talking to oneself? • Shopping List Prayers • Be Still and know that I am God • Prayer as a multisensory activity

19. Responses to the Sacred

20. Responses to the Sacred

21. Responses to the Sacred

22. Responses to the Sacred • Are conditioned by our relationship with God • Father • Judge • Friend • Cruel Despot • Blind Watchmaker

23. This week’s film: Bruce Almighty (2003) Starring Jim Carrey, Morgan Freeman and Jennifer Anniston Directed by Tom Shadyac trailer