This ministry team organises our educational programme. We try to ensure that there is a balanced variety of material and formats from a number of speakers and teachers so that people have a wide range from which to choose.
Examples of what has been provided come roughly in four categories:
- Occasional lectures and talks by members of the congregation, such as:
- Violence in families and the Law by Judge Peter Devlin.
- Hymnody by Rev Dr Colin Thompson.
- Art and the Life of Faith in the Golden Century of Spanish Painting (1560-1660)by Rev Dr Colin Thompson.
- Study groups or short courses, such as:
- Bible Study This usually takes the form of a short course. Recently we have looked at the Songs of Advent.
- God Stories – An anthology of short stories on the theme of spiritual experience.
- Living the Questions – An in-depth longer curriculum designed to help people wrestle with the relevance of Christianity in the 21st century.
- Lecture series and question panels – We have invited speakers from other faiths and Christian denominations other than our own. We have used both the format of a series of talks on a Sunday afternoon in Lent followed by tea and also an evening panel session based on the television programme ‘Question Time’.
- Retreats – A group from the church has been twice to a retreat centre in Wales to explore Mindfulness and Christianity. This has led to the setting up of a weekly ‘Sitting Group’ which uses the church to practice mindfulness.