Courses

Please pray for the two Study Centre courses which we are planning to run over the next few weeks. Even though we will be leaving Prague at the end of October, there is just time for Simon to run two courses, one on Sundays the other on Monday evenings. These are our introductory course to studying the Bible and one on the way the atonement is described. Please pray we will have the students we need to make these viable and that they will be useful to those who attend.
Otherwise, we are travelling to the UK on September 18th and will be attending Kristina's graduation ceremony on Plymouth Hoe on 22nd and Simon will be at Trinity, Bristol on 23rd. We also plan to visit Beacon Heath Church on 25th September.
Please pray for Simon's mother who had a fall a couple of weeks ago and broke both of her wrists.  Please pray for a speedy recovery.

Latest from Prague

As most of you who follow what we have been doing in Prague will know, we will be leaving the city and our work at ICP at the end of October. The church here were told this after the service yesterday. The latest news is that we have an interview for a new post at the end of September. Probably best not to say who this is with for the moment, but we would appreciate your prayers for us as we travel to the UK on September 18th. There are lots of practical issues for us to deal with before we can leave, so we would also appreciate your prayers for these.
SImon is working on a small groups study about personal evangelism at the moment, the first draft is finished and he will be 'testing' this with our house group over the next few weeks before finalising it. He is also preaching at ICP this coming Sunday, so prayers for both of those would be welcome.
On Saturday, we went with some friends, Jeff and Kathleen, to a castle to the north east of Prague for a Highland Games. A little bit surreal to be surrounded by people in kilts and other garments of tartan in 30+ degrees heat - and to hear all of them speaking Czech. It had the works, bagpipes, tossing the caber, highland dancing... A really enjoyable day out.

IBCM5

In June, we had the great privilege and joy of attending the fifth International Brethren Conference on Mission, which was held in Strasbourg. Some 480 delegates were there from about 90 countries. The theme was "I shall build my church" and with sermons from Acts, papers on church-planting and church work in various contexts and amongst different people, seminars on important challenges in church life, and brief reports on how God is truly at work building his church, we were truly challenged and encouraged. It was also good to be able to catch up with people we know from around the world and to hear what God has been doing in their lives.

Website

I have set up a basic website for the Groves Centre on Google sites. You can see it here: http://bit.ly/Grovescentre. It still needs work, and some of the information will need to be revised in the next few days, but the basics are all there. Please pass this on to anyone who may be interested in studying in Prague during the next academic year.

Study Centre Latest

The last few months have been a bit up and down in many ways as we have sought the Lord's guidance concerning the year-long course at the ICP Study Centre. As most of you know, this has been the plan ever since we arrived in January 2009 but it is only in the last few weeks that we have received the final go-ahead from the church. Our revised plan is for us to rent office and teaching space in the centre of Prague which will allow us to offer a variety of courses, ranging from a year-long full-time one to part-time modules. The materials we intend to use are the same as originally planned - modules from Trinity College in Bristol. Please pray with us as we seek students fro the various courses and as we search for premises. The plan is to rent from the beginning of August, but this will only be the case if we have full-time students at that stage. The centre will be called "The Groves Centre" after Anthony Norris Groves (more information about him is on Wikipedia and in the brochure I mention below).
We feel very much in the Lord's hands and are waiting upon him in terms of students. A brochure with more details of the course and our plans can be downloaded from here: http://bit.ly/ICPgc (this is still being revised, so the final version will look a little different, though the main information is accurate). If you know of anyone who would be interested in studying here, then please pass this information on to them or ask them to contact us directly. Please continue to pray, we are extremely grateful for your faithful prayers over the past 2 1/2 years.

Sunday, Centre, GLO Zambia

This coming Sunday, there will be a vote at ICP concerning the potential year-long course.  Please pray with us that the Lord's will be done.  We don't want to go ahead with this if the Lord is not leading us forward.  If the vote is a 'yes' we will be looking for students to start in September.  So, if you know anyone, get in touch!!
The revised plan is for us to rent office and teaching space near the centre of Prague and to house students with host families or in nearby rented accommodation.  There will be lots of practical things to sort out whatever the outcome of Sunday's meeting, so we would appreciate prayer for us in that.
Dorit and I won't be in Prague for the meeting as I am off to Trinity for another week's lectures and Dorit is using the opportunity to go and visit the kids in Exeter.
Some of you may have heard of the recent sad events in Zambia.  Some of the people attached to the GLO Bible College were involved in an accident a couple of days ago.  One Faroese girl was killed, another seriously injured and other people, including one of the lecturers, are still in hospital.  Please pray for the family of Runa (the girl who died) and the other families at this time.  If you are on Facebook, more details can be found on the GLO Zambia page.

Latest Courses

Our two most recent courses have started.  On Sundays we are taking six weeks to look briefly at various ways in which the atonement is presented in the Bible, especially the New Testament.  I say 'especially' because last week - our first session - we were looking at redemption and the Old Testament is just full of redemption!  This week, we will look at reconciliation and adoption.  Notes for this will be available once the course is finished.
On Monday evenings, we are studying the Nicene Creed as a way to understand some of the basics of the Christian faith.  The notes for this course can be seen on my Scribd page here: http://scr.bi/BelSCR
More details can be found on the website: www.icpstudycentre.cz
AT ICP at the moment, we are following a series in the book of Revelation, which is very exciting.  And so, in our house group we have been discussing the passage looked at on Sundays.  Great way to really get into some of the depths of what God is saying through this fascinating book.  Last night, we were in Rev 1:9-20, what a wonderful vision of the power and glory of our saviour.  A great reminder that in a world where there is political, religious and natural turmoil that our God is the First and the Last, the Living One.

Residential Centre Again!

On Sunday 20th March, Simon will be presenting to the church at ICP a proposal about purchasing a property for the Study Centre residential course. The church will then meet again on April 10th to vote on whether to put our funds into such a building and raise the extra needed or not. Please do pray about this. You can find out a little more on our websites www.icpstudycentre..cz and http://bit.ly/SCBerea or on the new ICP website, www.icprague.cz

Revelation

Some slides from the Revelation reading on Sunday.

Residential Course

I know many of you have been praying about our residential course. Well, we will, God willing, be starting our course this September. We are not sure exactly where it will be housed (please continue to pray) but something will be happening. If you know of anyone who might like to be a student, please do contact us. Email: dorit.marshall@icprague.cz.

More information on the websites: www.icpstudycentre.cz and sites.google.com/site/bereaprague/

Please pray with us about this.

Dramatic Reading of Revelation

Yesterday, we had a dramatic reading of Revelation as the main part of our service at ICP. Instead of a sermon, we shortened the first part of our service and then listened to the whole of the book. We broke it into three sections with congregational songs at the breaks; something which really drew us all into the worship of heaven.

Simon had taken the text of Revelation in the NIV and split it into parts. We had seven readers, one playing John (Trevor, Simon's brother) a narrator, someone reading the words of God and four angels. The text, with the parts, can be downloaded from here. If you want to listen to the reading, you can download it here.

This all took a surprising amount of work and preparation on the part of all the readers, but was well worth it. The effect of hearing the whole of the book read in one go was wonderful. Very moving.

Plans for our Residential Course

A few ideas of what our year-long course might look like. Any comments are welcome. Please pray for us in our preparation.

Study Centre Residential Course

The vision for the ICP Study Centre is for the centre to be active in three basic areas. As mentioned in the report to the Church Council on January 16th, 2011, these are: Seminars, Courses and Residential.

So far, we have been successful in setting up and running various courses and by the end of this academic year, we plan to have written and run each course at least once. The aim is then to run these on a four-year rotating basis. This year is also one where we plan to hold three leadership seminars and to work on improving other areas where seminars will be beneficial, such as family and parenting.

This leaves us with the third, and important, part of our vision: the Residential Course. As discussed later, there is a need for premises to realise this part of the vision. The aim of this report is firstly, to explain in a little more detail what it is that we would hope to do through the residential course, and secondly, to request that the Council consider using some of ICP’s funds to purchase just such a property.

The aim behind the residential course can be described as providing:

• Solid theological training and equipping;
• Missions and church-planting orientation;
• Community;
• Spiritual edification.

This might be summarised as creating a Christian community that aims to encourage Christlike character, a heart for mission and a deeper knowledge of the faith. It thus is part of ICP’s vision to be a “radiating centre for the gospel.” The Residential Course would seek to equip students to be servants of God wherever he should place them. This would involve, good teaching materials, church and mission placements and mentoring.

General Principles

One of the important principles, I think, that we need to have at the heart of the course is flexibility. Perhaps most importantly, it needs to be flexible in the type of people we can accept onto the course. A basic requirement will be a knowledge of English that allows the student to make the most of the curriculum on offer, but beyond that there are a number of potential groups of students that we can cater for.

• Students who come for the full academic year’s study
• Students who follow part of a year
• ICP, and other church, members who wish to follow courses part-time
• Potential church-planters and/or pastors who are looking to plant international churches.

Course Structure

Our aim would be to provide a 38-40 week course running from September to June with breaks for Christmas and Easter. This course would include a weekly placement with a mission in Prague - or nearby - as well as a two-week mission trip in February.

The year would be planned in such a way as to allow students who may not be able to gain a full visa the possibility of following a 90-day programme which would include some of the modules we discuss below. The intake for this would be in September and March. The week would be timetabled to allow part-time students to follow the courses along with those who are full-time, as well as allowing them to be involved in a missions placement.

Study Materials

The plan is that for the academic side of the course, we will use materials from Trinity College in Bristol . Students who successfully complete the whole programme of six modules receive a Certificate in Christian Studies from Trinity. The modules are being revised at the moment with the aim of offering 18, 12 of which would need to be completed to gain the certificate. It is not clear how long this process of revision will take, but I have been asked to be part of that if our course gets up and running.

At the moment, the nine modules are:

Old Testament

The Pentateuch

Historical Books

Prophecy

New Testament

Synoptic Gospels and Acts

Letters of Paul

Writings of John

Other

Introduction to Christian Doctrine

Introduction to Christian Ethics

Introduction to Church History

For the full year, students will be required to study six modules with at least ONE from each of these sections. The other three choices can be from any section. For the 90-day course, students will be required to study two modules with ONE choice from any two sections. The courses are designed for guided self-study which allows us to be quite flexible in what we offer. Three modules could be offered at any one time, so all the students do not need to follow exactly the same curriculum. For each of the studies, there would be time set aside for reading and research, some of this would also include teaching from me, or other approved lecturer, which would complement the materials. There would also be a tutorial where the actual course material and questions are reviewed and discussed. If we were to put these tutorials on Saturday and one evening, as in the sample timetable, the courses would be available to part-time students as well. Part-time students would then be able to gain the Trinity certificate over a period of 2-3 years.

Each course involves the writing of a very short (250 word) answer each week with a short essay (1500 words) and exam at the end. To begin with, the essays and exams will be marked in Bristol, but their medium-term aim is to have essays marked by the tutors and then for the marking to be moderated.

The Trinity certificate is recognised by Middlesex University, The London School of Theology (previously London Bible College) and Spurgeon’s College as the equivalent of a Certificate in Higher Education which would allow any students from our centre to follow theology degrees there with some reduction in time.

I am in the process of being formally accepted as a tutor and will be attending training when I am next in Bristol in May.

Post-Graduate

As part of ICP’s vision, we would offer places to pastors or others who are looking to plant international churches elsewhere in the world. For those with previous theological training, this would mean we would need to make post-graduate study possible and therefore, we would have to work together with another organisation, such as the Bucer Seminary. Students on this programme would benefit from - and be full members of - the community but would follow their own studies under guidance from outside the ICP centre. They would also bring experience and spiritual maturity to the community which would be of enormous benefit to the other students.

Spiritual Development

Spiritual development, growing more like Christ, is also part of what we would aim for at the centre. Part of this would be the daily time of worship - devotion, or chapel - which the students would be expected not only to attend but also lead. Students would also have a spiritual director, or mentor, who they would meet with regularly.

Mission

As part of ICP, the centre shares the church’s vision of bringing the gospel to Prague and beyond. The centre will, therefore, have missions at its heart and this will show itself in two ways.

Firstly, each student will have the opportunity to be involved in mission while on the course. This would mean a weekly placement where the student takes a full part in some aspect of mission in Prague or nearby. This could, for example, be working with the language centre at the Economics University, or with UCCF, or Logos. For Czech speakers, the opportunities are greater, but all students will have some mission experience during their time at the centre. This might be harder to organise for those who are here for a short period of time, but it is important that we make every effort to achieve it. The students will be expected to write a reflection on their placement and we would ask the mission agencies to complete brief reports on the students’ time with them.

Secondly, there will be a fortnight’s mission, in February, where students will travel to a church in Europe to work with that church in some kind of local mission. They would be involved in the normal outreach of the church but also plan and implement a short-term outreach work for the time that they are there. Once again, the planning, implementation and reflection on this mission will make up part of the course curriculum with students producing a written report.

Church Involvement

All students will attend a church while on the course, and generally this will be ICP. For some students, they may wish to be in a different fellowship; there seems no reason why this cannot happen, but some liaison between that fellowship and the centre’s leadership will need to take place. Students will be expected to become - as far as is possible - active participants in church activities and outreach, such as Youth Praha and Prague Kids - or the worship or anti-trafficking teams, for example.