lives and communities transformed
A faith enlarging exper What happened?
Over the past year, Leicester Diocese has partnered with registered Charity the Ugly Duckling Company to pilot a range of courses which help people explore the basics of the Christian faith. The two sets of resources, entitled Puzzling Questions and Table Talk, both created by the Ugly Duckling head Paul Griffiths or his team, are both designed for those with very little or no awareness of the Christian faith and serve to help the early steps of faith development.
Table Talk and Puzzling Questions serve as a forerunner rather than replacement to more detailed courses like Alpha, Emmaus or Christianity Explored, an easier entry point in gently raising awareness of faith and the big questions of life. The courses are especially designed for the growing proportion of the population who are more post-modern in outlook (so look to see something working as a litmus test to its importance more so than just whether it is true). The Diocese paid for twenty five churches (or groups of churches, including some working across denominations) to run either Puzzling Questions or Table Talk for Easter on condition that they came for an initial exploration and
What did churches running it say?
training evening in Autumn 2012 and a review and learning evening in Summer 2013. The pilot was oversubscribed within a week of making the offer to all churches. Participant churches came from right across the theological Here’s a cross section (not just the ‘best’!) from spectrum and from inner city, small village, a couple of pilot churches: larger village, suburb and town. ◊ Richard Dixon at All Saints Church, Sapcote, writes about their experience with Table Talk for Easter, how a first time course naturally attracts more churchgoers to see whether suitable to invite a friend to and how it is important to not stop there, “We held our meetings in the six weeks before Easter, with the last meeting on Maundy Thursday. The meetings proved popular, perhaps holding ◊ 27 churches ran either Puzzling Questions them in the Red Lion helped. The largest or Table Talk. Some ran Table Talk and attendance was 17 people, when we split into then participants wanted to build on what two groups. The smallest attendance was 8 they had found further by doing Puzzling for the last meeting. Attendance was mostly Questions from church members, but there were some ◊ Venue was important, but most important pre-believers present. This was the only to be right for the situation rather than disappointing thing about the event, too one size fits all many Christians! The whole thing was easy ◊ Overall 450 people took part (only a to organise, fun to do and presented a good hundred of which were leaders) opportunity to express Christian views about ◊ Around 150 of the participants were serious questions. We are pretty certain to from ‘beyond the church fringe’ nearly run ‘Table Talk for Blokes’, once our Puzzling all of which came because of a personal Questions course is finished.” invitation rather than a notice or poster ◊ Most churches that took part in the pilot want to run it again and are actively exploring with potential groups of people Table Talk and Puzzling it might help Questions serve as a ◊ Most churches that took part want forerunner rather than the Diocese to further develop the replacement to more detailed partnership and would recommend the courses like Alpha, Emmaus courses to other churches as part of a or Christianity Explored strategy to help people come to a living faith in Jesus Christ.
What did we learn from the pilot?
Table Talk
…is a discussion based game. Each variant looks at six big questions (one per a session). To play a small group of people gather around a table. One of those present reads the 2 minute introduction to that session’s big questions, then 16 question cards (each question card relates to the big question of the session) are placed facing up on the table. The game starts as someone picks up a card and poses the question to the group. After its been discussed, someone else at the table picks a different question card. It’s not just about those who ‘have answers’ telling others but space for everyone to share (including those who are Christian) to share what they think in the hope of raising awareness and intrigue in the big questions of life. There are currently Table Talk variants for: friends, blokes, Easter, for Messy (all age) Moments, for 10-11 year olds, 11-14s, 14-16s, 16-18, for the Armed Forces and for Uni Students. Others in development include for Grandparents, for Scots, in Welsh, for Christmas, for justice and for 3rd agers. See www.table-talk.org for more.
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