Running Introducing God at home

David and Jan Martin are hosting an Introducing God course in their lounge room

“The talk on DVD was excellent, with a good mix of humour and clear and sound teaching. The table discussions after the talk really make it worthwhile. It gives you permission to talk about God.”
- David Martin

We have turned our family room into a mini restaurant with the help of two catering gurus. After dinner we move into the lounge room for the DVD presentation then back to the family room for dessert and table discussions. There have been about 20 people for dinner each week. About half were guests. The only hurdle we had to jump with regard to this setting was to convince friends to come to the home of someone they did not know. But because they came with a friend it hasn’t been a problem at all. In fact, our setting it has been perfect. Doing it in the home, while it is a lot of work for the family and the two cooks, means we can offer it free to guests. We work on a budget of $4 a head (people put money in a basket if they want to).

Introducing God on DVD has worked really well! To have the verbal and the visual, such an interesting and “real” visual too, has been very effective. I’ve been particularly impressed with the way Dominic’s illustrations were immediately visualised with top-quality graphics, pictures and video clips. The course content is solidly biblical. I think it’s a real strength to start in Genesis 1 and end in Revelation 21-22. It makes you think that you really have covered the whole Bible.

The discussion groups are excellent. It’s like having nine dialogue meetings in a row over dinner each week (with the same people). And it has given both the Christians and guests permission to openly talk about God without the fear of going too far or showing too much interest. The difficulty is, of course, making sure that the Christians are on board with the discussion facilitator and are not throwing in red herrings or objections all the time. Because we value truth, it’s hard to let some comments from our guests slide. But we have to keep remembering that we have nine weeks of discussion plus a weekend away.

We have held dialogue dinners every year. But the strength of this course is that you get nine goes at it. Over that time a positive relationship builds up much more so than the “one hit wonder” nights.

David Martin, AFES, Bathurst, NSW

See the Introducing God resources.