Advent 2025 – the Return of the Prodigal Son

Henri Nouwen’s book “The return of the Prodigal Son” (Darton, Longman & Todd 1992) is a series of personal reflections on the Rembrandt painting which hangs in the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia and the way it allows the parable of Jesus to speak in new ways.

Study Group for Advent this year will be based around Henri Nouwen’s reflections on Rembrandt’s famous painting.

There will be four sessions:

• 26^th November – Introduction to Nouwen’s encounter with the painting and his reflections on it.

• 3^rd December – The Younger Son (the Prodigal) – Luke 15:11-20

• 10^th December – The Elder Son – Luke 15:25-31

• 17^th December – The Father and some Concluding Discussion – Luke 15:20-24

The sessions revolve around chapters in Henri Nouwen’s book “The return of the Prodigal Son” (Darton, Longman & Todd 1992). The sessions will be semi-independent, so all are welcome even if you can’t manage all of them, but there is benefit from being able to piece it all together by engaging with all four.  If you wish any more information, speak to or contact Canon James.

Return of the Prodigal 2025 (Large print A4 pages – 8 sides)

Return of the Prodigal 2025 (Collated A5 Booklet format – 4 sides)

Season of Creation 2025 – wisdom in creation

This study sessions revolve around a study of a two or three Bible passages, on each occasion from the Wisdom literature in the Hebrew Bible and from the Gospels and will be semi-independent, so all are welcome even if you can’t manage all of them. .

The study has four sessions:

• • 10th Sept – Ocean Depths and Delights

• • 17th Sept – Wisdom in the Creatures of the Earth

• • 24th Sept – Good News from the Sky

• • 1st Oct – The Wisdom Behind the World

Our Study Group this year is based around material adapted from the Season of Creation Project.

Season of Creation 2025 (Large print A4 pages – 8 sides)

Season of Creation 2025(Collated A5 Booklet format – 4 sides)

The Creed (Advent 2024)

From the beginnings of the Christian Church there has been much debate over what the individual believes. This study is a whistlestop tour through the three sections of the Nicene Creed, which describe the three persons of the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

One God in Three Persons? Surely, that means there are three equal Gods? Hopefully, by the end of this study you will understand that this is a question that the Church has battled with since the very beginning.

The study has three sessions:

• • 4^th Dec – God the Father

• • 11^th Dec – God the Son

• • 18^st Dec – God the Holy Spirit 

The sessions are semi-independent, so feel free to dip in and out of them. This study was written for us by Jamie Campbell for which we are very grateful.

Creed Study (Collated A5 Booklet format – 6 sides)

Creed Study (Large print A4 pages – 12 sides)

Season of Creation 2024 – to hope and act with creation

This study is based around a selection of poetry and prose such as St Francis “Canticle of the Sun“, William Cowper’s “The Nightingale and the Glow Worm“, the Anglo-Saxon “Dream of the Rood” and extracts from Annie Proulx’s novel “Barskins“, Alexander Von Humbolt’s “Cosmos“, Helen Macdonald’s “H is for Hawk” and Jurgen Moltmann’s “God in Creation“.

The study has four sessions:

• • 4^th Sept – The Goodness of Creation 

• • 11^th Sept – The Worship of all Creation

• • 18^st Sept – Nature and Humanity 

• • 25^th Sept – Renewal of Creation

The sessions are semi-independent, so feel free to dip in and out of them. This study is based on some of the material provided by the Church of England provided for Season of Creation study in 2021.

Creation Study 2024 (Large print A4 pages)

Creation Study 2024 (Collated A5 booklet)

Freedom to Live: a journey through Galatians (Lent 2024)

This Epistle was written to counteract so-called ‘Judaizers’ amongst the Galatians, telling them that to be perfect Christians they had to observe everything in the Jewish Law. They said that what Paul taught was good as far as it went; but it was incomplete.

Paul gets angry because he sees this as a decimation of the gospel of grace by reversion to religious legalism. So he writes this passionate letter to restore the Galatians understanding of what it means to be in right relationship with God.

This Study has Six Sessions.  Each Session is based on a chapter of the letter:

• Good News Bad News (Chapter 1)

• Accepting Others (Chapter 2)

• Why God Accepts Us (Chapter 3)

• The Joys of Growing Up (Chapter 4)

• Living by the Spirit (Chapter 5)

• The Law of Love (Chapter 6)

Galatians Study

Gratitude to God (Advent 2023)

Gratitude helps us to focus on the positive, recognising all the blessings in our lives and can help us get closer to God. The Bible has plenty to say about gratitude, even when people are faced with struggles and suffering.  Gratitude is our rightful response to all that God is and has done for us. The Bible shows us that becoming a grateful person begins with the recognition that the God who owes us nothing has given us everything. This study explores the theme of gratitude in the Scriptures, and how gratitude is an attitude that is key to our discipleship and Christian witness and that we need to cultivate to help us develop thankful hearts, regardless of the circumstances in which we find ourselves.

Gratitude to God – three week study material

 Opening the Scriptures (Lent 2023)

This study is drawn from the Churches Together in Britain and Ireland 2020 Lent Course: “Opening the scriptures: setting our hearts on fire“.  The original course as presented by CTBI has a great deal of material in it (45 A4 pages) and we have prepared a shortened version (20 A4 pages) to fit the five weeks of our traditional Lent Studies.

Opening the Scriptures – five week study material

The Book of Amos (Advent 2022)

This study consists of three sessions:

1. Background (1 Kings 11:1-36) Introduction and Judgments against the nations (1:1–3:11)
2. Oracles of judgment (4:1–5:17) and Oracles of woe (5:18–6:14) against Israel (and Judah)
3. Visions of judgment (7:1–9:10) and The promise of restoration (9:11–15)

The written material for all three of the sessions is contained in one document:

Amos Study Group Material

A document with background and an outline of what Amos’s mission is:

Amos Background and Outline

A document containing the opening prayers for each of the three sessions:

Amos opening prayers

Creation (September 2022)

This study consists of five sessions which are based on material produced in South Africa in 2008 by members of Green Anglicans:

• • The Earth is the Lord’s
  • Water: the Source of Life
  • Climate Change
  • Need not Greed
  • Stewardship: Caring for God’s Creation

The written material for all five of the sessions is contained in one document:

Season of Creation Study Group

The Mystery of God (Lent 2022)

Ecclesiastes 3 tells us that God has put a sense of mystery into each of our hearts. It is a longing to discover something much deeper than we can perceive with our eyes and ears, and a sense of destiny that can’t be satisfied by our achievements or accumulations. This mysterium tremendum et fascinans is meant to awaken a curiosity in each of us and send us off on a journey of discovery. There are five sessions, each drawing on the previous Sunday’s readings:

1. The Mystery of Good and Evil

2. The Mystery of God’s Glory

3. The Mystery of Sin Suffering and Hope

4. The Mystery of Relationship and Reconciliation

5. The Mystery of Love and Sacrifice

All the Sessions gathered into One Document. This course is based on material produced by Churches Together in Britain and Ireland, and the Mission Theology Advisory Group for Lent 2019.

Creation (September 2021)

This study consisted of four sessions:

• What is Creation?
• How has the Church viewed Creation Theologically?
• Climate Injustice
• What is an appropriate Christian response to the Climate Crisis?

The written material for all four of the sessions is contained in one document:

Creation Study Group

Slides for three of the sessions are below (there were none for session 3):

Creation 1 slides

Creation 2 slides

Creation 4 slides

Lament and the Psalms (Lent 2021)

Pre-reading and Background Material (Week 0)

Documents

The Practice of Lament – The Practice of Lament (a brief introduction to what Lament is (and is not))

The Structure of the Psalms of Lament – The Structure of the Psalms of Lament (a short overview of how Psalms of Lament are structured)

Structure of the Book of Psalms – Structure of the Book of Psalms (a table outlining the internal structure of the Book of Psalms)

Videos

Overview of the Psalms – Overview of the Psalms (a well designed graphical and narrative overview of the whole ‘book’ of Psalms)

An Introduction to Psalms of Lament – An Introduction to the Psalms of Lament ( Ashleigh Urquidi’s accessible introduction to the structure of the Psalms of Lament)

George Coppen’s Notes on the above video – Notes on Ashleigh Urquidi’s video

Bono & Eugene Peterson – THE PSALMS – Bono & Eugene Peterson – THE PSALMS (a short film documenting the friendship between Bono (of the band U2) and Eugene Peterson (author of contemporary-language Bible translation The Message) revolving around their common interest in the Psalms.)

A Psalm of Lament and Praise in a time of Coronavirus – A Psalm of Lament and Praise in a time of Coronavirus (a Psalm for our times written and read by the Revd Kenneth Howcroft)

Audio

Audio of Overview of the Psalms

Audio of An Introduction to Psalms of Lament

Audio of Bono & Eugene Peterson – THE PSALMS

Audio of A Psalm of Lament and Praise in a time of Coronavirus

The Need for Lament (Week 1)

Documents

Session 1 as four sides of A4 –  Lament and Psalms – session 1

Session 1 as a four sided booklet –  Booklet Lament and Psalms – session 1

Chapter Five of Dermot Cox’s book entitled – “Psalms of Human Need and Distress“

Video

Short video of Walter Brueggemann speaking about the Need for Lament

Audio

Audio of Walter Brueggemann speaking about the Need for Lament (as above)

​The Power of Lament (Week 2)

Documents

Session 2 as four sides of A4 = Lament and Psalms – session 2

Session 2 as a four sided booklet – Booklet Lament and Psalms – session 2

Video

Short video of Walter Brueggemann speaking about the Power of Lament

Audio

Audio of Walter Brueggemann speaking about the Power of Lament (as above)

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Suffering (Advent 2020)

This is a wide-ranging topic, with many strands.  In this study, we will start with a Bible Study on The Suffering of Job, move on to New Testament Theology in The Suffering of Christ and finish with some Practical Theology in Our Own Suffering. We start each session with Prayer:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.

The materials below are in two forms:

• A PDF file with sequential A4 pages
• A PDF file with pages arranged so that if your printer can print double-sided with a short-edge binding (and you know what that all means:-) you can print it and fold it to resemble the ‘booklets’ that I have been handing out in previous studies.

If in doubt, the first format will produce something readable. If you have problems, either ask a friend or get in touch with me. Each week there is the session booklet and in some weeks a further booklet of additional material/resources. If there are things in the materials that you wish to talk with me about, you know how to contact me.

Session 1 – The Suffering of Job

Before you start, you will find it very helpful to understand the structure of the Book of Job, so I suggest that you read that material first, so that you will be able to see the progression as you move through the session.

Suffering -Session One

Suffering – Session One booklet

The Structure of Job

Session 2 – The Suffering of Christ

Suffering -Session Two

Suffering – Session Two booklet

Session 3 – Our Own Suffering

Suffering – Session Three

Suffering – Session Three booklet

“The Suffering God” a poem by G.A. Studdert-Kennedy (Woodbine Willie)

The Suffering God – Unutterable Beauty

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Prayer (Lent 2020)

To start with, an episode of Radio 4’s “Something Understood” in which Rowan Williams talks about Prayer. The materials below are in two forms:

• A PDF file with sequential A4 pages
• A PDF file with pages arranged so that if your printer can print double-sided with a short-edge binding (and you know what that all means:-) you can print it and fold it to resemble the ‘booklets’ that I have been handing out for earlier sessions.

If in doubt, the first format will produce something readable. If you have problems, either ask a friend or get in touch with me. Each week there is the session booklet and in some weeks a further booklet of additional material/resources. If there are things in the materials that you wish to talk with me about, you know how to contact me.

Session 1 – The essence of prayer

Prayer – session 1

Booklet Prayer – session 1

Prayer – the great traditions

Session 2 – The person who prays

Prayer – session 2

Booklet Prayer – session 2

Session 3 – Growth in prayer

Prayer – session 3

Booklet Prayer – session 3

Prayer – aids

Booklet Prayer – aids

Session 4 – Living in tune

Prayer – session 4

Booklet Prayer – session 4

Spiritual Consolation and Desolation

Booklet Spiritual Consolation and Desolation

Session 5 – Pray like this

Prayer – session 5

Booklet Prayer – session 5

Prayer – Silence, Review and Examen

Booklet Prayer – Silence, Review and Examen

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The Beloved (Advent 2018)

The written material for all three of the sessions is contained in one document: The life of the beloved study The videos of Henri Nouwen’s sermons on Youtube which were at the heart of each session:

Session 1

Being the Beloved –

Session 2

Becoming the Beloved –

Session 3

Disciples of the Beloved –

The Book of Jonah (Advent 2017)

The book of Jonah is about the relationship between a rebellious missionary and a relentless God. It is one of the most famous stories in the Old Testament perhaps due to the miraculous moment when Jonah is swallowed by a whale. It is however much more than that, it’s a parable with a prayer at its centre (both biblical tools used to sharpen our personal awareness of the truth of our lives). It uses comedy and exaggeration and is playful in both content and style but it isn’t frivolous, a number of sobering truths are slipped in whilst out attention is drawn elsewhere. Jonah is both disobedient to God and also grudgingly obedient, but in both cases he is something of a failure. Jonah isn’t a model to live up to, but a mirror to help us to see our own inadequacies and failings.

Jonah Study