Welcome to
Exploring faith Matters
Connect faith and daily life
Be challenged! Be inspired!
About us
Exploring faith Matters (EfM) offers a four-year programme where participants enrol for only one year at a time. We do EfM in small groups led by trained mentors. The meetings draw from the preparation each member can do. This is mainly reading set texts and the Bible and will include personal experiences, reflections and the stories of everyday life. We are grateful for what people bring, in all its diversity.
The set texts form four streams, of one year each. They are by recognised writers in biblical studies, theology, history and aspects of faith. You are welcome to read other writers too. Alongside this we read two ‘Interlude texts’ each year which introduce us to important theologians.
We offer in person and online meetings; giving us the opportunity to welcome participants from a wider geographical area.
The group mentor fosters its growth as a learning community by:
• hosting a welcoming space,
• offering a framework for discussion,
• encouraging weekly worship, and
• ensuring the well-being of the group.
We regularly reflect on our faith tradition, our culture, our personal experiences and our responses. We do this using the four source model, in a way developed by our sister organisation in the USA, Education for Ministry. This model gives us an organised way to have theological discussions on the issues that we experience in our reading and in our daily lives.
In 2023-24 as well as our online group we have in person meetings in Edinburgh and Saddleworth.
What our members say…..
I am glad I did. I have explored the different perspectives as the Holy Spirit has guided different writers to say sometimes very different things to different groups of people at different times – and have a better feel for how it all fits together. A Christian mentor once said that Biblical injunctions fall into three categories; what applies to everybody always; what applied to specific people at a specific time; and what is just the writer’s personal opinion (or prejudice) – the problem is to know into which category a particular Bible passage falls. Added to that is the chequered history of the Bride of Christ, the Church. Its history has been moulded in love by the Holy Spirit, but also has been marred by intolerance, bigotry, secular priorities, cruelty and even genocide.
I still don’t understand everything. I can expound and compare how different Christian professions adhere to diverse, and mutually exclusive, explanations of the meaning of the Trinity – although the Trinity is such a profound mystery that any Christian is making progress just by grasping what the Trinity is not! Thanks to EFM I have been able to articulate a clearer version of my own theological position and how it sits within Christian thought. I do claim to have a better (but far from perfect) idea of what is eternal in the Bible, what is personal opinion, what no longer applies today and what is allegory and what was fact.
Learning, laughing, debating, sharing and real love and concern for others characterises EFM groups – and results in trust and closeness. There is a lot of reading and prayer and reflection but God has often spoken to me through the mouths of others in the EFM group, frequently from the less bookish fellow-learners.
I’m glad I said “Yes” to EFM. Will you start this journey of exploration of your faith?
P Whitaker. Third year participant, Saddleworth EfM Group