Session 1. Find Out More and Welcome Meal.
What is Beta? See the Taster video, extracts from all the teaching sessions. Discussion. Those interested sign up for the course and order Participant's Booklets.

2. Relationships
Relationship is fundamental to who we are as human beings. Relationships are potent, for harm or for healing. We are made in the image of a God, a community of Three Persons, the source of our healing.

3. Christian Community
As social beings we are affected by the quality of our relationships with others in the church. But what if church life is unable to deliver? The task of church is to re-learn its way of 'doing relationships' through experiencing the love of the Trinity.

4. Sin and Atonement
Christian thinking about sin is basically about the human predicament, rather than simply the wrong things that we do. There is something compulsive about sin, and we may need help to take the opportunity of liberation that God offers to us through the atonement.

5. Forgiveness and Reconciliation
The work of forgiveness can involve facing the pain, making a decision to forgive, and working at forgiving with the help of insights from psychology. Yet, we don't have to do all the work ourselves; Christ carries the burden with us.

 6. Depression
Depression is often precipitated by stressful events, especially those that remind us of past problems. The Christian faith provides the resources for a radically different way of looking at life - truthfully- but from a larger perspective, which leaves room for God to act.

7. Loss and Change
Grief sends us on a journey through denial, bargaining, anger, searching, guilt, depression, and finally acceptance. Jesus' death and resurrection provides us with the resources so that we can hold together both the devastation of loss and the hope for growth and new life.

8. Stress and Coping
Today, we live with prolonged perceived threats to our sense of self, and our bodies are can be continually overloaded. God can use the stresses we face so that we find we can no longer rely on our own strength- that we must rely on someone greater than ourselves.

 9. Suffering and Wholeness
How can God's purposes be served through suffering? Our understanding of the ministry of healing is important here. While prayer for healing is not simply like pushing a button, something transforming yet unpredictable happens when we, as needy human beings, come into a closer relationship with God who is Life.

10. Self and God
Coming to know God is intertwined with coming to know ourselves better, and being more faithful in our Christian discipleship transforms us and makes us whole. In all of this, the Holy Spirit is at work. Wholeness involves becoming all that we are so that more of our soul's energy becomes available to us. We can then channel that energy usefully and joyfully into love and work for God.

Beta can also be run as a 5 week Lent Course
click here