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The Christian Life Program (CLP) of SFC
What
is the Christian Life Program (CLP)? The CLP is an integrated course
intended to lead the program participants into a renewed understanding
of God's call to them as Christians.
It runs for a total of 13 separate sessions, usually held once a
week. Most sessions consist
of three basic ingredients: a teaching, a group discussion, and a time
for fellowship. Each session would normally last for about 2 1/2 hours.
What
are the goals of the CLP? The CLP has two basic purposes:
evangelism and spiritual renewal. To evangelize is to take the basic
message of Christianity and to proclaim it anew so that those who hear
it can make a renewed commitment to the Lord in a way which will allow
them to receive a fuller experience of the work of the Holy Spirit in
their lives. Spiritual renewal works in three
ways: 1. For the
individual, it brings a person into a stronger
relationship with God by discovering and living more fully the
power and gifts he or she received through the Holy Spirit. 2. For the family, it brings singles to a renewed commitment
to Christian family Life. 3. For the Church, it brings young men and women within a
particular parish to a fuller experience of life in the Spirit. Consequently it strengthens and revitalizes community life in
the parish.
What
is the content of the CLP? The CLP runs for a total of 13
consecutive sessions usually held weekly, divided into an orientation
session and then 3 modules of 4 sessions each.
The topics of the 12 sessions are:
Module No. 1:
THE BASIC TRUTHS ABOUT CHRISTIANITY 1. God's Love
2. Who is Jesus Christ? 3. What it means to be a Christian 4. Repentance and Faith
Module No. 2:
THE AUTHENTIC CHRISTIAN LIFE 5. The Christian Ideal:
Loving God 6. Loving Your Neighbor 7. The Christian Family 8. Life in the Holy Spirit Module No. 3:
LIVING A SPIRIT-FILLED CHRISTIAN LIFE
9. Receiving the Power of the Holy Spirit 10. Growing in the Spirit 11. The Life and Mission of the Couples of Christ 12. Transformation in Christ What
is the content of each of the above teachings? "GOD'S
LOVE"
speaks about God's wanting to bring us out of the confusion and disorder
that is being experienced in the modern world, and to bring us all back
to Himself, to restore our fellowship and intimacy with Him.
There is something seriously wrong with the situation of the
world today, and behind most of the disorder and evil is Satan.
Only God can bring us out of this, and He has done it by sending
His own Son, Jesus Christ, into the world to suffer and die for us.
Salvation has come to us in Jesus. Realizing the absolute importance of
this person Jesus Christ in our salvation from sin and Satan and our
return to God, we naturally would want to know more about Him.
And so we ask the question, "WHO IS JESUS CHRIST?". Being Christians, we just naturally take for granted our
conviction that Jesus is the Son of God.
But is he really worth paying attention to? Shouldn't he be on the same level as Buddha, Confucius,
Mohammed, Socrates, or other wise men or moral teachers?
Jesus was unique and has had a greater impact on the course of
human events more than any other person.
But what really set him apart was his claim to be God, which none
of the other founders of great world religions ever claimed. With this claim, we can only look upon him as either a liar,
a lunatic or in fact the Lord. If we come away with the conviction
that Jesus is indeed Lord, then we are confronted with his life and his
words which demand a response from us.
If we as Christians are to carry his name,
then we need to live in a way that acknowledges his lordship over
us. And so we want to learn
"WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A CHRISTIAN".
This talk first dispels misconceptions or wrong notions about
Christianity. It points out
what it is not. Then it
shows that the essence of Christianity is union with God, made possible
through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
What makes us Christian is our loving, personal relationship with
God, and our whole life becomes an expression of this relationship. God has loved us.
God sent His Son to die for us.
He has gathered us unto Himself as His people.
Christianity is something that God has initiated, unilaterally
and unreservedly. In the
light of all these, our proper response is "REPENTANCE AND FAITH".
And this is a double-action response.
Repentance and faith go together.
Repentance involves a turning away from sin,
wrongdoing and running our own lives, and a turning to a life
of obedience to God. Faith, in turn, is belief in Jesus as our personal Savior. The above four talks form the first
module of the CLP, and has presented the absolute basics of Christian
life. It is basically
Christian theology. The
next module, consisting of another four sessions, presents the kind of
life that God calls us to. It
spells out the personal response involved in receiving Jesus as Lord and
Savior and helps couples to make a reorientation of their lives around
Jesus. The second module starts out with a
talk on "THE CHRISTIAN IDEAL:
LOVING GOD". It
is an explanation of the first and greatest commandment.
It explains in detail what it really means to love God above all
with all our heart, with all our mind and with all our strength. The next talk deals with "LOVING
YOUR NEIGHBOR", which, together with loving God, forms the core
of the Christian life. The
talk contrasts God's love with the world's idea of love.
Love is not only having positive feelings, not always saying
"yes", not being defensive, not self-seeking or manipulative.
Rather, Christian love is connected with keeping God's
commandments and means a self- sacrificial love, best exemplified by
Jesus himself. On the
practical level, Christian love means service love.
It is committed service to our fellow men. Being a family oriented ministry, we
then have a talk on "THE CHRISTIAN FAMILY".
Here the importance of the family in God's plan is stressed. The family is intended by God to be the basic unit of
society, and as such, it is
to be a place for teaching and training children and also the place for
training leaders. But God's
plan for our families is not happening, because God has lost His central
place in the family, because the family itself is losing its importance,
because of the fast life, and finally because the family is under attack
by evil forces. The talk ends with practical advice on what can be done to
build up a strong Christian family. Finally, after learning what this new
life that we are called to really means--love of God, love of neighbor,
building a Christian family-- we look at the one ingredient that makes
it all possible. And that
is the power from above which enables us to live a "LIFE IN THE
HOLY SPIRIT". True
Christian living is not just a matter of human will power but a new
heart, a new life from God. The
Holy Spirit enables us to experience God, a living relationship with Him
and His action in our lives. With
the Holy Spirit, men again experience union with God and gain a new
nature, spiritual power and power to serve. The third and final module helps the
couples to commit their lives in a serious way to Jesus Christ.
And first of all this involves "RECEIVING THE POWER OF
THE HOLY SPIRIT". This
first session of the third module is essentially a prayer session where
the participants are prayed with for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit
in their lives. Some would
term it the baptism in the Holy Spirit. Then, recognizing that the baptism in
the Holy Spirit is only a
beginning, there is a need to learn
more about how to grow in the life of the Spirit.
Thus the participants are taught the basic means for "GROWING
IN THE SPIRIT". And
the four basic tools for growth are prayer, study, service and
fellowship. Fellowship refers to almost
everything that Christians do together as a body.
It is the concretization of the spiritual reality that we belong
to the same family. We do not become complete Christians by ourselves.
And here we come to the need for coming together with other
committed Christians and their families for mutual support and
encouragement. Here is
presented "THE LIFE AND MISSION OF THE CFC SINGLES FOR CHRIST". It gives the history of CFC Singles for Christ (SFC), its
statements of Mission and Philosophy, and a description of how support
for Christian life is carried out.
An invitation to consider and pray about joining SFC is issued. Finally, the last session wraps up the whole Christian Life Program which has started the process of "TRANSFORMATION IN CHRIST". The participants are encouraged to persevere and live out actively the new life in the power of the Holy Spirit. And though the CLP has come to an end, the new life is just beginning. In order to grow, much more is needed. There is a need to learn more about the Christian life. There is a need for the strength and support of others. There is a need for a situation in which single men and women can learn how to serve the Lord. Thus the singles are invited to join CFC SINGLES FOR CHRIST. For those who have decided to do so, they make their commitment to SFC and are welcomed into the body.
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