A few months ago, I created a new course called What is Christianity? That course was designed to introduce Christianity by looking at a very brief overview of the Bible. However, it didn’t offer very much practical help in terms of actually living as a Christian. I want to start remedying that now with another short and practical course about what it means to live a Christian life.
A few years ago I stumbled across a document called “A Short Guide to the Duties of Church Membership”. It was written back in 1954 by the then Archbishops of Canterbury and York. Although it’s over 60 years old, I think it remains a very helpful document as an overview of what it means to be a Christian. And it’s not just for Anglicans!
They included nine things in that list:
- To follow the example of Christ in home and daily life, and to bear personal witness to Him.
- To be regular in private prayer day by day.
- To read the Bible carefully.
- To come to Church every Sunday.
- To receive the Holy Communion faithfully and regularly.
- To give personal service to Church, neighbours, and community.
- To give money for the work of parish and diocese and for the work of the Church at home and overseas.
- To uphold the standard of marriage entrusted by Christ to His Church.
- To care that children are brought up to love and serve the Lord.
I think this is a very helpful list – if you studied these things you would be well on your way to understanding how to live a Christian life. Well, that’s exactly what we’re going to do!
In this series we’re going to work through each one on the list to show how these things can be lived out each day. My hope eventually is to turn this into its own course and add it to the teaching programme. In the meantime, you can see the whole thing on this page.
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