questions...

• Who am I and why am I here?
• What happens after I die?
• If God is a God of love and power, why is there so much suffering in the world?
• Isn’t the Bible just another collection of fairy-tales with a moral?
• Don’t all religions have the same basic message, and ultimately all lead to the same place?
• Hasn’t Science now explained everything?  Surely we have no need of the old, mumbo-jumbo religious explanations of where we came from?

These are big questions, and probably everyone asks at least some of them throughout their lives.  We thought the start of a new year was a good time to go back to basics, and to take a hard look at why we believe that Christianity, out of all the religions of the world, is “The Truth”.  After all, if we accept that there is “a truth” about everything (where we came from, what happens to us after we die, for example) then it’s both logical to accept that other contradictory statements about that subject must be false, and that the search for what is true is worth making.

So we are going back to basics, doing a series called “Have you ever asked yourself…?” one Sunday night a month between January and June.  Each night will have two parts – a fast-paced, hopefully interactive presentation in the main auditorium from someone on one of these big questions, then after a short interval for tea and coffee, an open forum in the coffee-bar for those who wish to stay, dealing with some of the questions that people will have emailed to us before, or texted to us during the auditorium part. 

We won’t claim to know all the answers, but we will promise to find out and come back to any serious enquirers.  No question will be too simple or too dumb to deal with (although some of them may well be too hard and too smart!).  If it’s something you’ve been wrestling with, or something that has been keeping you from putting your full trust in Jesus Christ, then it deserves our most serious attention and respect as we try to answer.
We’ll also have a number of books on sale that deal with some of the topics above.

The Sunday nights and topics are as follows:

When	What
10 January	Why should I believe the Bible?
7 February	Has Science disproved Christianity?
7 March	If God exists, why is there so much suffering in the world?
11 April	What happens when I die? (Incorporating: Won’t I get to heaven if I just lead a good life?)
9 May	Don’t all religions lead to God?
6 June	Is this all there is….?

The formal part of each night will be as “cringe-free” as we can make it, with no worship music, no offering, no appeal to put up your hand, stand up, come to the front - and fairly short, aiming for under an hour.  If you’re searching for answers to life’s big questions, it will be a good, non-threatening event to go to, and if you’re already a personal follower of Jesus Christ, it will be a good event to bring your friends and relations to. 

If you have questions (about the evening events, or about any of the topics above), we'd love to hear from you - you can contact us at questions@ballynahinchbaptist.org