Rico Tice Interview: How can CE bless your church? How can you get your church excited about running it?

Brad and Rico talk about how doing CE with your church members can change lives, and how it helps get churches fired up for evangelism.

For more information, see the CE Ministries Website. For materials, head to The Good Book Company in the UK or the US. ). And take a look at CE's evangelistic website.

Tomorrow, Rico and Brad chat about what to do after a CE course.

Missed the previous clips? See Rico on:

• what CE is, how it was developed, and what sets it apart from other courses
• how he'd love to see the new edition of the course being used by churches
• who in the church can run CE, and how to train them.

CE with retired people

Shirley Leggett is 88, and lives in a block of flats for retired people. She ran a Christianity Explored course a couple of years ago in her home.

Who came along to your group?

Everyone there was over 70! We were quite a small group. One wasn’t a churchgoer—the others were, but they had not a clue about who Jesus was. They’d never looked at a Bible before.

How did it go?

I’d said to people that I wouldn’t be offended if they didn’t like it and left. Some of the people watched the first one and enjoyed it, but said that was enough for now. Now that the new DVD is out, I’m going to ask them to come along again!

Most people did enjoy it and kept coming. We had a good old discussion each time. For one or two, who Jesus is really sank in. One old lady came along, and came to faith before she died.

How did you structure each session?

We took it bit by bit, very simply. We used the DVD. That was lovely. They loved Rico. It really was good, and relevant to them. He’s such an approachable person.

We’d then read the Bible passage and talk about it. I didn’t use the handbooks—we would have got lost, it was too much—so I just took a few of the questions from it.

What was the advantage of running the course in your own home, and leading it yourself?

It’s more informal if you do it yourself, with your friends, in your front room. You know each other, the ups and downs of each other’s lives.

And it’s a much easier invite to say: “Come and watch a video and we’ll have a chat”, rather than saying: “I’d like to talk to you come along and talk to me about Christianity”.

What would you say to someone who’s thinking about running CE in a similar way?

I would say if you’ve got a heart for the gospel and you love your friends, give it a go. Watch it yourself, and see if you think you could show it to your friends. And then ask people. Lots of people don’t want to be challenged, so they won’t want to come. But sometimes you can find people who do want to think about things, and then it’s great.

Shirley used the DVD and handbooks for her group. Have a look at CE’s course materials in the US and the UK.

CE with your sports team

Nev Hayman is 41 and has three children. He plays for a soccer team set up by a friend from church, who play in a local league. Half of the team are Christians, and half aren't. They recently began to run CE with some members of the team.

What's the idea of the team?

The idea was to set up something evangelistic, where guys from the local area could get to know us and see that we may be Christians but we're still normal! So we play each week, and then go to the pub after the game, just forming friendships and getting to know people.

Why did you decide to run CE?

We pray before games and sometimes have chats with the guys about Christianity, but we weren't really getting much further. So we just thought: Let's try to get these guys to a CE course. But instead of inviting them to the church's main evening course, we thought they'd prefer doing it very informally with people they already knew, basically with a bunch of friends. So we thought we'd do one purely for the football guys.

How did it go?

We invited the whole squad, and six said they'd come. The first night only two came, but that was fine. They really enjoyed the first week. One guy who came is in his forties, and he said in the pub the next weekend that he'd never heard about Jesus at all, ever. He said: "No one's ever spoken to me about this before."

We'd started the course just as the season began to finish, in the spring—and after that first one we struggled to find a time these two guys could make to carry on. But we're going to start up again in the autumn, with those two guys, and use the new material. And we'll invite the rest of the squad again! In fact we've got our start-of-season social coming up soon, and I think we'll just get one of the guys who came to talk about what it was like, and reassure the others that it's relaxed and you don't get brainwashed! Do pray for us as we try to start up again next month.

What is good about the CE course for these sport-loving guys?

CE is just a brilliant way to explain the gospel. It does it so simply, and so clearly, but it's always done in a friendly way.

Rico Tice Interview: Who runs the course? How do you choose people, and how do you train them?

Christianity Explored Ministries' Rico Tice talks about how to make sure the church, not simply the pastor, is involved with running and leading a CE course.

For more information, see the CE Ministries Website. For materials, head to The Good Book Company in the UK or the US. ). And take a look at CE's evangelistic website.

Tomorrow, Rico talks to Brad about how CE can be great for your whole church.

Missed the previous clips? See Rico on what CE is, how it was developed, and what sets it apart from other courses here; and on how he'd love to see the new edition of the course being used by churches.

Half-price CE handbooks: only on the blog

From this Thursday, we're offering an amazing, not-to-be-missed deal on CE Handbooks. Usually, they cost just £3, or $4.99—but until September 10th, you'll be able to get them for just £1.50/$2.50!

To take advantage of this one-off deal, you'll need to quote a unique code when you order. That code will appear on the blog on Thursday—you can't find it anywhere else!

So if you're thinking of running CE in the next few months, now would be a great time to buy your handbooks. If you're ordering large numbers of handbooks and DVDs, do ring us either in the States or the UK to see what discount we can offer you.

CE in your living room

Alexa Burstow lives in south-west London and is married with two young children. She decided, with no previous experience, to run a CE course with a couple of friends in her lounge.

Why did you decide to run a CE course in your house? Why not just take them to the course your church was running?

When you’ve got young children, or busy jobs, it’s really hard to do stuff in the evening. This could be timed to be good for them—we met up at 10am on Wednesday mornings, but a couple of times we just changed the time to fit in with their schedules.

And a course at a church is much more formal. This was more relaxed, in a place they knew, with a person leading it they were already friends with. And it could be timed to be good for them. They just wouldn’t have gone for something with someone they didn’t know.

Who did you invite?

I invited three people. One didn’t come, but two said yes. They were both neighbours I’d got to know—one has a child in the same class at school as my daughter. They’d both been to a couple of events at church like carols.

What was good about the course?

They had a chance to interact and ask questions about whatever they wanted. And I knew that we were looking at Jesus, and about what the gospel is, whereas often when I have chats about my faith with my friends, I find it really hard to actually talk about what the heart of Christianity is. With CE, we got to the core of it very quickly each week.

How much experience did you have of doing this kind of thing beforehand?... continue reading

Rico Tice Interview: How does the new DVD help Christians use CE in different settings?

More from Rico on the CE course, focussing on the new DVD and how he would love to see the course being used.

For more information, see the CE Ministries Website. For materials, head to The Good Book Company in the UK or the US. ). And take a look at CE's evangelistic website.

Tomorrow, Rico talks to Brad about who can lead a CE course, and how pastors can motivate and train new leaders.

More? See Rico on what CE is, how it was developed, and what sets it apart from other courses.

“We’ve had Protestants, Catholics, atheists, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Buddhists…”

Since Village Seven Presbyterian Church in Colorado has been running Christianity Explored as part of their evangelistic strategy, they’ve found it a great way to communicate the gospel message with people who would never come to church.

“As an outreach, it’s a great place to invite people who are looking for some answers, but who may not be ready to sit in a pew,” says David, who helps run the course.

“One young man had come along and was very much searching but he didn’t want any part of church. As he came into the gym and sat down, he said, ‘Oh, I’m in a school—great!’

“We want people to find out for their own is Jesus a lunatic, a liar, or is he the Lord? And we’ve seen well over two dozen people come to a full confession of faith through Christianity Explored.”

Village Seven hold CE twice a year, on Sunday evenings at 5.30pm. To hear more from David and his wife, and to listen to a wonderful testimony from a couple who became Christians through going on a course, visit the church’s website.