is there more to life?
A Greyfriars Alpha Course is running from 25 September to 4 December.
The Alpha course is a ten-week opportunity to explore the validity and relevance of the christian faith in your life today. It is a practical introduction to the basics of christianity centred around a meal, a talk and a small-group discussion. It particularly caters for:
- people inquiring about spiritual meaning
- people seeking a faith with meaning for the future
- those wanting to investigate christianity
- newcomers to church and/or christianity
- those who want to refresh their faith
To register, or if you are just interested in learning more, contact the church office or email alpha@greyfriars.org.nz
Find out more about Alpha here
Limapela Education Project
Faith in Action
This project aims to provide quality education to children in Zambia's Copperbelt Province.
The universe is a continual source of wonder and surprise.
Rob Yule, minister of Greyfriars, remembers as a young boy playing on the front lawn of his childhood home in the far south of New Zealand. It was a warm summer's day. Lying on his back, watching the puffy cumulus clouds float past in the breeze, gazing into the pale blue abyss above, he was overcome with awe.
' How far does this extend? What lies beyond? Where does it come from? How did it come to be here? What was there before this came to be?'
Rob shivers, still, recalling this experience. 'It was a dizzy feeling. My mind couldn't grasp it, or keep it in focus.'
It seems impossible to plumb the mystery of existence. It is a profound enigma, at once so near, yet so far. So fundamental to our existence, because we are here. Yet so transcendent, because we cannot explain it.
Philosophers, mystics, poets, prophets, theologians, scientists have pondered this great mystery. 'Why is there is something, and not nothing?'
The Christian message claims to interpret this great mystery of existence. It affirms that we are not purposeless products of a mindless cosmic process, but the meaningful creation of a transcendent personal God.
We are made to mean. Our consciousness, and search for meaning and identity, is grounded in who we are, a sign and reflex of our transcendent purpose.
This website offers a number of resources to help you, as a thoughtful and interested enquirer, to think through some of these issues of ultimate significance for yourself. Is there a God? Is there evidence of God's existence? Was the universe created? How does belief in God square with counter-indications like evil and injustice? How can we know the answer to such ultimate questions?
In the Bible, the magnificent opening passage of John's Gospel asserts that the One who is the transcendent ground of our existence, the source of our life, consciousness and quest for truth, entered our humanity as a human being, to reveal the meaning of life to us. The reason for our existence is not something far off, but near at hand, embodied in a person.
So the ultimate meaning of our existence can be discovered, related to and experienced. 'The Word became a human being and lived here with us.... From him all the kindness and all the truth of God have come down to us.' (John 1 : 14).
