If one of our previous Short Courses is of interest to you, and you’d like to see it offered in your centre, you can let us know by registering your interest.
Praying the Prayer of Jesus: Inhabiting the fullness of the Lord’s Prayer for the whole of life
Christchurch, August 2022
Many of us struggle to pray regularly and with confidence amid our everyday lives. Oftentimes, this is because we don’t know how to pray when we encounter the diverse challenges, obstacles, and opportunities in our homes, workplaces, churches, and communities. We are not alone in this struggle! One of Jesus’s own disciples asked him: “Lord, teach us how to pray.” In response, Jesus gave his disciples what is known as the Lord’s Prayer: a powerful pattern of prayer that has been used by God’s people throughout the ages to pray to our loving Heavenly Father.
In this Venn Short Course, Praying the Prayer of Jesus: Inhabiting the fullness of the Lord’s Prayer for the whole of life, participants had the opportunity to explore the pattern of prayer that Jesus gave to his disciples, and to learn to pray alongside others. Together, we considered what it looks like to worship and serve God in every aspect of life, to seek the reign of God for the good of our communities, to ask for God’s daily provision, to practice forgiveness, and to resist evil. This thoughtful and practical two-day Short Course offered teaching, worship and prayer, reflective exercises, and rich discussion, to help participants grow in prayer and in their relationship with God.
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Recovering the Wonder of Creation: Living a Christian Theology of Creation in an Age of Disenchantment
Wellington, May 2022 • Auckland, May 2022 • Auckland, October 2022
Wonder and grief. For many of us, these are the entwined poles of our experience of creation. We feel the wonder of deep space and deep time and of an earth teeming with life, but also the scars and absences left by our hewing and delving, our restless consumption of nature’s “resources.”
The Christian doctrine of creation helps us make sense of these realities, and shows us ways to live rightly and well in this glorious and yet groaning world. But too few of us are familiar with its treasures. We are, in Christopher Thompson’s delightful phrase, “indoor Christians.” We don’t see, feel, experience, or care for the natural world as Christian faith would have us. We need to take our faith outside.
This two-day course was about learning to see creation as it really is—full of wonder and mystery and life, seen and unseen—and about learning to live well in this reality. We explored these topics in the company of voices ancient, modern, and non-human.
This course was for anyone who has looked with wonder on the created world, who has felt grief at the harm we have done to it, and who longs to make sense of these experiences in light of their Christian faith.
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Prayer Retreat: Living and Working from a Place of Rest
Auckland, May 2022 • Wellington, June 2022
Prayer is a central part of our life with God. But for many prayer has become an irrelevancy, a religious habit that is unconnected with the hum and rush of everyday life; or, it is a chore—we think of it as one more thing that God asks of us, along with everything else! And so, we go through the motions of praying, all the while feeling resentful, or secretly ashamed.
But this need not be. Followers of Jesus are called to learn to pray: to learn to abide with God. In our friendship with Jesus, prayer becomes a wellspring of God’s life in us and through us. As we abide in prayer, we find that our everyday lives wake up to God’s presence, love, and initiative. Instead of resting simply to recover from work, we find ourselves living and working from a place of rest in God.
This two-day non-residential retreat was for those who wanted to learn to pray and deepen their prayer life. Across the retreat, participants explored these questions:
i. What does it mean for me to abide in God’s presence?
ii. How might I live and work from a place of spiritual rest?
It included both teaching about prayer and opportunities to practice different ways of praying and reflect on these together.
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The Centre of All Things: A Weekend in Revelation 4 & 5
Wellington, January 2021 • Auckland, January 2021 • Christchurch, February 2021
John is on the Island of Patmos. He’s a prisoner. Exiled by Rome. A long way from home. It’s Sunday and he’s praying. Jesus gives him a vision, a series of visions. In one, he is called up into the throne room of the universe, the centre of all things.
Many of us wonder what’s really going on, whether there is any meaning or purpose in the world, what lies at the heart of reality, what hope can be found in a world that is often hard or confusing or chaotic. The vision Jesus gave John in Revelation 4 and 5 answers these questions: there is a throne at the centre of all things; God is sitting on it; and he has a plan and has already acted to put the world right. It is a vision of reality far richer and deeper than we imagine; a vision that has inspired and challenged the church for two thousand years.
The Centre of All Things was a Venn Summer Offering exploring John’s vision found in Revelation 4 and 5. It was a weekend of scriptural immersion, rich teaching, worship, and prayer, where we sought to enter into Jesus’s vision and return to our world and lives with new insight, wonder, courage, and hope.
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See, I Am Making All Things New: Exploring the Cross and Resurrection
Online, June 2020
The resurrection of Jesus from the dead, not only gives hope for what will happen for us beyond death, but is also the decisive turning point in God’s work of releasing creation from its bondage to decay and turning it again towards the final goal of reconciled communion with himself. Taught by Rev. Dr. Murray Rae, Otago University Theology Professor, this four-week online Short Course was an opportunity for participants to explore the expansive scope of the death and resurrection of Christ and their extraordinary implications for our lives today.
Participants had the opportunity to explore how this combination of future hope and current reality radically reshapes our understanding of what’s going on in the world.
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Food: Creation, Hospitality, And Life Together
Mt. Pirongia, Waikato, November 2018
This Short Course explored what it means to be image-bearers of the Creator, specifically in the areas of food and hospitality. This course was taught by Regent College Sessional Lecturers Loren and Mary Ruth Wilkinson from Galiano Island, Canada. Over five days, on a beautiful lifestyle block at the foot of Mt. Pirongia, participants were guided by Loren and Mary Ruth to focus on how food, eating, and hospitality are keys to understanding our relationship with God, each other, our fellow creatures, and the earth. The Short Course involved teaching blocks, readings, discussions, and plenty of cooking and eating together.
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Creating Culture, Changing History: A Story of God’s People in the World
Auckland, September 2018
This two-day Short Course was an opportunity to explore the story of God’s work in and through his people, bringing his life to the world. Taught by Dr. Sarah Williams, Research Professor, History of Christianity at Regent College, the course studied the lives of ordinary people whose faith created culture and changed the course of history. It asked the questions: How did Christians shape culture? And, how did various historical factors redefine the missional challenges facing God’s people in different eras?
Going on a journey through the history of Christianity from the end of the New Testament era (c 100 A.D.) to the present day, participants were able to explore the contours of identity, mission, and worship. Sarah also encouraged participants to practice the spiritual discipline of listening with humility to cultures other than our own.
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Throne Rooms, Temples, and Cathedrals: Being Human in God’s World
Auckland, March 2015 • Christchurch, June 2016
The Bible is full of confronting and important images intended to convey to us the extraordinary reality of God’s work in the world. Yet we have become foreign readers: unfamiliar with the world of the text, and confused as to how we might apply its meaning to our lives.
Throne Rooms, Temples and Cathedrals was a short course held over two days in Auckland and Christchurch that helped participants unpack the story of the Bible, read it on its own terms, and wrestle with how to live in light of what it says. This course was designed to help equip participants for the work of reading the Bible well, and to offer a sense of the rewards of reading well. Starting with John’s vision of heaven in Revelation 4 and 5—“After this I looked, and there in heaven a door stood open!” (Revelation 4:1)—participants were invited to step with John through the open door and look with renewed eyes on creation, humanity, and history. The Short Course was taught by Venn’s teaching staff.
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