Teaching:

The following teaching is from a one-day seminar we teach at Beth Tephillah Ministry Centre through Roaring Mouse Counselling. It is designed to help followers of Jesus Christ to explore the varied ways they can come into a more intimate relationship with Jesus, the Holy Spirit and Father God.

The teaching does not focus on any one tradition, but rather seeks to show that there are numerous helpful ideas that different people have discovered over the centuries.

The seminar is in the form of a number of lessons, interspersed with practical exercises, and accompanied with resource sheets. The lessons teach the basic material, but most of the learning is done through the exercises. The resource sheets are insights we have had or have read from other writers which we believe will help with understanding and broaden the students perspective.

The teaching is supplemented with an extensive suggested reading list. However, as with all such lists, it will soon become dated. Good books are being writen constantly. If you have access to a good local Christian book shop or church library we suggest you browse there. Otherwise, where each book is listed or mentioned it has a link to Amazon.com where you can obtain more information or even purchase the book. You might also like to check out our Intimacy with God Book Shop, also powered by Amazon.com. If you find a book, article, website or other resource that is helpful to you please let us know about it so that we can share it with others, or you may even send us a review for one of our websites.

The material is presented just as it would be in a live seminar, and we recommend that you work through it in the sequence presented,either alone or preferably with someone else.

We know God will bless you with his presence as you seek to come closer to him.

Intimacy with God - Seminar Outline

Lesson 1 - The Why of Intimacy with God - Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

Learn what intimacy is, why we need it, and how the nature of God as a Trinity of Father Son and Holy Spirt, and ourselves as made in his image, makes intimate relationship essential to our well-being and the very reason for our existence. Find out how God restored broken intimacy, first through his covenant with Israel, and then through Christ and his church. Look at marriage as a model and worship as a path towards intimacy, and what we and God gain through it.

Exercise 1 - Worship - Singing - Silence

Lesson 2 - The How of Intimacy with God - Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

In many ways believers have sought initmacy with God in the past: through contemplation and mysticism, meditation and times of silence. Explore the evangelical attemps through reason, the charismatic way of worship and prophetic ministry, and the way of natural intimacy. Then look at ways of entering intimacy with God, and the proper role of a sanctified imagination in communing with God.

Exercise 2 - Imagining

Lesson 3 - Obstacles to Intimacy with God - Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

Examine the many obstacle to intimacy with God, and how we might overcome them. Such obstacles include disobedience, lack of time and focus, our self-perceptions and lack of maturity, our misperceptions about God and intimacy, our divided hearts, our lack of hunger, our sins, wounds, and trauma we have suffered.

Exercise 3 - Slow Reading 1

Exercise 4 - Slow Reading 2

Exercise 5 - Connecting with the Spirit of God

Bibliography and Suggested Reading