Christians in the World: Spring/Summer 2026
Join us for coffee, community and conversation on Sunday mornings. Together we'll think through a variety of topics and consider what it means to live faithfully for Christ today.
All youth and adults are welcome to join us on Sundays 9-10am in the Parish Hall. Childcare/classes are available for up to 5th grade.
timings and Format
9am start: We will begin promptly! Coffee will be available. Register your kids at the Children’s Check-in in the Parish Hall from 8.45
Content: We will watch a video interview from The Trinity Forum to give us some ideas and fodder for discussion in small groups around tables. Some questions will be provided to kick off the discussion (or you can just free-style) and we will reconvene as a group after a while to share thoughts and questions. There will be time to pray together at the end. Each week will be moderated by a member of the church family.
10am finish: You are welcome to stay and keep chatting after the formal discussion ends and before church starts at 10.30 (if you have children in childcare, please go and pick them up promptly at 10!)
Who? This is for anyone attending Church of the Advent. Parents are welcome to bring along any youth who they feel have the maturity to participate in the discussions.
“Pascal’s Wager,” Blaise Pascal’s famous argument for Christian faith, is just one of his many ideas that remain helpful today. Grappling with the tension between faith and reason, and understanding modern unbelief as well as belief, he is a guide for us in meeting the challenges of modern life.
An interview with writer and former Bishop Revd. Graham Tomlin who recently wrote the book: ‘Blaise Pascal: the man who made the modern world’.
Can Blaise Pascal be a guide for us today?
April 26th
We live in an unforgiving age. Even as we know that Jesus commanded forgiveness, extending it can seem impossible, impractical, self-harming, even unjust. Is there wisdom that can help us become people of forgiveness?
An interview with Amy Orr-Ewing, a British theologian and author.
Forgiveness in a culture of outrage and fear
May 3rd
Adventers Travis and Tiara Barnwell were working in social work in DC for a number of years before discerning that the Lord was asking them to go and serve him in full-time ministry abroad. We are making the most of their visit to Advent this May to find out more from them about life on the mission field in Thailand and what it's like when the Lord sends us out of our familiar surroundings to serve him.
Global Mission: when God sends us out
May 10th
All around us are people who feel invisible, unseen, misunderstood; people who yearn to be seen and known. How can we learn to better love our neighbors by seeing and knowing them? What might the benefits then be to families, communities and society at large?
An interview with writer David Brooks whose book is subtitled: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen.
How to know a person
may 17th
Hope and suffering seem to lay at opposite poles of human experience. We hope to avoid or escape suffering, both for ourselves and for those we love. But what if hope — rather than being mere optimism or a pleasant disposition – is a virtue that grows and develops in suffering?
An interview with Curt Thompson, author, psychiatrist and host of the Being Known podcast, which explores the connection between interpersonal neurobiology and Christian spiritual formation.
Suffering and the formation of hope
May 24th
In a culture shaped by speed, outrage, and constant distraction, many Christians find it difficult to cultivate resilient faith. How can we tune out the noise and hear the “still, small voice”? Reflect with us on the formative practices that strengthen faith over time, including unhurried prayer and Scripture reading, patient spiritual formation, thoughtful decision making, and honest engagement with doubt.
An interview with Dr Nijay Gupta, a theologian, author, and scholar at Northern Seminary.