Life Explored Handbook

Don Carson

At a time in the Western world when basic knowledge of the Bible is increasingly rare, it is a pleasure to recommend Life Explored. Here is an introduction to the good news found in Jesus Christ, sweeping through some of the "big pictures" in the Bible. As far as a short series can, Life Explored outlines what the Bible is about, exposes our idolatry, and makes clear where forgiveness and hope lie. This is one of the best of the rising number of evangelistic tools addressing men and women in the twenty-first century.

Mark Dever

Creative format. Beautiful cinematography. Faithful and fresh gospel presentation. I wish I could share the gospel as well as they do!"

“A Great Resource that Addresses the Heart of what we Worship”

I've run this 3 times now and each time it's been very helpful for those doing the course, which basically shows how Jesus is far better than anyone/thing else we love and worship (which everyone does). Yes, like any course, it is best to adapt it to your context rather than just use it "straight out of the box". But it doesn't take too much work to tweek a few questions or add in some conversation after the first video if people are likely to be confused. Well produced.

“Great service”

Excellent service. Great material. Highly recommended.

“Good concept and message”

Found the material engaging and flexible. The stories are good but a few had quite sombre background music.

“Highly recommend”

Excellent material, definitely God inspired! Very thought provoking for Christians as well as an outreach tool Professional standard, challenging, the Truth being clearly explained but in a different way. Would highly recommend.

“Life Explored Course”

We found this material to be really excellent. We love how it challenges the view of a God who is austere and far off and instead through reflective video clips, clear presentations and interactive bible studies reveals a God who runs towards us and wants intimate friendship with us.

“Hmmmm.”

When I initially found out about this course, I expected it to be good and certainly the part 1 videos are very well produced. However reading through the course material and the transcripts of the part 2 videos makes me feel like this is two courses smashed together. The public videos are one course and the material in the handbooks is the other with the part 2 videos being used as some messy glue to connect them together. The bible passages used in the handbooks provide a good overview of the Bible message but almost should be done without the glossy videos. Alternatively if you like the glossy videos you might want to identify bible passages that match up with them rather than the ones in this book and do a course that way.

“A bit disappointed”

A questionnaire was produced for a group of around 25 people. Generally, they were undecided as to whom the course would benefit the most - as a Christian Basics Course or as a Discipleship Course. Film Clips. Far more people benefited from the 2nd film clip than the 1st. There were real and genuine problems for many in understanding the 1st film clip and to show just the 2nd clip would not work because it refers constantly to the 1st clip.
Bible Study Material. The vast majority of people found great value in the Bible studies, questions and discussions and were also challenged in their Christian commitment and lifestyle.

“Excellent”

This is a superb resource: well-presented and engaging. I would echo previous reviewers' comments that it would be good to have at least one female speaker, and that it might help leaders to have some notes 'explaining' the 'films' - though these have certainly been very thought-provoking for our youth group.

“Very good”

I bought this as soon as it came out and am using it with a group of seekers now. It functions very well with people who might not be ready yet for Christianity Explored. I have found the group conversations can range much more widely than they do on CE with more opportunity for people to express their own world view. On CE it is much easier to rein in "unhelpful" view points but I have found that on LE it takes a lot longer to address people's wrong thinking about God - though I think this is probably the point of the course as it is deliberately more open to those who are starting further back.

The films are superb but as a leader I have been left confused on a couple of occasions about what the point of the films are. I think the material needs to make things a lot more explicit for leaders. It all feels quite postmodern - you get whatever you want out of the film, which is fine, especially for postmodern group members, but I expect a lot of Christian group leaders will be slightly bewildered by that.