Over the last three months or so, my Church homegroup has been slowly working our way through a series called "The Theology Program" http://www.bible.org/page.php?page_id=28 which is from Bible.org. The program was suggested to us by one of the members of the Manawatu apologetics society http://manawatu.christian-apologetics.org. The program is a series of videos by two well educated christian men who seek to teach theology is a balanced, realistic way. This series of blog posts outlines the course and some of its basic teachings. I would highly recommend getting a group of people together and studying this material

The position that is taken from the outset is that Theology should be done in community. Sitting down and reading the bible is fine, but you cannot get a full understanding of what is going on, or see the text from more than one viewpoint. This is where community comes into play. The Holy Spirit does not just work through one person, but through everyone, thus Christian community is important in realising the teachings of the Holy Spirit.

The course is also taught from a historical perspective. We would be naive to think that our interpretation of the bible is the most correct one and that everyone in the past has had a fault view of God. Its fascinating to see how the Church has thought over the years, and the understanding they had about the deity of Christ and of Salvation.

It is very refreshing to hear the Scriptures taught in an honest and realistic, and academic way. The course does not dumb-down the content, but uses the proper terms to explain the concepts being taught.

Each video is broken down into 4-5 pieces each about 20min long. We find that we spend about half the time watching and the other half in debate/discussion about what we have just learned (or unlearned).