The Training Ground is a course designed by a group of evangelical churches in East London to help Christians of every sort both to grasp God’s word and to share it more clearly – whether at home, at work, at church or wherever you are.
The Training Ground has been running since 2015 and we are delighted to be beginning a new programme in September 2026.
With God’s help we plan to repeat the course again over the next two years, beginning on September 12th 2026 and finishing in July 2028.
There will be 18 sessions per year on alternate Saturday mornings during term time, from 8.30 am to 11.00 am. The course takes place at Dagenham Parish Church.
The course costs £240 per person for the full two years. This includes not only the teaching but also textbooks, course notes for each session, tea, coffee and biscuits. Recordings and notes can be accessed on our website.
Costs can be paid in annual or termly instalments. If you want to participate but have a problem with the cost, please let us know.
Over the two year programme we cover six main topics, three in each year
There is one great story that runs through the whole Bible from beginning to end and in this module we seek to set it out. It is important because it is the story of our world and of what God is doing in it. And we can only truly understand any particular part of the Bible by seeing it in the light of the one big story.
The Bible is the Word of God to human beings – God speaking to us. There is nothing more important for us than to hear what our Creator says to us, and especially what he says about our salvation. In this module we consider how we can read the Bible well and so grasp clearly and accurately what God is saying to us in it.
Here we think about who God is and how we may know him; about the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit and what they do; about ourselves, what is wrong with us and what God has done to rescue us; about God's people, the church; and about what will happen at the end of time.
It is vital not only to know God's truth but also to live it out and so to do the truth. So, in this module we talk about what the Bible says about growing to be more like Jesus and serving him well in every part of our lives.
As believers living in the UK we live in a culture that presents many challenges to our faith and to the pattern of life that God calls us to. In this module we consider some of those challenges – issues such as religious pluralism, the media, atheism and several others – and how God's Word enables us to respond wisely and ‘Christianly’ to them.
We are called to serve God and to a very large extent that means sharing his Word, the good news of Jesus, with other people. So in this module we work on improving our practical skills in speaking the word of God in different contexts—in evangelism, or giving a Bible talk, or working with children and younger people, or leading a small Bible study group.
