Facing the Challenge of a Hostile World
'The politically correct agenda is being used to shut people up under the guise of tolerance, when in fact, you tolerate anything other than the thing you disagree with.' (Pod Bhogal, head of communications at UCCF)
Forty two percent of people in Britain believe that religion is harmful, according to one recent survey. One in five Christians in the UK believe they face discrimination in their local community because of their faith. One in four believe they are discriminated against at work, and one in three believe that the way the media portrays Christian faith discriminates against them, according to another survey.
'The Christian church is suffering more than all other faiths in the UK. There is an aggressive secularist agenda that says it's OK to support any group ending in 'ism,' but it's not OK to support anything connected to Christianity.' (Revd Malcolm Duncan)
There's growing evidence that the BBC is biased against Christianity: BBC producers would be happy to broadcast footage of the Bible being thrown into a rubbish bin, but not the Qu'ran, according to a leaked report. And last year the BBC ignored over sixty thousand complaints about the broadcast of 'Jerry Springer, the Opera,' 'a show which portrayed Jesus Christ as a foul-mouthed sexual deviant,' according to the Christian Institute.
'Facing the Challenge of a Hostile World' is the new course from Focus to help us understand how we're meant to respond to the increasingly hostile world around us.
Based on the first letter of Peter, this new course is for home groups and cell groups, Christian Unions and Adult Sunday Schools, churches and individuals.
Read our fair use policy.
'We did the first session which flowed extremely well, generating lively and relevant discussion. The key points emerged easily from the prompts provided, helping to ensure the focus of group member's input. The amount of material suited the length of study we are used to. It has a refreshing approach and is clearly contemporary. Everyone took part and seemed to thoroughly enjoy the time.' (Course user)
In eight fifty-minute sessions, the course takes you through Peter's first letter, covering:
- Hope in the future
- Be different
- Live down the accusations
- The respect agenda
- Happy families?
- Suffering for Christ
- Living to please God
- God's family
Read our fair use policy.
Each session includes:
- Discussion starters
- Bible passages
- Real life applications
- Something to do after the session
- Ideas to help you go deeper
Free downloads
You can 'try before you buy,' by downloading session 3, 'Live down the accusations' free of charge, from: www.facingthechallenge.org/hostileworld3.pdf
Downloading the course
This course is available as a download (pdf file) only. The download is a single file of about 1 MB in size. You will need Adobe Reader® on your computer to view and print this course.
How to download
Read our fair use policy.
Your credit card payment is processed by Worldpay. On the payment pages, you will be asked to give your mailing address to authenticate your credit card, even though you are buying the course as a download. You can safely ignore the 'shipping and handling details' and 'general information' sections.
When you have made your online payment, you will be taken to the Worldpay receipt page. This includes a link called 'view merchant receipt' (ringed in red on the screen image below):

Click on this link, and it will bring you back to our online store on a page confirming your purchase. This page includes a link called 'click here to download' - ringed in red below:

Important note: the download file remains available for five days (120 hours) from the time you place your order. You may find it helpful to right click on the link (circled in red) and save the URL in case you need to return to the download later. (If you have problems downloading the file, or if you run out of time, please contact us, and we will do our best to help. However, it is up to you to complete the download within the available time.)
Click on the 'click here to download' link, and it will open the 'Facing the Challenge of a Hostile World' Leader's Guide in an Adobe Reader window.
Save a copy of the file straight away in a convenient location! (The 'save a copy' button is located in the top left corner of the Adobe Reader window.)
Read our fair use policy.
Disclaimer
Focus Radio sells the downloadable version of 'Facing the Challenge of a Hostile World' in good faith. However, we can not guarantee that it will run on any particular system. In the event that you are unable to run it on your system, our liability is limited to refunding what you have paid to download the course.


