What is the Christian Life Program (CLP)? 

The CLP is an integrated course intended to lead the program participants into a renewed understanding of God's call to them as Christian couples. It runs for a total of 13 separate sessions, usually held once a week. Most sessions consist of three basic ingredients: a teaching, a group discussion, and a time for fellowship. Each session would normally last for about 2 1/2 hours.

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What are the goals of the CLP?

The CLP has two basic purposes: evangelism and spiritual renewal.

To evangelize is to take the basic message of Christianity and to proclaim it anew so that those who hear it can make a renewed commitment to the Lord in a way which will allow them to receive a fuller experience of the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives.

Spiritual renewal works in three ways:

1. For the individual, it brings a person into a stronger relationship with God by discovering and living more fully the power and gifts he or she received through the Holy Spirit.
2. For the family, it brings married couples to a renewed commitment to Christian family Life and it starts to build up a community of committed Christian families.
3. For the Church, it brings people within a particular parish to a fuller experience of life in the Spirit. Consequently it strengthens and revitalizes community life in the parish.

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What are the topics of the talks?  

The CLP runs for a total of 13 consecutive sessions usually held weekly, divided into an orientation session and then 3 modules of 4 sessions each. The topics of the 12 sessions are:

Module No. 1: THE BASIC TRUTHS ABOUT CHRISTIANITY (first 4 talks) presents the absolute basics of Christian life, with emphasis on our hearing it with an adult perspective.

Module No. 2: THE AUTHENTIC CHRISTIAN LIFE presents the kind of life that God calls us to: it spells out the personal response involved in receiving Jesus as Lord and Savior and helps couples to make a reorientation of their lives around Jesus.  

Module No. 3: LIVING A SPIRIT-FILLED CHRISTIAN LIFE (last 4 talks) helps the couples to commit their lives in a serious way to Jesus. It helps them appropriate for their lives the power of the Holy Spirit. It provides the basics for continuing spiritual growth.  

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Are there any fees or monetary expenses involved?  

There are no fees or any monetary expenses required of the participants. The only investment required is their time and their openness.

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What happens after the CLP?  

After CLP, those who finish are invited to join Couples for Christ. When they do, they are made part of a small cell group called a household. The household is composed of from 5 to 7 couples who meet weekly for mutual support and encouragement in the Christian life under the direction of a household leader. The household meeting is held in the homes of the group members on a rotation basis. A typical meeting would involve a time for prayers, a time for sharing or discussion, and finally, a time for fellowship. It would normally last about 2.5 hours.

Completing the CLP is just the beginning of a long process of growth and transformation in Christ. As such, CFC provides a continuing program of formation, which includes teachings, recollections, retreats, etc.

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Reminders on Inviting People to the CLP  

It is not necessary to be able to convince someone right at the outset that the CLP would be beneficial to him/her, nor do we have to already be able to proclaim Jesus to the person we are inviting. In most cases, it will be the CLP itself that will be the effective process of evangelization and renewal. So all we need to do is to be able to invite the person to the CLP.

For those who are reluctant or those who find all sorts of excuses, we can insist (request) that they just try out the Orientation session, without any commitment for the rest of the CLP. This (just one session of two hours or so) is not burdensome for anyone, and we can more readily convince a person to attend, especially a spouse, friend, loved one, or co-employee.

Once at the CLP Orientation session, there will be many aspects/dynamics working for us that can be used by the Lord to touch the heart of our candidate. This could be any of the following: the warm welcome by strangers, meeting new people, or even just the free snack. If there is even a little bit of interest, they will be back for the next session.

So while it will be difficult to convince many of the value for their lives of CFC or the CLP, it is not difficult to ask someone just to try out one session, without making a commitment.

But for this process to work, the CLP team needs to do its part. Be there early, pray, warmly welcome participants, have lively music, have a good speaker and prepared sharers, do intercession. Make the participants feel welcome, important and loved. If we do our part, the Holy Spirit will take care of the rest.

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Reminders on the Baptism in the Holy Spirit

The allocated length of time for prayer over for the baptism in the Holy Spirit is more or less one hour. It should not take too much longer than this. It is not a prayer for all the concerns of CLP participants. Rather, it is simply a prayer for the renewed in filling of the Spirit. This need not take long.

Thus those who pray over must be conscious of the amount of time they have for their group. For example, if there are six persons in the group, then the average praying over time is 10 minutes, including time gaps in between. Those who have fewer persons to pray for can afford to spend more time per person. 

The participants can become very restless if the praying over session is too long. Slow worship songs should be sung during the whole time, to maintain a solemn atmosphere. After an hour, and after giving some allowance for those still praying over, the speaker should move into the conducting remarks, even while there are still others being prayed over. 

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