INTRODUCTION
The Basic Concepts Course is the result of a personal walk and development with the Lord over a period of 35 years. Obviously the material did not come all at once, but in stages with many revisions and updates, as I was able to assimilate the truth and develop my own understanding and experience of it. Probably like millions of other Christians I grabbed at everything remotely Christian in my attempt to make sense of the world of Christianity and to further my own personal growth. The first question was, "Where am I, where do I need to go and how do I get there"? The next question was, "What about all the other religions and Churches, who is right and who is wrong, obviously not all can be right, so some must be wrong"? A major question was, "What is truth, how do you recognize it and how do you get it"? As a young believer one does not realize that truth is not merely a system of beliefs, but that the Bible represents truth as being in a person, namely Jesus cf. "For this reason I also suffer these things; nevertheless I am not ashamed, for I know Whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that day"(2 Timothy 1:12).
The world of Christianity and the Church is as bewildering as any other area on the earth to a new Christian. The BCC is an attempt to make sense of it. As the manual explains, it provides a spiritual map, in much the same way that a large modern shopping mall has a board that marks a spot that says, "You are here"!
The Scriptures tell us that we are being built as God's House. All urban residential houses in the natural are subject to planning, approval, building codes, inspections, quality control, professional design and professional builders. Materials are specified within safety parameters and the building process is closely monitored.
Even building loans have to be approved and secured, before the building can be started, otherwise there is no assurance that the building will be completed.
During the course of the average Christian believer's Church life he would hear hundreds of inspiring messages that he is unable to put into any kind of constructive order. He then puts them all into a huge spiritual barrel for "sorting out" later on. The collection in the "barrel" would be bits of the foundation stones, a couple of bricks for the walls and some roof tiles. Some plumbing pipes and a couple of electrical cables of assorted lengths may follow with a couple tins of paint. To say the least, it is a far cry from building a real house. If the above scenario played out in the attempt to construct a real house one would be the laughing stock of everyone.
Sad as this may be, it is precisely what most Churches actually do. They only identify a general ultimate goal of heaven for all believers. There is very little insight into how the individual believer is to become all that he is meant to be, by finding and fulfilling his calling and then to go about growing him for that specific purpose.
A house needs a design and a plan, which is linked to a building programme within certain time constraints. Targets and goals are set and met. It is not a case of, "Who knows what the house will look like, how it will get built or when it will be finished"?
New baby Christians do not know what food they need, how to get it nor how to feed themselves. They need to be fed. In fact there are four definite stages of growth mentioned in the Bible: Babies, children, young men and fathers.
Babies - One needs to supply food for them and then feed them.
Children - One needs to supply food for them, but they feed themselves.
Young men - They need to supply their own food and feed themselves.
Fathers - Stage 1 - They need to supply their own food, feed themselves and others.
Stage 2 - They need to teach others how to manage the whole process as Fathers.
Charles Loram