I’ve been connected with several Alpha courses over the years, both as attender and leader. Overall I think it’s an excellent resource for Christian ministry, and I would strongly encourage you to have a go.
Because it’s relational no two courses are the same. But my best experience of Alpha was through a small community church I’ve been helping out at for the last few years. This church is about 8 years old. The church meets on Sunday evenings and is structured around conversation tables. We share a meal together, and frame all our other church activities around that relational structure. One of our key values is the importance of all our members inviting people to join us, and we regularly honour those who do so. It’s not uncommon for someone to be a first time invited guest one week and invite another person the next week.
We wanted to do Alpha for a long time, but we also wanted to do it well, and we were constrained by outside factors, especially Covid. We finally held a course two years ago, and for me the significant fact was that almost nothing changed. The values of an Alpha course were the same values that we had been practicing every week for the previous five years. Before Alpha we averaged about 40 people; on week 1 of Alpha we had 65 people, and several of the newcomers stayed on with us post-Alpha.
Our whole leadership works really hard to make regular church life a place where strong life and faith issues are discussed in a completely safe environment. Alpha’s values are the same, and that is why I think it’s a valuable ministry. A good example is the question raised by Apistos in this thread: How can a loving God consign people to hell? Our church has never been afraid of such questions: We believe (a bit like lancing a boil) those topics are present whether we like it or not, and a healthy Christianity will allow good spaces for them to be explored safely. If Apistos had been in my Alpha group and asked that question, I would have said, “A great question. What do other people in the group think?” And we are up and running.
This post is not meant to be a boast. But I thought you might appreciate a non-trivial reply from someone who has had really good experiences of the Alpha programme. If my experience is any guide, the important point is that the value you will get from the course depends a lot on the quality of your preparation. It has to be a safe relational experience.
Thank you so much for your reply. It is really encouraging. I chatted with our pastor and the two of us hope to make it to one of the Alpha training sessions. I suspect we will not get it off the ground until next fall, to give us time to do well and plan properly.
Thanks, and I agree. My personal view on these big questions is that they are almost always more complex than we allow. For example I too wonder how a loving God can co-exist with hell. But I also wonder how a righteous God can avoid judgment on the Hitlers and Putins of this world. “Love conquers all” seems too simple to me. So listening is always wise.
Aye Peter. As a believer I always believed that God would sort out, save, everybody, initially except the ‘reprobate’, but eventually everyone, as Love Wins. >Went away for a long weekend here!< Anything less is incompetence. Justice is for here below. It’s meaningless in eternity.
“Went away for the long weekend” - I love it! It’s nice having a relaxed chat. Some of the other threads I’ve made a comment and gone away for a bit… 400 comments later, and it’s impossible to pick up where you were.
Justice meaningless in eternity? I struggle with that idea. If God is real at all, and creator of our current reality, then all fundamental values derive from him. And justice being better than injustice is surely one of those values. My hope is that both love and justice will be perfected in eternity. As to how; well, that bit is far too big for me
Eternal, competent Love swamps injustice. The appalling, vile, meaningless injustices of this maggot life, that Love has fully responsibly inflicted upon us, are homeopathically diluted in imago life. There is no justice outside Love.
[In Christ, at best, we have the apology, the solidarity, of God.]
