An Opportunity

I am helping to facilitate an Alpha Course at the church my wife and I belong to here in Canada. In the late 1990's while leading a church in Toronto, I ran our first Alpha Course with about 8 guests. In case you have never heard of Alpha, it is a 10 week course that meets once a week to listen to a talk by Nicky Gumbel from London, UK. This time around we have around 35 guests and most of them had seldom if ever been to a church service.

Alpha is an opportunity to learn about the Christian faith in a non-judgemental and safe place, surrounded by people with some of the same questions and maybe even doubts as the person sitting next to them. It begins by sitting down for dinner and then listening to the talk on a certain aspect of Christianity. Then the real fun begins. Guests sit in groups of up to 10 people over a coffee/tea and discuss what they had just heard. No opinion is too "dumb" or off-base and each comment is respected. The group leader keeps the conversation going but never preaches.

I speak of Alpha because as I look around me I see a world that quite frankly is in a mess. You have terrorists and crazy world leaders in the midst of dropping oil prices and in Canada, a free-falling dollar. It is a time of uncertainty and history tells us that it is a time when the church usually steps up to bring hope. As Christians we know that the One who brings hope is Jesus Christ. Based on the various ethnic and religious backgrounds of the Alpha attendees, my belief is that the Lord has the ear of more than a few people.

While we lived in Estonia in the early 2000's, we ran Alpha in Estonian. Then too we had non-believers join us as I did the talks while translating them directly from Nicky Gumbel's book. It was a challenge but God's word does not come back void.

The question I put out to each of you is a simple one: what opportunities is God showing you as individuals and as churches in this day? We had 6 people give their lives to Jesus at church this past Sunday. Hopefully they will be among the 35 guests as we start Alpha tomorrow evening. Without trying to insult anyone, there are religious groups right now that people are literally fleeing from but where are they running to? People are looking for hope and freedom and as Christians you have the privilege to direct them to the One who has given it to you.