Conference yukon::christian_v7

852.0. "ALPHA Course" by GALVIA::TRANDLES () Thu Jan 18 1996 07:56

No, this is not a course concerning Digital's superfast chip, but a course
designed to introduce unbelievers or new Christians to the Christian faith.

Has anyone here heard of it ??

We've adopted it as our strategy for evangelism in our fellowship and have
just kicked off the first course.

Each of the letters in ALPHA stand for

A ......Anybody interested in finding out.

L ......Learning and laughter; can have some fun at the same time.

P ......People. The course is concerned primary with people, with a big emphasis
        on prayer and pastoral care.

H ......Helping one another

A ......Ask anything; No question is too simple or hostile to ask.


The course, which runs one evening a week for 12 weeks, starts with a light
meal. This is followed by a talk, for which videos can be used. After a short
break, there's a discussion on the talk. The course is ideal for homes, but can
be adopted for larger venues as well. 

This course was devised by Holy Trinity Bromton, London, an anglican church, 
and has spread like wildfire over the last 3 years. Last year over 100,000 did
this course in the U.K. alone and there are now an estimated 2,500 courses
running worldwide in all the mainstream Christian denominations.

More later,

Tom.

    We are a few weeks into our first course here. We had some people go
    to Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship where some of the people
    from Holy Trinity Brompton had come over to Canada from England to 
    do a training seminar on how to run these courses in our own churches.
    So far we are seeing some non Christians and non Churched attending.
    Some of those have now also visited church services as well.
    
    Orval DeBoer