An article by Ben Doggett | 9th July 2020
The Alpha Course is an incredible tool for helping people explore the deep questions of life. As a church we have run Alpha previously but we have recently finished our first one online.
I was recently listening to an interview with Nicky Gumball who is the Vicar of Holy Trinity Brompton, the church who designed the Alpha Course. Nicky said that since lockdown, HTB are now starting two new Alpha courses every single week! The church may not be able to meet together at the moment, but there has been an explosion of interest in the Christian faith.
Alpha is a very relational course. It runs for around 10 weeks and during that time you get to know the other people on the course fairly well. Initially I was nervous to see if the course would suffer from not having the face to face element. Upon reflection, I am pleasantly surprised at how relational it still was. As the weeks went by, we developed a real connection together and I was genuinely sad when the course came to an end and I knew I wouldn’t be spending the next Tuesday night with that group of people again!
Most importantly, the online element was not able to block God from having His perfect way.
In the early weeks, those on the course asked superb questions as they sought the truth of the Gospel. And then, as the weeks went by, we began to see people recommit their lives to Jesus or surrender to Him for the very first time! Zoom also again proved to be a boundary that the Holy Spirit had no problem crossing and so we prayed and watched in awe as the Holy Spirit touched lives despite us being many miles apart.
To bring clarity to what is important in our complex and often busy lives, there is nothing like the beauty of seeing someone encounter the love and acceptance of Jesus. There is no joy quite like that which comes from seeing a child beloved of God, discover a Father who has been waiting with open arms.
If you have questions about life and Christianity, or know someone who would benefit from this course, there is another opportunity to sign on for a course starting Wednesday 15th July. It will run for 10 weeks on Wednesday evenings between 8-9:30pm.
For more information or to register, please contact Jubilee office at office@cotnjubilee.co.uk.