Canadian Evangelism

And, No, it's not for The Keg, whose sign you can see in the first picture. It's for Alpha at Coastal Church in Vancouver. OK, so it's not exactly Alberta, but it is so encouraging to me to see such a number of people eager to participate in Alpha and hear the message of the Christian faith.I don't know the whole story, but these pictures were sent to me by Shaila, Alpha Canada's National Director, and Nicole, from Alpha Canada HQ. This looks like the kind of Alpha I would like to see everywhere. As I said, I don't know the circumstances, but it certainly speaks to me of a church with an invitational culture, and invitation is one of the Keys to the success of any Alpha. We are starting our own Alpha this evening at Café Rista in Edmonton. I don't expect we'll have quite the lineup, but I'm praying that God will bring those He intends to hear the message. I hope to give a live introductory talk, something I've never done before, so please pray ...

That's what God does. Today started with a conference call and a webinar that pretty much ate up the morning.  Alpha for Youth Coach, Amy Croy has been hoping to gather area youth pastors into some kind of network to coordinate Alpha's running in local schools. Our hopes in this are twofold (at least) One is to get Alpha's running in as many schools as we can (and it already is, in a number of them). Another is to bring some kind of coordination to the process, so that all the parties are aware of what is going on. Because here are a couple of issues: One local high school had 3 Alpha's running by students of three different churches, none of them really aware of what the others were doing. Some schools have had Alpha's running, but Christian kids from other churches haven't even been aware of them. We are sure there are latent student leaders out there who would gladly run an Alpha in their school if they were enabled and empowered to do so. So what we hope to ...

It's the dog days of January. I wrapped up my final road trip, visiting many of the 325 churches who ran Alpha's the previous year, just before Christmas, so now, after a deep breath, the feeling is, "OK, what now?" My first meeting of the year was with Amy Croy, enthusiastic coach for Alpha for Youth, and creator of  this facebook page. Our plan is to gather local Edmonton and area Youth leaders into some kind of network to coordinate and facilitate running Alpha in local High Schools. However, on a more frivolous note, I was watching curling and thought I saw someone I knew. Check these out:  Manitoba Curler Mike McEwen Alpha Canada BC Regional Director Stephen Mulder        Just sayin' Blessings, John