Canadian Evangelism

My wife and were at a fundraiser the other night for Smoky Lake Baptist . They have bought a new building, an old milk plant, and are making it their new church building. Below are the 'before' and the proposed 'after' pictures.  From this:   To this:     As mentioned, the population of Smoky Lake is 1022 - I have that directly from the Mayor, with whom we sat at the fundraiser. The church's new sanctuary will seat approximately 400 people, over 1/3 the population of the community. Interesting.   They are converting the building in stages, so it will not instantly look like the second picture, but Eva and I were so encouraged by their vision and their willingness to step out in faith for this project. Here is a link to their own video page on the project   And guess what... they run Alpha like crazy! In fact, two of my most loyal coaches are from there. I don't think I can claim this as the church that Alpha built, but I like to think that Alpha might have pla...

Once again I was invited to the Pastors' Appreciation Lunch at Bonnyville Community Church . It's about a three-hour drive from home, but well worth the trip. This is my third. Pastor Ken Jagessar has such a heart, not only for the Lord, but for his fellow labourers for the kingdom as well. The event seems to attract more and more church leaders each year and each year I have been allowed a bit more time to talk about Alpha. This year there were 50 or 60 church and ministry leaders and their spouses, and Amy Croy, our Alpha Youth Coach for Alberta, were allowed some exclusive, "stage time," to communicate some of the new products and initiatives coming down the pipe this year and next. Amy shared her passion to see young people equipped to share their faith with their friends especially in schools. New and coming soon from Alpha include: Nicky Gumbel's latest talks, shortened from 45-50 minutes down to 30 or so; Next year's global media campaign featuring Be...

The second week of October was our annual Alpha Canada retreat at beautiful Loon Lake Lodge in BC. Here's the whole gang in one of our less serious moments: The final 'A' seems to be hiding. We are not 'Alph." It was a time of wonderful sharing, wonderful speakers, learning and praying together, in addition to spending time with such a wonderful team, many of whom we are in touch with only by e-mail or conference call for most of the year. I was in the business world for over 45 years and this is the best team, under the best leadership I have ever experienced, (and that includes when I worked for myself.) Shaila Visser, our National Director, is holding the 'H'. I'm thinking we didn't want to emphasize too much our Canadian identity, so we hid the final, "eh?" Last week I travelled with Amy, our Alpha Youth Coach for Alberta, to Ponoka Alberta for a Youth Champions meeting she helped organize with a number of Youth Unlimited reps at Fir...

Well, it wasn't technically a weekend. It was a Thursday, a Friday and a Saturday, but I lose track of days anyway, so I'm taking the liberty of calling it a weekend. After picking up Wanda Ho, Alpha's National Chinese Coordinator, we hosted 11 guests from 3 Edmonton area Chinese Churches at Transcend Coffee Shop . There was a slight mixup - I thought I had reserved an entire upstairs room; they understood I had just reserved a table, but staff there were very gracious, things were resolved and we had quite an encouraging meeting - sharing, listening and planning for future Alphas within the Chinese community. I may have posted before, but many of the larger Chinese churches have three congregations (Cantonese, Mandarin and English-speaking) with as many as 9 services on a weekend. Then it was off to Calgary on Friday for a fast meeting at Tim Horton's with Rich, who along with his wife is coordinating an Alpha in his home through Eastside City Church . Our lunchtime ap...