Canadian Evangelism

If you have call display what is your reaction when a number comes up you don't recognize; nervousness, fear, annoyance, hesitation? Are you tempted just to avoid answering it - let it go to voicemail? Well, I certainly wonder, when it happens, "Who could this be?" However, in my ministry with Alpha, it turns out as often as not to be a call I'm glad I took. Yesterday, near the close of the day, I received such a call. I answered, wondering, of course, who it could be. It was from a pastor in a town in Alberta. I had met him at a recent networking event. He told me he has a youth group meeting in his church building in which there are no kids from his church! Twenty to twenty-five teens every week. No Christians! He wanted to know if Alpha had any resources he could use for this group. Do we have resources?!!! (Rhetorical question of course on my part 😉) I went over highlights of our Youth Film Series , including some figures showing how successful it has been across...

Youth Alpha Training Summit - RockPointe Church I'm afraid I can't claim a lot of credit for this one. Most of the credit goes to Brent Sellers of RockPointe Church who has stepped up as an Alberta Youth Champion. Much of the credit for the establishment of the concept of Alberta Youth Champions goes to my friend and Associate, Amy Croy. So I come in a bit down the line for accolades. I did, however, deliver the banners and the Big Question Mark to RockPointe in the middle of a snow storm at great risk to my life and person. On Saturday our Alpha Teams hosted the first ever Southern Alberta Youth Alpha Training Summit --a gathering of youth, pastors and leaders, school christian clubs and individuals to prepare to run Youth Alpha in their circles of influence. A message from Brent: We had 50 people present, representing 6 multi-ethnic churches from five denominations, plus representation from several high schools. Our student teams opened the day by sharing their testimoni...

I'll explain the title of this post, which refers to an incident that occurred at 11:30 PM, and work backwards form there through my day (Friday) I hope you'll forgive the flippancy of my Youtube link. It's just the way my brain works. I booked my hotel room for Friday night at a hotel in Innisfail. However, my daughter said she had booked a stay at that same motel and left for another because her non-smoking room smelled of smoke. I thought, "Well that was then - this is now. Surely It wouldn't be a common occurrence." So I booked in, went to my room and everything seemed fine. That is until about 11:00 when I heard the drip, drip of water. I ignored it for a while, but then wondered if I had left a tap dripping in the bathroom, so I got up to check. There was water all over the floor, dripping from the ceiling. I called the front desk and explained the problem. The clerk said he would be there in 5 minutes. I called again after 6, saying also that he should ...

This is the Neighbourhood Church , a street front church in old downtown Medicine Hat. It is rather a new church on my radar, but already I've found a new friend. When I knew I was coming to Medicine Hat, I checked our records and saw this church of which I had not previously been aware, so I emailed to say I was going to be in town. Pastor Michael Fischer replied to say he would like to get together, so we arranged a meeting for between 10:30 and 11:00 this morning. The first thing that came up that indicated Michael was an OK guy was that he loves Alpha. You can see the Alpha posters prominently displayed in the front windows. The second was that he came to Medicine Hat from Hamilton, which was basically my own home town. His church started Alpha last spring by running it on weekday noon hours right there in the downtown. Fantastic! This fall they have been running a Sunday evening Alpha. Plans are for the Marriage Course and more Alphas in the futu...

My day started off with a great meeting with Pastor Bert Faulkner at Westside Community Church (PAOC). Their Alpha is going well, ending at the end of November, but they are already planning to run again in the new year. I offered my services and availability to come again and help run a team training, which offer was genuinely appreciated. Hopefully I'll hear from them again on that. My next appointment was at lunchtime, so on the way I stopped at 2 churches that happened to be on my route: Maranatha Christian Reformed Church  and St Martha's Catholic Church . Maranatha has been running Alpha's Marriage Course faithfully for years. In fact the couple that coordinates it has basically designed their finished basement for the very purpose. At St Martha's I met Fr Roque, who is that Parish's chaplain to the University of Lethbridge. He seemed quite interested in the new Alpha Film Series for young adults. I also gave him contact information for Josh canning, Alpha...

This was Calgary late this morning as I arrived. I'm not sure if this is a picture of Stony Trail, but that's what it looked like. The Trail itself was more just wet than anything, but my first visit was to the Bowridge campus of RockPointe Church to drop off some banners and the big red Alpha Question Mark for a Youth Training Summit event being hosted there on Saturday by Brent Sellers, Youth Pastor there and an Alberta Alpha Youth Champion. The event is for students or youth leaders interested in running the Alpha Youth Film Series in various contexts or venues. I must say I am so encouraged by Youth Pastors like Brent and others who have so bought in to the vision of seeing young people come to faith through Alpha. Much credit must be given to Amy Croy, my Youth Associate who has taken the initiative in gathering together a number of these Champions. (Please keep her in your prayers.) OK, my point: RockPointe is on Highway 1A, between Calgary and Cochrane. This road was n...

Well no, not that far south, and not a holiday, but a round-trip through Calgary, Lethbridge, Medicine Hat, back to Calgary, then Red Deer and back home. I should be gone from Tuesday to Saturday. There was a bit of a monkey wrench thrown into this trip - last week, before it even began. It was all planned around being scheduled to address a Wednesday lunchtime meeting of the Lethbridge ministerial. This was planned a couple of months ago, and the date November 16 decided upon because that was the time I could have 15 or 20 minutes for my presentation, in addition to networking with pastors in the city. So first of all, when I called my contact at the ministerial a couple of weeks ago to confirm, he told me they were having another speaker from Calgary and I would be able to have about 2 minutes after him. With a deep breath and a sigh, I mentioned I had put together a full presentation and it was hardly worth my time to make a 5-hour drive for a 2-minute talk. He agreed to...

I received an email this morning from  one of Alpha's most ardent coordinators, reporting on the results of the Alpha she runs for Grade 9's in a local Catholic high school. She reports: Out of 53 more-or-less regulars, at least 22 students began or strengthened a relationship with Jesus and 13 more are ready to dive in!" She used this picture from one of the videos in her post-Alpha evaluation. In other words, asking students where they thought they were before the course and after. The water in the pool represents a relationship with Jesus. Choices were:  1 – In deep and moving! 2 – In the water but not really moving 3 – Ready to dive in 4 – Testing the water but not ready to get in 5 – Moving toward the water 6 – Close but distracted by other things 7 – Know it’s there but focused on myself 8 – Not even in the room BEFORE ALPHA , 39% did not have a relationship with Jesus and 36% were "testing the waters but not ready to get in (total 75%). AFTER ALPHA , just 22% d...

As tempted as I am to comment on last night's US election, I will refrain. As I have said, I was a fan of neither candidate. But one thought does come to mind; John, the recorder of the Revelation of Jesus Christ  was given a vision: After this I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven. And the voice I had first heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.”     At once I was in the Spirit, and there before me was a throne in heaven with someone sitting on it.     And the one who sat there had the appearance of jasper and ruby. A rainbow that shone like an emerald encircled the throne. (Rev 4: 1-3) Well, the day after the election there is still someone sitting on the throne and He is still in control. Whatever happened last night happened somehow within His will and with His permission, and whatever we may think of circumstances, God's will is still, ultimately...

Alpha Canada recently upgraded their program for reporting statistics on Alphas running in Canada. Late last year, when sitting down to forecast for 2016, and establish targets, I settled on what I thought was a challenging, yet fully attainable target of seeing 450 Alpha's running in Alberta by the end of the year. I felt I had worked hard throughout the year, yet never seemed to be keeping up with my self-established target. I kept running a report based on number of courses run and Organizing Church name. Late last month my friend and Alpha for Catholics coach in Calgary, Mark Richards, asked me to give him a list of all Alpha for Youth courses being run in Alberta in Catholic contexts. So I ran my report with those criteria and sent it to him. He replied, "What about, ( such and such Catholic School), I know they're running one there." I ran and re-ran the report but couldn't get the course in question to come up. Finally I resorted to asking someone who actua...

Centre Street Church, Calgary Alberta We recently received information from a survey of the largest churches in Canada, by average Sunday attendance aver 1000. Six of them are in Alberta, and all six, by the way, are strong Alpha churches. What was fascinating and encouraging was the response given when questioned regarding outreach and evangelism. The number one effective strategy across Canada was listed as. "effective programs for youth and children that meaningfully impacted parents." Well who could argue with that? Number two, however, was the Alpha Course , mentioned specifically by name. Other figures I have seen recently show that over 90% of churches in a number of countries around the world agree that Alpha is an effective tool for evangelism and would recommend Alpha to other organizations. Not that Alpha is effective only for Mega Churches; Alpha is just as effective in a home group with two to ten guests. Most of my Alpha churches are running Alpha with ...