Day 2 - Lethbridge

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's National Catholic coordinator and Mark Richards, our Catholic coach out of Calgary.

My lunchtime meeting was with Pastor Greg Esselmont and his dad Randy of The Gate Christian Church in downtown Lethbridge. Their church is in an old Bank of Montreal building, with 2 story ceilings. I wish I'd thought to take some pictures because all the old vaults are still in the building, albeit with the locks removed from the massive steel doors. They too are extremely pleased at how their Alpha is going.

Greg and Randy mentioned I should stop in to a local street ministry, Streets Alive, so on my way to my next meeting I did, and left some information with the person in charge, who was familiar with Alpha. Hopefully I stirred his mind to consider Alpha, although Alpha in such a context is different in many ways from what we might consider a, "normal Alpha."

Both Streets Alive and The Gate were initiated by the Victory Church in Lethbridge, which has been quite active in the local Christian scene for years. Coincidentally, my next visit was as a local Starbucks with Associate Pastor of Victory, John Albiston. John is one of my favourite people to talk with. He was brought on board at Victory Lethbridge with responsibility for church growth and is a fount of knowledge in that area. He joined Victory in 2012, a year after Senior Pastor Kelly Stickel, whose arrival John credits with the beginning of a process that saw church attendance grow from about 400 in 2011 to over 1200 today.

Among other tips for church growth, John gave me his 3 Laws for Church Growth:
  1. Invite lots of people
  2. Don't suck
  3. Have people make friends
I won't expand on them here, but they make perfect sense when explained.

I'm writing this post in Medicine Hat, where I will be meeting various churches tomorrow.

Blessings,

John

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