Canadian Evangelism

No Sooner did I return from my Calgary junket (Sunday afternoon) than Eva and I started a three-day Evangelism Congress beginning Sunday evening at the Fantasyland Hotel at West Edmonton Mall. One of the featured speakers noted the irony of hosting an event aimed at bringing a Christian revival to our nation in a facility named, "Fantasyland." We who were there, and who have on our hearts the evangelization of our nation, would not consider our aims any kind of fantasy. The event was completely inspiring, with speakers such as Mark Hughes , Danielle Strickland , Charles Price and Edmonton's own Bob Jones, Senior Pastor at North Pointe Church . The worship band was also from North Pointe and the quality and duration of music was just about exactly perfect. I say duration because I find a 15 to 20 minute worship set to be just about right. I met many people there who I have previously met in my travels around the province, some of whom recognized me before I recognized t...

James Clarence (left) and Brent Sellers at RockPointe I'm writing this on Friday morning, but I've been in Calgary since Tuesday. Driving down early Tuesday morning I encountered the first snow of the season, big wet flakes just south of Leduc. By Red Deer though it was bright, sunny and dry. I made a side stop in Red Deer at the headquarters of Impacting Canada Ministries , at least a couple of whose churches have or are running Alpha. The event Tuesday evening was to gather Youth Pastors at the Bowridge Campus of RockPointe Church to envision and celebrate empowering teens to reach their friends through Alpha in their schools. It was also a chance to build anticipation for the forthcoming new Alpha Youth series coming out Oct 1. It was extremely encouraging to hear the stories of what's happening in some Alberta schools, including one of one young man who started Alpha in his school by himself and ended up with 70 kids attending! Wednesday was busy with other encouragin...

Every morning I pull up my database of Alphas running in Alberta. Practically every morning there are new ones registered, and I say a little prayer of thanks and blessing for each one. Of course I love every one, but particularly encouraging lately have been Alphas set to run in various schools, universities and community colleges. Just in the last few days I've been notified of Alphas at the University of Alberta, Grant MacEwan University and Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT). I've seen Alphas being run in High- and Junior High Schools, both public and Catholic. Each one, in each community, means there is a person or team there who cares about reaching our next generation for Christ. This week and last I've been preparing for a trip to Calgary. I'll be there next week from Tuesday to Sunday. I'll be visiting the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association office Tuesday afternoon, then meeting Alpha Canada's Director of Ministry Development, Stephen Mu...