Calgary in September (or Vice Versa)

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 encouraging visits to Harvest Hills Alliance, Calgary Life Church, Bonavista Baptist and Southview Church. An interesting thing happened at Harvest Hills. My appointment was with Associate Pastor Aaron Bon-Bernard. He brought along Jordie Siemens, the son of the Senior Pastor. Jordie is helping coordinate their upcoming fall Alpha. In conversation with Jordie mentioned he was working on his M Div at Ambrose University. I asked him what he hoped to do after graduation. He said he hoped to minister in a Arabic-speaking country. He and his wife had spent some time in the Middle East and he wants to use his growing fluency in Arabic in his ministry. H mentioned he had just attended an Arabic language service at Foothills Alliance. I said, "Hey, there is a guy up in Edmonton running Alpha in Arabic up there."

"I'd love to get in touch with him," said Jordie.

So I emailed my contact in Edmonton. He cc'd me back along with the fellow who is now coordinating said course, Brahm from the amazing Salaam Ministries. Brahm emailed back saying he was going to be in Calgary Friday, so I'm hoping to set up a meeting of all the interested parties today. Hasn't quite come together yet, but I'm praying.

Yesterday, Thursday, I was back at RockPointe for a day-long conference on church planting presented by c2c Network featuring speaker Hugh Halter. Made some great connections and met some great people whose hearts are fixed on reaching the Province and the Nation with the truth. In my opinion, and that of many others, there is no better tool to initiate a church plant than Alpha. In the words of Graham Singh, "Church planting strategy? Find an empty space and start running Alpha."

Today I hope to be in touch with more of my Alpha churches, including the Catholic Parish of St Pius X, which is actually a few blocks from my motel, so I think I'll get my morning exercise and walk.

Tomorrow, Saturday, will be a relatively free day, until I attend the evening service at Foothills Alliance, where Shaila Visser, Alpha Canada's National Director is speaking.

All for now,

Blessings,

John

By the way, a while ago I posted that there had been 400 Alphas registered for Alberta. That number is now 500.

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