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BlogHere are the thoughts and news of the people in our community. Leave a comment as you wish. If you want to join the blogging ask Mark.
Sunday, May 29, 2005Alpha We are now 7 weeks into our 10 week alpha course. It is very surprising how quickly it has gone. On Sunday we went up for our "Alpha Away Day". It was a great day. Interesting last night to hear how the 3 guys had found it. All of them said they had enjoyed the day and appreciated the opportunity to dwell on things for a longer period of time. I think they were all pretty clear that God had touched them in some way when they were prayed for. Looking back now over the last weeks, this is a different group of people than we thought we had at the start - part of that change is our own misconceptions, but it is also clear that a lot of the change is God's work in their lives. The idea of working through a process and allowing people time to walk it through in the context of community is deomonstrated to be of crucial importance. It is because of this fact, and Alpha's emphasis on it, that it is SO surprising that the teaching on Alpha is so individualistic. even one of the ladies on our Alpha Away Day commented on it "why", she said "does he only ever talk about 'me' and 'I' and not the community, surely we are social beings who need each other". How true! But even more importantly it is a huge New Testament concept that the Holy Spirit fills his house - the community of God - not just the individuals that make up the house. The focus of the course is the individual getting relationship with God, which then has implications for church, which then has implications for the world. That of course should be completely the otyher way round: the gospel is about God's saving action for the cosmos, which calls out a people, which is made up of individuals. Ponder on that a while... Posted by: Mark | 8:35 am |
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