alpha@wefc

Beginnings Thu, 19 Jun, 2008

A new ministry.. a new blog.

As a newly returned christian now attending church regularly, i often discover and observe other members of the church congregation who are new to me each and every single day and yet because i’d been attending the church in my childhood, i also see familiar faces which are a comfort to me. imagine being in a new environment surrounded by a sea of strangers. I’d be REALLY uncomfortable… to put it mildy. (Edit: there’s a key element of Alpha there for you.. having someone familiar bring you along).

I left the church in my late teens and in those years, never thought that i would step back into it or any other one again. Surprise! Surprise!

Just as suddenly as i had walked out of church, I walked back in some time in late 2006. I was surprised to see old faces and childhood friends. Everyone who knew of me in the past seemed glad that I had returned (the alpha befriender thing again). Everyone had smiles on their faces and kind words of enquiry…

“How have you been doing?”

“What have you been doing?”

“We’re so glad you’re back!”

Somehow, I just fit right in. Childhood friends whom I had known were now mothers and fathers with their respective ankle-biters hanging around them, church workers or working actively in various ministries. It amused me to see other members of the congregation address friends and people whom i knew as “Elder J..” or “Pastor Sh..” etc. It amused me even more seeing the look on their faces when i spoke to the same people and referred to these individuals by name and with much familiarity.

“Oh Uncle TK, what’ve you been up to lately?”

“Sh, that bit about TCMs.. very controversial!!”

Oh, the look on the faces.. the horror in their eyes. ..but i digress.

The initial plan was to ease myself back into church life, I was reluctant about signing up for any events or committing to any activities. That’s probably a topic for a different post somewhere else some day. In any case, I started with attending church services and leaving shortly after the service, leaving little time to interact with other people in the church.. thus, I never really got to know more people or give others a chance to know me.. outside of the few people I already knew.

Fast forward xx months.. the church is organizing its inaugural Alpha Course and I’ve been invited to it. God obviously thought He’d had enough of me easing myself back in. I agree to the invitation.. rather reluctantly not knowing what was in store. I like being prepared so I googled “Alpha Course“.

Unfortunately, Google just returns all entries that mention Alpha. It does not separate the wheat from the chaff. The more I read, the more questions I had. I arrived at the initial Alpha Dinner feeling a wee bit blasé about the entire thing – thinking Alpha was just another one of those hyped-up evangelism events with a thin veneer of respectability. You know what I’m talking about.. you get a call..

“Mr T, we’d like to give you a chance to fly to <insert dream holiday destination here> but before we do that, would you attend a briefing we’d like to give you about our company?”

Fast forward xx months again.. that inaugural alpha course is over. I sat through all of it.. it turned out to be pretty interesting. And I was certainly more comfortable about asking some of other questions I had in the back of my mind. Since then, I’ve started teaching in the kids’ ministry and joined a care group. That care group formed out of the alpha discussion group that i was a part of during that first alpha course and that care group has even gone on to organize the second Alpha course.

Fast forward to present day. The church wants to make the Alpha ministry permanent and have asked 3 of us to form the steering group for the ministry. I guess you could say I’m an Alpha graduate but the Lord moves in mysterious ways ‘cos I seldom know what his intentions are for me ahead of time.

In this case, the church has scheduled its 3rd Alpha course to start in a month’s time and we barely have time to get organized for it.. much less plan an entire ministry. Very impressive, Father God!

IMHO, the Lord has certainly given us this huge responsibility to test us, our resolve and our trust in Him. Surely God, in His infinite wisdom, does not set us a task so far beyond our abilities without sending us help.. even if failure is a given, I’m sure He has a plan and a lesson to teach us in that failure.

One thing I have learnt in the 18 or so months since I’ve been back – Where The Lord leads, we cannot help but follow… Amen.

- adrian T