Moravian Place Pastorate and Alpha
The alpha course ( http://alphacourse.org ) is a course designed to enable people to take a look at the basics of Christianity. Started at HTB in the late 1970s it has grown throughout the UK and across the world from prisons to the armed forces and into the workplace. The course at HTB runs three times a year and a number of people in the pastorate have helped or lead a group over the last year. For their experiences continue to read
Reasons were two-fold really, firstly. I wanted to do the course again myself, as a bit of a re-fresher on core fundamentals and also because I had missed a couple of the talks when I was on the course myself. Secondly, and more importantly, I wanted to help out in some way at HTB, to get more involved and to help others gain what I had gained from doing Alpha.
It was a totally different experience from my first course. Firstly, the group had a different dynamic from the last one...the group were all Christians, which made the conversations take a totally different slant and we found ourselves having more discussions about different aspects of Christianity and we prayed from far earlier on in the course. Unfortunately my group didn't quite gel as well as in my first one, so it was quite tough on us helpers and the leaders, but we managed to link up with another group for the weekend away and it turned out really well. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to the talks a second time round, as I had missed out on so many things, and my faith benefited so much from doing the course again. The weekend was also fantastic, my experience of the Holy Spirit was far stronger and I got to socialise more between groups and met so many wonderful people at HTB.
There was no warm fuzzy feeling inside all the time, but it was good. I learned a whole heap more and it was good to experience praying a lot for others in the group. I'd definitely help out again in the future.
Alpha has started to spread into the workplace. Some of the pastorate have been involved in getting such a course up and running and now that is underway they are hopeful of another course running very soon. For more information on alpha in the workplace or any other aspect of alpha see http://alphacourse.org