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WHEN Stephanie and I met, we just seemed to click right
away. I was immediately struck by her beauty – her piercing grey
green eyes, and her unique sense of style.
But it was something more about this young woman that
intrigued me – a certain fragility that belied the confidence
she exuded.
When I learned more about her past, I realized why.
Leaving home at 15, she had fended for herself for years. She had
been involved in the club and drug scene, and some unsavoury
relationships. But now God was doing a wonderful work in her heart.
From a broken past to a productive present, Stephanie
is a walking example of how God uses Alpha powerfully to draw people
into authentic Jesus-centred life within the Christian
community.
 She’d heard about Alpha before she came west
from Manitoba; and when she got to Vancouver, she saw
posters and billboards everywhere: Alpha, Alpha, Alpha. It was as if God
was speaking to her.
She decided to go to a local church that
had the signs outside, and ducked into the back
– trying not to get noticed, or to have a relationship with
anyone.
“I’d never done church before,” she
says, “and was just scoping it
out.” When the Alpha Course was announced, she decided
to give it a try.
At the first meeting, Stephanie was skeptical at first,
as the people in her small group were so different from her. But
in spite of her reservations, she couldn’t help warming to them
when she started realizing these people were legitimately authentic.
She had been doing everything she could to keep people
at arms length. But the love she experienced at Alpha broke
through her defenses. “I wasn’t trusting people, as a
result of my past,” she says. “Having people actually care
about what I thought or said or felt was a different experience for me.
I’d grown up in the system as a kid without this whole
family mentality.” Sitting around the table at Alpha was
like having the family she’d never known.
A key part of Alpha, in which participants spend a
weekend focusing on the Holy Spirit, had a big impact on Stephanie.
God convicted her about the living arrangement she had with a man at that
time.
“I realized I shouldn’t be living with this
dude. My thinking started shifting as a result of me submitting to
God.” But leaving him was very traumatic, and Stephanie ended up in a
women’s shelter just around Christmas time.
It was then that her small group really became
family to her. They prayed, they supported her financially – and one
couple took her into their home.
“It really overwhelmed me,” says Stephanie,
“because I’d never had people actually care when I was in
trouble – and I have been in a lot of trouble a lot of times, and
didn’t have anyone ever care. I realized they were for
real – and they loved God too! They made me feel loved and
cared about; and those relationships have been foundational
in the development of my relationship with God.”
Seeing this kind of authenticity encouraged Stephanie
to get plugged in, and become active in the church, serving on
Alpha and as a worship leader. She has grown in her life with Christ, in
many ways.
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For one thing, she admits that she once dressed pretty
scandalously. “Over the years,” she notes,
“Jesus has helped me wear more clothes!” More importantly, she
now has a heart to minister to the hurting and addicted in her
city.
“I think Alpha’s amazing,” she says.
“It’s a great way to invite people to just check out Jesus, and
to develop those relationships that are very hard to come by these days
– relationships that you won’t just find in a club or a pub or
around the drug scene.”
I thank God for the Alpha Course, which
allowed my friend Stephanie to be embraced by Jesus and his church.
Many thousands of Stephanies have attended an Alpha course in Canada. By
God’s grace, there will be many more.
Written by Sally Start, long-time director of
Alpha Canada, who now heads up the Alpha Foundation. For an Alpha
Course near you, go to: www.alphacanada.org.
Fast facts for Alpha:
In the last 10 years . . .
• More than 3,000 churches and organizations in Canada
have run the Alpha Course.
• More than 300,000 people in Canada have attended an
Alpha Course.
• In 2007, more than 43,000 guests attended the course
in Canada.
Based on recent survey results, Alpha reports an
average of 30 people attend a typical course.
On average in Canada, over half the guests at a course
are not regular church attenders.
Eight out of 10 churches that run Alpha report that
their congregations have grown because they ran the course. In B.C., more
than 200 courses ran in 2008, with approximately 70 percent of these in the
Metro Vancouver region.
March 2009
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