Florida Alpha Conference Highlights 'Evangelism for Ordinary People'
Episcopal News Service. April 15, 1999 [99-049]
A. E. P. Wall, Former Editor of the Central Florida Episcopalian, the diocesan newspaper for Central Florida
(ENS) Karin Skau took a sip of iced tea and said she had traveled from Puerto Rico to Central Florida to pick up something for prisoners back home.
Bonnie Brownlee put down her sandwich and said she drove up from Melbourne. She was excited about the things she would take home. For Kay Elwood, 89 years old, it was a dazzling opportunity to share something invigorating with friends in her retirement home in Longwood and it was a reaffirmation of her own faith.
All around them at St. Stephen's Catholic Church in Winter Springs hundreds of Alpha enthusiasts were enjoying lunch on the first day of a two-day Florida Alpha Conference.
It was a time of spiritual challenge for more than 600 persons who were there to learn about Alpha, a fast-growing program that reaches out to people who are new to Christianity and to those who dropped out along the way.
Alpha began in an Anglican church, Holy Trinity Brompton in London, and it grew and grew and grew. Stimulated by the Rev. Nicky Gumbel of Holy Trinity, backed up by thousands of volunteers, Alpha courses were offered 10,500 times worldwide last year. Courses are being organized by many churches in Central Florida, now that leaders have been trained at the Florida Alpha Conference.
Skau, a native of Norway, is a prison chaplain in Puerto Rico. She learned about the Florida Alpha Conference on the Internet, and will offer Alpha to prisoners looking for a new approach to life. Alpha courses have already been given in 102 British prisons.
Brownlee chairs the evangelism committee at the Presbyterian Church of the Good Shepherd in Melbourne where, she thinks, Alpha will make a lot of sense.
Frank St. John, an engineer who is one of 70 ministry elders at Calvary Assembly in Winter Park, says Alpha will help reach the unchurched, enriching lives with enthusiasm in prayer and Scripture study.
About half of the 600 who attended the March 18-19 Conference were Episcopalians, learning how to offer Alpha courses in parishes or prisons or wherever. Bishop John W. Howe of the Diocese of Central Florida welcomed the participants to what he happily described as the largest Alpha Conference ever held in the United States. He said Alpha exists to help Christians "pass it on."
Later Howe admitted that he knew the conference would be a success but it "far exceeded my expectations." The visiting teams from Alpha in the United Kingdom and the United States "were thrilled and excited, declaring it the largest in the U.S.A. and the most successful," he added. Tables set up for the event sold $27,000 in books and tapes before running out of merchandise. Tapes made during the Florida Alpha Conference are available.
Gumbel, who is author of several popular books about Alpha, said that Alpha is evangelism for ordinary people because it gives everyone a chance to learn about the Christian faith during a structured but informal course that's entirely contemporary in its approach. He pointed out that newcomers to a local Alpha course look around and see their own kind of people. They eat familiar food together, they listen to familiar music and join in the singing. They are comfortable with today's approach to the mind through the emotions.
Gumbel and his wife, Pippa, flew to Florida from Colorado Springs, where an Alpha Conference had just concluded.
Prayer was central to the conference, supported by a team of about 30 volunteers. When Gumbel invited anyone to step forward for prayer with members of the team and with each other, one who stood up and joined the group was the Rev. W. Donald Lyon, rector of St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in DeLand.
William Buechner, a volunteer who is a member of New Covenant, saw Lyon on the other side of the church but simply knew that he needed a very special prayer. He pushed through hundreds of people until he was at Lyon's side. Lyon felt Buechner's hand on his heart and heard a prayer for healing. There was no way for Buechner to know that Lyon had an appointment for cardiac catheterization, a diagnostic test, the next day. Nor did he know that during the catheterization the doctor would declare Lyon's arteries to be astonishingly clear, the arteries, as he put it, of a 20-year-old.
The Rev. Carl Merola, deacon at the Episcopal Church of the New Covenant in Winter Park, was the administrator for the Florida Alpha Conference, which attracted participants active in Methodist, Presbyterian, Pentecostal, Vineyard, Anglican, Christian and Missionary Alliance, Moravian, Lutheran and other churches.
Here are ways to get information about Alpha:
Phone Alpha North America at 212/378-0292 or check out these websites:
www.alphana.org
www.alpha.org.uk/
www.cfdiocese/org
Or phone The Episcopal Church of the New Covenant at 407/699-0202
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