wfn.org | 600 Episcopalians attend Alpha Conference

[Daphne Mack <dmack@dfms.org>]

For more information contact:
Episcopal News Service
Kathryn McCormick
kmccormick @dfms.org
212/922-5383
http://www.ecusa.anglican.org/ens

99-049
Florida Alpha Conference highlights 'evangelism for ordinary people'
by A. E. P. Wall

(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.

Maria Roach smiled cheerfully during a coffee break as Nicky Gumbel, the
conference keynoter, saluted her group of 15 who came over from the
Bahamas to take Alpha back to 10 churches there,
Evangelism for ordinary people
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
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.
--Ed Wall is the former editor of the Central Florida Episcopalian, the
diocesan newspaper for Central Florida.

Here are ways to get information about Alpha:
Phone Alpha North America at 212/378-0292 or check out these web sites:
www.alphana.org
www.alpha.org.uk/
www.cfdiocese.org
Or phone The Episcopal Church of the New Covenant at 407/699-0202.