An important part of my husband’s and my life together as a married couple has been our commitment to finding ways to answer questions for people about what it means to be a Christian. My husband and I for years had put together our own methods to explain the basics of the Christian faith, because what we found already published was lacking in one way or another. We have always been interested in people and in what they believed and why they believed it. We care about people and what was going on with them and we’ve tried to find new ways to help people out, both practically and spiritually.

In the late ’90s, we heard about the Alpha Course, an eleven-week series put together by Holy Trinity Brompton Church (HTB), an Anglican church in London, which discusses the basic questions of life from a Christian perspective and which invites people to share their ideas and beliefs in a respectful and open format. The Alpha course includes time for eating together and getting to know each other as human beings. As soon as we heard about Alpha, we were eager to find out more.

In August of 1998, my husband went with a small crew from our home church to Chicago, to attend one of the early National Alpha Conferences. Everyone who went from the team was so excited about what they had seen and heard at the conference, that we all worked quickly and got Alpha started up three weeks later. My husband and I were one of the three couples on that start-up team to begin Alpha in our homes that first year; the next year, we started up a large group Alpha course at our church. We were a part of the church’s Alpha team for quite a few years. I was the worship leader and lead many small groups; my husband coordinated the small groups and also lead lots of his own small groups.

After my husband finished seminary, we have been conducting Alpha courses in various places, including running an ongoing course for the last 10+ years or so, three times a year in the party room of a local pizza restaurant.

We love Alpha, because it gives people a chance to engage in thinking about the Christian faith, but in a relaxed and non-pressured way, and allows people the chance to speak out about their own feelings and ideas about topics of faith, such as “Why do people pray?” or “Why did Jesus die?” while they process through their own thoughts about the topic, without judgment or pressure from anyone.

For more information on our Alpha course or Alpha in general, see the website, alphausa.org or send us an email (below):

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