So here I am, back again. I said the next and last entry would be about May 12th for now. Well that was my plan, however there appear to be other forces in place. Let me tell you a story. Here I am April 27th sat in a cafe in my home town during the holiday caused by the series of bank holidays and three days off that were in the middle and this is how i got here
I have decided to amble into town to go and have a cup of coffee and relax and I mean properly relax. The sun is shining outside and it is at least 22'C. It is beautiful outside at the moment. I have decided to take a book with me to read and I have chosen Rick Warren "A Purpose Driven Life"
Anyway I am sat on a little patio table outside this cafe reading my book. I started with the introduction and all that good stuff and the first thing it says is that the book is split into 40 separate chapters and you should read one per day and meditate on it. Well so I started to read the first chapter and turned the page and ... I was at the end of the chapter. Hang on a minute I have barely poured my cup of tea so I might as well read chapter 2 as it is the only book I bought. Tea is still hot, time for chapter 3 and chapter 4. OOh but I have a pot of tea in my hand so I can have another cup of tea, that is enough time for chapter 5, and 6 and 7,8,9 and 10.
However something starts nagging me when I get to chapter 3 and 4, it is going on about knowing what your purpose is and this starts to get worse as i go through the next few chapters. This nagging starts really getting quite uncomfortable and then I realise something monumental, I don't know what my purpose is, because I don't have one. I am existing from day to day without meaning, without any real purpose here. I am existing rather than living.
All of a sudden it all makes sense, what i am missing is the sense of purpose in my life. I have stopped asking questions weeks ago. I am comfortable in most of things that go on and what I am not comfortable in isn't God, it's me. I have been missing out on something and have been looking at people who have something that I don't, that I would love to have and I need a purpose. But now I have worked out my purpose to serve God and Jesus and have my sins forgiven because Jesus died on the cross for me and guess what he did.
So at 14:20 on Wednesday 27th April 2011, sat at a patio table in the town centre with people walking past and going their own ways through town I bowed my head and asked for forgiveness for my sins and started a new life, walking with God. It was a simple prayer no more than a minute long. Then I just sat there at the cafe for another 20 minutes challenging what i'd just done, was it right? well yes it was and I was confident in what I had just done. After all that I have done and all the people I have had around me the entire time i have been doing the Alpha Course, something that is nothing to do with the alpha course has changed my life and in a quiet, unspectacular way, in fact no one else would even have noticed.
Anyway I walked home afterwards and looked around and the world around me had changed, or so it appeared. In fact I don't think the world around me had changed. I think I have changed and the way I view the world is different. The sky is more blue and the trees and leaves are more green. Everything has changed in the world and now I wonder what is to follow over the next part of my journey. The journey so far has been truly amazing and I am just smiling continuously all the time. I can't do anything but smile.
I haven't written this at the time I have posted it but symbolically I have dated it at the time I gave my life to God. I am now going to go and see what is new in my life as a result of this.
Wednesday 27 April 2011
Thursday 21 April 2011
The last Alpha Session
So the final session of the alpha course has now taken place and it was the best of the sessions that I have been to of the entire session. Well I am getting a bit ahead of myself already so I had better rewind a little bit first....
The topic for the last topic is "What about the church?" Well this to me at first glance seems a pretty non-eventful, unexciting topic and to be honest should be. This is going to be about buildings and churches and the like isn't it... ummm no. That was the first suprise of the session. So then the first question to ask is what is the church all about. Well the church is the people that make it up. The building itself isn't the church and that was the thing that really took me back. I always thought the church was the place where worship was done and created but apparently not. What do I know. You'd have thought I would have got the hang of this right now, but apparently the answer is no I haven't. Anyway we had the last video and Nicky continually went on about the people being the church and God's church was made up of the most valuable resource there is.. people. It is a different perspective on the world and one that I didn't think was going to be one that really could exist.
Anyway we had the video and then broke into the smaller groups as we have done week after week. This time there was a difference and that was there were no questions to discuss. That is going to make life interesting so what happens next, well the one thing that i really didn't expect to happen. We discussed the video and the contents of it without discussing the video. Did that make any sense? Probably not but i'll explain it. The group I was sat with consisted of 4 people who were Christians and myself. Anyway what we discussed was actually what we were all going to do next once the course was over and you may be thinking what has that got to do with the church. Well if the church is the people and they are the resource that the whole thing is made up of then the people are all working together towards the common goal, so we sat there and chatted and decided we were going to go to Holy Trinity Brompton to one of their services as that is where the Alpha Course started and maybe see Nicky Gumbel speak in person. Second to this me and my partner decided to go to the big church day out in Worthing this year, as the music is always good and we enjoy listening to the worship and praise music.
Suddenly the fellowship that was being talked about during the video and the people being the most important resource that there is was coming to the fore and the thought of going along for this was one of those things that didn't phase me. Everyone was really uplifted and happy yet it was a compeltely unplanned evening with no questions and masses of fun and laughter. It was just brilliant. A wonderful way to finish the Alpha Course, although of course I haven't finished the alpha course as we have a post alpha supper on May 12 to conclude the entire course. That will be the last item on the course but we have done all the talks we are going to do. We have decided that we are not going to do the session about "How do I make the most of the rest of my life?" which is a shame but I may borrow it on DVD to see what it is about.
So the big question that really matters to me is this one. Three months of alpha course, nearly 40 blog entries, and an awful lot of reading, time and commitment into investigating God, where does that leave me. Well I didn't find God or give my life to Jesus, which will be of disappointment to the people that I know. I didn't find whatever it was I was looking for in my life from the course. However on the good side, I haven't gone I definitely don't believe. There is another Alpha Course in September which I have already decided I am going to do as I believe that I haven't answered all my questions yet. I still don't really know what they all are, but I really hope that I come to an answer one of these days. Am I still going to continue attending church? Yes, with the same nerves and anxiety that I have had for a long time. I have to be honest and say that I do not know if I am ever going to find the answer that I am looking for, either one way or the other. I would like to get a definitive answer to whether this exists or not, but I am not someone that is going to have faith easily. The faith is the one thing that is missing from my life and it is something that I am not going to be able to get without something amazing happening.
I want to thank everyone who has helped me with the journey up to this point and you all know who you are including those people who have contributed on this blog. Please continue to post comments if you wish to, I will still be monitoring this in the future and I will post after the meal in May to close the blog down for the time being but it will be back in September when I do this all over again. I have had a wonderful journey and being able to write about it has been brilliant. I thought at times I was writing far more than I needed to but I can look back at the story of this course. Maybe it will be helpful for people out there. I recommend giving this to anyone who wants to read it. It doesn't have the answers because I don't have the answers but enjoy reading it because I enjoyed writing it. Goodbye for now and thanks to everyone who has been with me while I have done this.
The topic for the last topic is "What about the church?" Well this to me at first glance seems a pretty non-eventful, unexciting topic and to be honest should be. This is going to be about buildings and churches and the like isn't it... ummm no. That was the first suprise of the session. So then the first question to ask is what is the church all about. Well the church is the people that make it up. The building itself isn't the church and that was the thing that really took me back. I always thought the church was the place where worship was done and created but apparently not. What do I know. You'd have thought I would have got the hang of this right now, but apparently the answer is no I haven't. Anyway we had the last video and Nicky continually went on about the people being the church and God's church was made up of the most valuable resource there is.. people. It is a different perspective on the world and one that I didn't think was going to be one that really could exist.
Anyway we had the video and then broke into the smaller groups as we have done week after week. This time there was a difference and that was there were no questions to discuss. That is going to make life interesting so what happens next, well the one thing that i really didn't expect to happen. We discussed the video and the contents of it without discussing the video. Did that make any sense? Probably not but i'll explain it. The group I was sat with consisted of 4 people who were Christians and myself. Anyway what we discussed was actually what we were all going to do next once the course was over and you may be thinking what has that got to do with the church. Well if the church is the people and they are the resource that the whole thing is made up of then the people are all working together towards the common goal, so we sat there and chatted and decided we were going to go to Holy Trinity Brompton to one of their services as that is where the Alpha Course started and maybe see Nicky Gumbel speak in person. Second to this me and my partner decided to go to the big church day out in Worthing this year, as the music is always good and we enjoy listening to the worship and praise music.
Suddenly the fellowship that was being talked about during the video and the people being the most important resource that there is was coming to the fore and the thought of going along for this was one of those things that didn't phase me. Everyone was really uplifted and happy yet it was a compeltely unplanned evening with no questions and masses of fun and laughter. It was just brilliant. A wonderful way to finish the Alpha Course, although of course I haven't finished the alpha course as we have a post alpha supper on May 12 to conclude the entire course. That will be the last item on the course but we have done all the talks we are going to do. We have decided that we are not going to do the session about "How do I make the most of the rest of my life?" which is a shame but I may borrow it on DVD to see what it is about.
So the big question that really matters to me is this one. Three months of alpha course, nearly 40 blog entries, and an awful lot of reading, time and commitment into investigating God, where does that leave me. Well I didn't find God or give my life to Jesus, which will be of disappointment to the people that I know. I didn't find whatever it was I was looking for in my life from the course. However on the good side, I haven't gone I definitely don't believe. There is another Alpha Course in September which I have already decided I am going to do as I believe that I haven't answered all my questions yet. I still don't really know what they all are, but I really hope that I come to an answer one of these days. Am I still going to continue attending church? Yes, with the same nerves and anxiety that I have had for a long time. I have to be honest and say that I do not know if I am ever going to find the answer that I am looking for, either one way or the other. I would like to get a definitive answer to whether this exists or not, but I am not someone that is going to have faith easily. The faith is the one thing that is missing from my life and it is something that I am not going to be able to get without something amazing happening.
I want to thank everyone who has helped me with the journey up to this point and you all know who you are including those people who have contributed on this blog. Please continue to post comments if you wish to, I will still be monitoring this in the future and I will post after the meal in May to close the blog down for the time being but it will be back in September when I do this all over again. I have had a wonderful journey and being able to write about it has been brilliant. I thought at times I was writing far more than I needed to but I can look back at the story of this course. Maybe it will be helpful for people out there. I recommend giving this to anyone who wants to read it. It doesn't have the answers because I don't have the answers but enjoy reading it because I enjoyed writing it. Goodbye for now and thanks to everyone who has been with me while I have done this.
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