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.
No comments:
Post a Comment