Alpha for Educators: A taste of how the Catholic Church is transforming in Detroit

A couple weeks ago I had the opportunity to participate in an Alpha course at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit with other Catholic school teachers, catechists, DREs (directors of religious education), youth ministers, and others in faith teaching roles in the Archdiocese of Detroit. It was an amazing experience, one that gave me great hope for the Catholic Church and the efforts to revitalize it in Detroit.

Alpha is a program for exploring fundamental concepts of the Christian faith. Their website explains it best, so I have quoted their "What is Alpha?" explanation here:

"Alpha is a series of sessions exploring the Christian faith. Each talk looks at a different question around faith and is designed to create conversation. Alpha is run all over the globe, and everyone's welcome. It runs in cafes, churches, universities, homes - you name it. No two Alphas look the same, but generally they have three key things in common: food, a talk and good conversation." (http://alpha.org/about/)

Alpha began (and still runs) at an Anglican Church in London, England. Since 1990, Alpha has spread around the world and become popular across Christian denominations through the efforts of Nicky Gumbel, vicar of Holy Trinity Brompton church in London. The Alpha session talks feature Nicky speaking on various topics of the faith (ex: "Who is Jesus?", "How can we have faith?", "How and why do I pray?", "How does God guide us?"). Most Alpha sessions include a meal, watching a video talk on one of the Alpha topics, and time in small group conversation about the video. Alpha participants stay with the same small group through the duration of the program in an effort to build relationships and community. It's a relaxing, non-judgmental environment to learn about the Christian faith. People new to the faith, those thoroughly involved for many years, and everyone in between has benefitted from Alpha.

A typical Alpha course runs for about 12 weeks, including a 1-2 day retreat weekend. The program has been run in 169 countries and translated into 112 languages (http://alpha.org/our-story/). A Youth Alpha series is also available, which presents the Alpha content in a form accessible to teenagers.

My parish in southeast Michigan has been running Alpha courses for the past two years. It's brought hundreds of people into a deeper understanding of the faith and helped build community within the parish. When they launched the course at my church in fall 2015, I was recruited to serve as a table leader for one of the Youth Alpha groups, due to my experience as a youth ministry volunteer. I served in the same role again in the Alpha course in fall 2016 too.

I found myself participating in Alpha for Educators in June because they were looking for table hosts with experience in Alpha. Being a teacher on summer vacation with lots of extra time, I decided to give up four days to do this. As mentioned above, a typical Alpha course runs for 12 weeks in 2-hour sessions. The Alpha for Educators program was condensed into 4 days, each lasting 6 hours (9:30am-3:30pm). This was a major crash course, but generally suitable for church employees considering running Alpha in their own parishes.

My small group consisted of eight people (including me), all from different parishes, different roles within their parishes, and different spiritual experiences within the Catholic faith. We bonded very quickly. I felt like we were old friends by the end of the morning on Day 2. Our discussion sessions ran very deep, as we shared ideas about faith experiences, evangelization ideas and obstacles, parish dynamics, and our hopes for change in the Catholic church of Detroit. Every discussion filled me with excitement and so much hope and possibility. The Holy Spirit was truly charging us up. All of them were so excited about Alpha's possibilities and how it could help their parishes. I hope all of them have the chance to launch it and tap into its potential.

There's a lot of discussion in the Archdiocese of Detroit these days about how to make the Catholic church more mission-oriented, willing to bring the love of Jesus to people in our communities who have never heard his word or have forgotten. The pastoral letter "Unleash the Gospel" released earlier this spring (a result of the archdiocesan Synod last fall) outlines what needs to be done to make this possible. (Click on the link in the previous paragraph to find this letter. It's a great read!) Alpha for Educators gave me a glimpse of some of these plans starting to be put into motion. My experience at Alpha for Educators also proved to me that my parish is on the right track with running Alpha courses and developing other initiatives to engage people in the faith.

I'm not sure what will happen next and how many metro Detroiters will be reached by Alpha and other programs in the end, but I'm excited by what I see so far!