The Alpha and the Omega… the Alpha Course Explains - by Adrian Brookes
'I'd been a policeman for 17 years,' says Garry Hamilton, 'a detective sergeant for 12 or 13 of those years. I'd become very emotionless. I could go to rapes, murders, serious crimes, and I didn't bat an eyelid. It didn't concern me. But the Alpha course introduced me to a love for Christ. I discovered why I had joined the police force in the first place… because I have a compassion for other people. It was a fabulous experience.'
Garry, 38, from Fremantle, Western Australia, has none of the gruff demeanour you might expect from a long-time detective—from the first words you feel you're connecting with the heart. Yet he openly admits this is only a recent thing, and tells how God has changed him in his six months as a Christian.
'I felt very stressed inside me,' he says. 'Some police will have a bit of a drink, and I suppose they use that as an unwinding tool—but I found my personal relationships were tense as well. I couldn't do anything to relax and unwind. It culminated on one occasion when I punched a wall in my house and actually broke a bone in my hand.
Garry enrolled in Alpha at Perth Christian Life Centre, Canning Vale. 'As I progressed through the Alpha course it dawned on me that I was receiving the fruits of the Holy Spirit, and it was almost like a weight being lifted off me. I could feel myself relaxing. I found myself more at peace within myself. My family relationships have improved tremendously.'
Garry is one of many people world-wide whose lives have been turned around through Alpha. Since its beginnings in the mid-1970s at a London Anglican church, Alpha has spread to some 110 countries. In Australia there is an Alpha national office in Hunters Hill, Sydney, run by national director Mona Carter.
Non-threatening
'I've been involved in evangelism since I was a teenager,' says Mona. This, she will allow, is over 30 years. 'I've done open air meetings, "explosion evangelism," door-knocks… and I've never come across one evangelistic tool that has gone across the world and the denominations in a way this has—which speaks to me that God's got hold of it.'
The essence of the Alpha course is to maintain a non-threatening environment. Run by local churches, it is aimed at anyone who wants to know more about Christianity, but is wary of being pressured. The course runs as a group that meets weekly—usually away from the church in a home or community centre—to learn about and discuss all aspects of Christianity. It encourages questions—indeed, its now-familiar logo is a man staggering under the burden of a life-sized question mark.
'I remember one guy saying he just couldn't get over the fact he was able to do the course without being judged,' says Mona. 'And I think that speaks heaps. There are people who have grown up in the church who for the first time have felt they can ask questions. It filled in the gaps where they haven't felt they could ask questions before.'
The spread of Alpha is all the more remarkable in that it was, until 1993, confined to one London church: Holy Trinity in Brompton, an Anglican church known as 'HTB' in the Alpha world. Originally designed as a four-week orientation course for new Christians in the church, by the early 1990s it was attracting a significant number of no
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