Alpha Summary & Feedback

This section is really intended as a summation of the course and a response to a paper version of the feedback form I was given at the end of week 9.

I think it's worth concluding things on a personal note and pointing out some of the limitations of this account.


If you're new to the blog and would like to start reading from the beginning, please use the links on the right hand side to travel back in the mists of time to week 1, October 2009!

At times, I think my blog will be difficult or frustrating reading for some people, and I find that regrettable, though I'm not moved particularly to apologise; it has always been an honest record, and I hope accurately reflects my feelings at various times.

There were obviously some difficulties in recording these views as a blog - as I've mentioned before, most of the people I refer to have had their anonymity preserved. The exceptions are those who were those who are employees in some capacity of the church (their names could be pretty easily obtained from a cursory search of the Kerith site).

Also, there is a sense that despite my best efforts at balance, I may have summarily failed to provide it. Not least because this is necessarily a monologue - everything recorded here is through the prism of my own experiences.

I also didn't want to reveal my blog to anyone before it was finished in case it compromised that balance or that I started writing for a specific "nominal" audience, meaning that opportunities for reply by those who attended were non-existent in effect.

Despite these limitations, I hope this is a balanced, honest and interesting read for those considering the course. Some of the content is necessarily Bracknell-orientated, and it's worth noting that it's highly unlikely your own experience will be quite the same as mine given the variables at work. Nonetheless, I hope it's of some use to the casual reader, not least with respect to the content.

On that note, here's my personal feedback in response to the sheet provided:

Why did I decide to do the Alpha Course?

To me, there was a huge swathe of the country I live in who go to great lengths to worship an invisible being. If that doesn't pique your interest, then I guess you're either already one of them, or totally disinterested in the world around you. I suppose on a basic level I had questions too, which I hoped would be answered or at least the underlying assumptions confronted.

How much did the Alpha Course meet your expectations?

It met some expectations - the expectation for debate, investigation and discovery - to a certain extent. It intermittently delivered the kind of course I had expected and wanted, but rarely gave complete satisfaction. The root cause of this deficiency was the number of Christians that had decided to attend. As (generously) one of three people attending the course who couldn't be described as Christians, this left a good 60-70% of the time simply spent watching the vast majority of attendees agreeing with one another. If the small group of agnostics and "waverers" had not been there, I wonder what kind of shape this course would have taken.

Were you able to attend the Away-day? If yes, what were your thoughts about it?

Expounded at exhausting length here!

When you started the Course, how would you have described yourself in relation to Christianity?

I wanted to find out more.

How would you describe yourself now in relation to Christianity?

I want to find out more.

Has the course:

a) Helped you to understand the process for becoming a Christian?

Yes

b) Led you to change your ideas about Christianity? If so, in what ways?

I am not sure it has in all honesty. It's put me in touch with "good Christians" - people who were kind, patient and likeable. It also introduced me to a couple of people I basically never want to see again. So in that sense, it's not that much different to any other social gathering! In terms of Christianity, it's helped me to understand why I feel the way I do rather than change that directly - in some senses it's just defined my position more clearly rather than undermined it as such.

c) Helped you in any other ways?

It gave me a forum to express my own ideas, and my own questions, albeit less frequently and in-depth than I would have liked.

What did you enjoy most about the Course?

The genuine enthusiasm the leaders had for the material, and how down-to earth many of them were. I enjoyed the cut and thrust of the debate, when it happened, and I enjoyed learning. It was messy, annoying, challenging, absorbing and totally human with all the faults that entails.

What did you enjoy least about the Course?

All of these issues are described in-depth elsewhere in the blog, but....

• The venue - hugely limited.
• The ratio of Christians to non-Christians.
• The rather lax timekeeping (occasionally a bit annoying, but not altogether a bad thing as it gave time for relaxed discussion prior to the course starting)

In what ways do you think the course could be improved?

The Costa Venue.

It was sometimes just plain uncomfortable. It was routinely difficult to hear what was being said, and in essence it was ill-suited to what I needed from the course - a venue for discussion. I understood that it would be "less threatening" to non-Christians, but by the end of the course, I was probably the only one that fitted that description in its entirety, and I'm certainly not intimidated by church buildings anyway. The insensitivity of the staff (who, fair enough, had work to do), was sometimes a severe obstacle. At several intervals, key points of the discussion were interrupted by people carrying mops, emptying bins, or once asking loudly if anyone needed the toilet as they had to go and clean it.

I also honestly think that holding an "Alpha for Christians" would be a good idea based on this evidence. I am still stumped as to why there were so many there at this "introduction to Christianity".

Do you have any other comments about the Alpha Course?

Yes...! This blog!

Was the Alpha Course worthwhile?

In short, yes. Whichever angle you approach it from, it will force you to rationalise and explain your opinion. Being challenged is healthy, for an Atheist, an Agnostic, a Christian or even Jewish people, as I saw in my particular course.

My overall score depends very much on what you want out of the Alpha Course. If you attend expecting a deep theological discussion, it's probably not going to suit. If you want to go along, filled with indignation and anger at Christianity, I also wouldn't recommend it, but I don't think that would necessarily stop you. If you want a relatively gentle introduction, with some nice people in a non-threatening context, then go for it. Much depends on the dynamic of your particular group I suspect - different people will give a very different atmosphere, and I can only speak for my particular one.

Overall, I would give this Alpha Course a 7 out of 10. Not so lightweight as to be a waste of time, nor so in-depth as to be totally impenetrable to anyone. It was delivered with enthusiasm and sincerity, and without exception, the team members were approachable and sincere.

Alpha Course - Day Ten - The Finale

A cosy and compact meeting was tinged with a little sadness as we convened and then bade farewell to Alpha for the final time. It's true that I have come to regard some of the characters from the Alpha course as friends, and a few I very much admire as people (perhaps more than as Christians). It's amusing me now to think of my initial preconceptions, being totally unprepared for this course, and to compare them with the reality. I hope to summarise more effectively in a later post, but for now, it makes sense to focus on this last segment of actual content.

The theme was "What About the Church?". On paper, this was one of the least controversial sessions, a kind of cherry on the top of a cake that was at times too difficult to fully digest and at others entirely unappetising. My first thoughts were that the church was merely the sum of its congregation. That much was easy to relate to and easy enough to accept, and as it turns out, I wasn't contradicted by what was going to be covered. Prior to the course starting, I took the opportunity to take a quick scan through the provided booklet. There's not much contained in it to be honest; it's largely a heavily condensed list of themes, appended with bible references, but it's nonetheless a good starting point. I knew from the off that the emphasis would be on the idea of the church being "people" first and foremost, but there was some very odd imagery employed to make the point. On top of all that, there was also an insistence on "unity" being all-important.

This latter point struck me as very interesting. When all things are considered, the protestant arm of the Christian church has been shattered into many smaller pieces time and again. Individual creeds such as Presbyterianism, Methodism, Mennonite, Anabaptist and myriad others have all chosen to concentrate on different, and occasionally opposing aspects of Christianity. In the face of this diversity, attempts at "unity" are tempered by an absolute conviction that your own beliefs are correct. To overcome this, Simon Benham (the leader of the Kerith church, and the speaker last night), introduced the concept of a "tiered" approach in effect; that "core beliefs" are separable from the less important, peripheral beliefs. These were defined, afterwards, by Lee as belief in Jesus Christ (this is surely a unifying theme for all Christians), adult baptisms (which means that the Kerith differs from some denominations but not others), and the idea of the Holy Spirit being a current, real and powerful entity (as opposed to other denominations which believe that it was a temporary phenomena or restricted in direct relevance to the disciples). The latter was not unexpected certainly; the emphasis on the "Holy Spirit" has been palpable throughout, not least in the away day, which was a "Holy Spirit extravaganza" comprising three sessions devoted entirely to the subject.

The speech was interesting, though I suffered an inkless pen about half-way through which meant my notes are sadly incomplete. From memory, there were three key elements. The first was Simon's testimony - how he had found God. As my opinions of this sort of thing have been covered at length, I won't expand on them here. That's not to say that this was dull or even pointless; it served as a primer for his "Christian credentials" well enough, which seems a natural preface to the rest of his speech. The second phase was employing imagery to describe the church, as envisaged in the bible. The idea of "ekklesia" - the Greek word, simply "a gathering" - which in turn applied to "the people of God" was the first theme. Then there were other images; the idea of the church being the "Body of Christ" and even more dubiously the "Bride of Christ". The former was fair enough - the idea, first expounded by Paul - that the church embraces the uniqueness of people, their different gifts and their different talents, thus taking different roles as the different parts of the body do, to make a functioning whole (though I am not sure how far you can extend that metaphor). The latter - the "bride of Christ" - is a frankly bizarre analogy. I can't really understand why this was employed as a metaphor - it seems uncomfortable that the "people" that comprise the church are being prepared for holy wedlock with Jesus himself. I think perhaps the idea of a bride doesn't merely conjure the exceptional beauty, purity and perfection commonly associated, it also conjures the image of at the there being some kind of odd celestial "consummation" involved. Maybe that's just my unfortunate perception. The third segment related to the necessity of participating in the church - that Christianity was best demonstrated in action, despite the emphasis on the written word. Again - fair enough, depending on what that action is, and who exactly it involves.

However, the realisation soon dawned that the Kerith church has its own "creed", or its own agenda depending on your viewpoint. This was something I really wanted to seize upon. Much of the talk afterwards was taken up with some rather pointless praise of the Kerith over other churches, stating how exciting and fresh it was, with accusations levelled of the standard CoE church being "staid", "fusty" and boring. This seemed judgemental to me, and as the only intermittent church attendee, and quite possibly the only non-Christian present, I found myself completely unable to join in with the fulsome praise. I don't dislike the Kerith at all - I think it's a group of well meaning people, who generally do good things for many people. Great. But to elevate it above another church seems arrogant. They're all supposed to be worshipping the same God after all, and by denigrating these small or traditional churches, they cheapen themselves in my opinion. It's almost a symptom of the "corporatisation" of religion that these churches are being seen as "competitors" rather than complementary "allies" to the Christian cause. If the 'small things' really don't matter, then is it necessary to mock the dwindling congregations of these "castles" quite so much?

As a result, the "core beliefs" I asked about were outlined, as above, and I asked about how these were arrived at, and how these could be reconciled with a wider idea of "unity". The "tiered" approach was all very well, but to me it seemed that there was a constant air of compromise about things. Moreover, if there was no agreement about what was really the "true", God-intended approach, then this can only be divisive. There are surely only so many times that cracks can be papered over with agreement on the basics. Wars and murders have been committed throughout history over incredibly trifling religious details to modern eyes - how was it that this sudden insistence that it "doesn't really matter" was arrived at now after 2000-odd years? The much mooted "relationship" with God will no doubt be said to be the core, but there seems a schizophrenia between having your own, personalised relationship (there's no way you can "adopt" anyone else's), but at the same time insisting on sharing, and communing together inside a structure which rejects and accepts certain ways of expressing that relationship, all against the backdrop of the bible which again states pretty unequivocally some very specific laws which in time seem to have come to be considered "optional".

It seems the message is to have your own relationship with God according to someone else's rules, and make sure you do it the way the bible says (selectively interpreted) at the same time.

More was said at this point about how "exciting" the Kerith was. I asked whether this excitement was a good thing - whether something was lost with this insistence on the atmosphere, the youth-orientated way of communicating. In a round-about way, I asked whether this was evidence of dumbing down, whether style became more important than substance. In defence, Lee stated that the process was more about communicating in a relevant way, and he pointed to the fact that some of the older hymns found their origins in "pub songs" of the day. I think this comes down to whether you think the relentless march toward "ease" and "accessibility" is a good thing or not. It seems to portend a future of grown adults spent sitting around chuckling inanely at "Mr Men" books while they're spoon-fed mulch by a robot, if you follow it to its logical conclusion. That's not purely a Christian issue, but one faced by decadent western society in general I suppose.

I couldn't muster much enthusiasm for a drawn out discussion, and there didn't seem much danger of it happening anyway, so I was content to listen for the most part.

Much was said about participation, coming back to the "body of Christ" analogy - that people were fulfilled by participating in things, specifically by "serving" in the church. Again, fair enough, I don't have any particular issue with that, apart from when people are excluded for spurious reasons I suppose. I think participation in a range of things is character building, and it is indeed a noble thing to offer help to others. No arguments here.

The session inexorably trickled to a close, and we ended with a "round robin" with our thoughts about the course as a whole. By this point I had about 15 seconds left to speak in before they locked us all into Costa, and as much as I might have enjoyed that opportunity, I had work in the morning.

When it came to my turn, I simply and honestly said:

"I'm wiser now than I was when I started".

And on that note, the Kerith Community Church Alpha Course Autumn/Winter 2009 closed, with some warm farewells and lots of handshakes. I'll miss a few of the people, and I'll miss the routine of Wednesday night challenge and counter-challenge, of researching and yep, even the little bit of anger, self-righteous indignation and annoyance I sometimes felt.

Tonight - a poignant 7 out of 10.