Bundaberg Baptist Church

Due to the changing nature of Covid restrictions (Brisbane had gone into lockdown the week we had determined to make a final decision on how to run it), we decided to run Alpha Online for a second year.

To our disappointment, we only had 5-6 people sign up.

The first session came and went and the usual drop-off occured where people decide Alpha isn’t for them this time around. But 4 people stayed on. One was a lady who was well along in her faith journey and came to find out more about the basics of Christianity, one fellow who was also well along in his journey but who hadn’t been attending a church or associating with Christians for quite some time, and two older ladies who had been around the edges of Christianity before but didn’t know much about it.

The first of the older two (J) had wanted to come along because she had seen her daughter and grandchildren get so much from Church and were always so happy to go. She wanted to find out why. The second lady (L) had come along (from Warwick online, about 5 hours away from Bundy) at the invite of a lady she’d befriended 15 years ago when both of their husbands had been through (and subsequently died of) cancer.

The change over the weeks, as always, was wonderful to witness and be a small part of as the Gospel message of love, hope and forgiveness made it’s way into their lives. At first, J was surprised that so many Scientists and well-educated people took the Bible and Jesus so seriously. L commented that she’d never heard about the hope and forgiveness messages rife throughout the Bible. She’d only ever heard about Christianity’s judgement before.

The week after the video on prayer, L commented on how so many coincidences were starting to happen. She found it amazing. J wasn’t quite there yet, but did note how she was starting to understand why her family liked Christianity and church so much (she’d started attending very regularly just prior to Alpha). J also found it hard to pray – ‘How do you do it? That video was great, but I don’t feel like I know how to properly yet.’

During the Holy Spirit weekend, L travelled up to Bundaberg to attend (we were thrilled) and had an encounter with the Holy Spirit after a prayer session. During later weeks she informed us that she’d decided to follow Jesus and that some more amazing coincidences had occured:
– She’d started attending a Church in Warwick and had made many new friends
– She’d started telling others about what she’d been doing, including her daughter (‘My daughter said that she was happy for me, but that she didn’t want it being forced down her throat, to which I thought, “Well, I won’t do that, but you can’t stop me talking about what I’m just generally doing, which includes church and reading the Bible, so I’ll just do that.”)
– She had prayed about and invited several of her friends along to church to ‘come and see’
– She had a conversation on the side of the road as she was walking her dogs with the father of one the children she’d taught at pre-school the year prior, he pulled over because he knew her and they had an hour long conversation about his daughter, life, faith, Christianity and Alpha!

Also during the Holy Spirit weekend, J pulled me aside after one of the sessions and said, ‘I never wanted to go this far with all of this, I just wanted to see why my daughter liked it all so much.’ My reply was, ‘But here you are, and this is all why. I don’t think you’ve done all of this by mistake. Remember, you don’t have to do anything – but maybe just keep listening and thinking on it? Up to you.’ J agreed and stayed on. Later that day she came back to prayer and asked about it further, expressing her frustration at not being able to do it ‘well’. I referred her to Romans 8:26 and explained to her that the Bible actually tells us that the Spirit understands us, even if we don’t understand ourselves – just start praying to the Lord and let it all out – frustration, anger, happiness, joy, requests, anything. She later admitted that conversation was one of about 5 times in a few days she’d be told about groaning to the Spirit. Earlier that week she’d attended a prayer meeting (despite not really knowing what to do) and one of our pastors had done a devotion on prayer from Romans 8 and spoken about groaning and how the Spirit intercedes for us. The day after the Holy Spirit weekend, she’d asked another of the pastors about praying and his response was, ‘Have you tried just groaning?’ She couldn’t believe it. None of the the pastors, or myself had communicated that week at all. Several weeks later, J had given her life to the Lord and was attending a Bible study with new church friends and had started inviting her own friends along to church events and get togethers.

After a discouraging start, and despite us, the Lord was still faithful throughout and after Alpha.

This is our 4th year running Alpha and Jesus has blessed it again.

I don’t know why it keeps surprising me, but it does. I thought at the beginning that maybe this is a year where we just do what we can and try and build for next year. I didn’t see anything happening. I’m getting used to, and quite enjoying, being wrong. God is good.