Assisted by congregation members from St Stephen’s, Willoughby, St Basil’s, Artarmon recently completed the ten-week evangelistic Alpha program, run on Sunday nights. Attended by up to twenty people, the success of the course has lead to a new, informal Sunday service at 5pm, commencing on January 11.
In a suburb where the prominent age group is 25-40-year-olds, with residents who only live in the suburb for an average of two years, it has been a struggle to get people into the church. However, last year the people of St Basil’s morning service did an incredible letterbox drop of 30,000 – seen as the best way to reach the high-density, apartment-dwelling populace – to advertise the Alpha Course and recent Christmas services.
The preparation for the new 5pm service has been ‘a long time in hatching,’ according to St Basil’s Curate-in-Charge, the Rev Gerald Beckett. The initial decision to try Alpha at St Basil’s came from discussions with The City of Willoughby Anglican Churches (CWAC), a regular meeting of seven Anglican churches in the area. It’s truly been a co-operative effort, insists Mr Beckett. “The bishop gave us money for printing the handouts, CWAC – particularly St Stephen’s – helped us with people and ideas and training, a young man who comes here who’s good with computer publishing did the leaflets, and the people from St Basil’s delivered them – three thousand a week for ten weeks.”
There are a core group of half a dozen newcomers who are keen to carry over from Alpha to the new 5pm service. With the addition of some St Stephen’s and St Basil’s morning congregation members, it is hoped that this nucleus of people will make the new 5pm service viable for long-term growth.
The service will follow a similar format to Alpha, Mr Becktt says, “with the meal, then a very informal service of some prayers, then a Bible reading. We’re toying with the idea of music – we aren’t sure about that yet – and we’ll have various forms of teaching using tapes and other teaching material. That’s what people have been used to so we’ll continue with that.”
The meal beforehand is key, according to Mr Beckett. “What has really helped to gather the group has been the meal that precedes the main meeting. It helps lubricate the relationships.”
Mr Beckett is also promoting a ‘grass roots’ leadership style for this service, with two or three of the young people that were leading on Alpha doing a large amount of the leadership in the service. “I’m trying to make it a grass roots activity, rather than leading from the top down.”
The invitation of friends and colleagues will be key to the growth of the new service. Mr Beckett stresses that Christians in church should always be evangelistically minded. “We have to be involved in evangelism and practically speaking it has to be church-based. It’s part of the mission in so far as we’re trying to plant a congregation. It has to be done. Necessity is the mother of invention.”