Volunteer with Alpha TeamVolunteer Needs
At this point in the process we need volunteers for small group facilitation, hosts, greeters, meal preparation, and music talent. Contact Felix Barba, 503-742-8210; [email protected] to volunteer & help share the Good News of Jesus Christ! Endorsements |
Alpha: More than Catholics Come HomeCatholics Come Home History
Years ago St. John the Apostle ran Catholics Come Home, a six-week program, with success, but as time went on the Catholics Come Home enterprise grew in popularity, but focused mainly on getting the message out via mass communication and internet. Catholics Come Home stopped updating their parish program and as a result many parishes stopped running Catholics Come Home. The Need is Great There is no shortage of Catholics that want to come home to the Church and encounter Jesus Christ. And no shortage of people that do not know Jesus. We learn about evangelization from teachings of the Church and the writings of the Popes. Pope Paul VI wrote in 1975 on the topic of evangelization in the document: Evangelii Nuntiandi, but it largely gone unknown in many circles. Pope Paul VI said that there is no evangelization unless the person and mission of Jesus Christ are proclaimed. And any evangelization efforts must also seek to improve the social justice of the people with whom the Gospel is being shared. Which Tool? So it comes to the question of which tool do we use to share the good news. There are few tools out there. There is Christ Life that originated on the East Coast and there is Alpha Course that originated from London and through the Anglican churches. Over the past 20 or 30 years Alpha has grown as an ecumenical tool use across Christian denominations including Catholic circles and there has formed a separate Catholic advisory board to oversee its implementation in Catholic Churches. It is used in this archdiocese at St. Mary Cathedral, St. Mary in Corvallis, St. Anthony in Tigard, and St. Patrick in Portland. Alpha as only the Beginning Alpha is meant as the initial proclamation of the good news which models St. Peter's proclamation in the Book of Acts, Chapter 2: “But this is how God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, saying that his Christ would suffer. Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord” It focuses on the person and the mission of Jesus. It is meant to be only the beginning or “Alpha”, not the Omega. It is 11 weeks long, and is not meant to be an exhaustive explanation of all the teachings of the Catholic Church. After the 11 weeks it would natural be followed up by catechesis on the saints, the four marks of the Church, the sacraments, the meaning of the Mass etc. Programs that would meet these goals for ongoing Catechesis include Symbolon, or Bishop Barron’s Catholicism Series. An Opportunity to Go after the Lost Sheep Alpha is an opportunity to welcome Catholics who are away from the church, or Catholics that need a booster shot and to be awakened in their faith, and also primarily to reach those who have never heard the Good News and are interested in learning more about Jesus and the Church he founded. |