Thank you, Alpha

At the risk of sounding like the mother in Miranda Hart’s hilarious sitcom I never knew becoming a Christian was going to be ‘such fun’!  I thought it meant being pious and serious and would mean doing all sorts of things I didn’t really want to do.  And anyway doing as I was told had never been part of my make up!  But I found none of this was true.  Every day I trust that God’s plans for me are good and that He will always be at my side and yes, I am willing to do as He tells me.

I realise now that God started preparing me for this time about five years ago as I found myself having to draw on an inner strength I never knew I had.  Looking back I realise that I was being prepared well in advance and that the Holy Spirit had set to work in my life some time ago.

I went to a Catholic day school in Weybridge and was taught by nuns from the age of four until I left at the age of sixteen.  Although my parents were not Catholic they liked the school.  I suspect that as the pupils wore white gloves in the summer they probably thought a school like this would turn me in to a young lady…that is for others to say whether this happened or not but I don’t think my parents choice of school for me was anything to do with religion but simply that they believed it was a good school.

Apart from the church services at school I only went to church occasionally with my family and can’t even recall which church we went to.  It was a case of ‘hatches, matches and dispatches’ and like many others we would visit at Christmas and Easter and would not call ourselves regular churchgoers.  My father tells me he always says his prayers at night and my mother describes herself as an agnostic though she did say that when I was seriously ill as a small child and in and out of hospital that she made a deal with God and only asked for one thing and that thing was that I would get better.   So the prayers of an agnostic can be answered after all…

I was one of only three non-Catholics in my class at school and always felt something of an outsider.  The non-Catholics were told ‘You are welcome to come to the services but you don’t have to’.  Although I did go to the services this affected my feelings around religion in a profoundly negative way as I always felt that church was there but that I was not truly welcome.

When in 1992 Alex and I were married at St Nicolas Church in Cranleigh, a village near my family home, I loved the wedding ceremony more than any other part of the day.  I felt so happy and at peace that I didn’t want it to end, I just wanted to stay forever in the church with my new husband, in God’s presence, that beautiful Spring day.

A few years later when our first child was baptised at St Nicolas I mentioned in passing to the vicar, Nigel Nicolson, that  I would like to get more involved in the church in Walton-on-Thames.  He told this news to the vicar at St Mary’s and one morning  I found my local vicar introducing himself to me on the doorstep whilst I stood awkwardly in my dressing gown holding our tiny first- born child.  To be perfectly frank this visit disturbed me greatly as I felt I wanted to come to church in my own time and this unannounced visit, though kindly meant, did not feel right.  It was clearly not the best time for me to make any way forward as to where my potential faith might take me.

Over the next ten years or so something was happening as I still felt I wanted to get involved but didn’t quite know how to go about it.  I now had two beautiful daughters and even though Linda (Muggleton) encouraged me to bring them to Toddler’s Praise, something still held me back.  Although I had attended some of the services at St Mary’s and St John’s (school events, Christmas etc) I was aware of an overriding feeling that somehow I just didn’t belong.

Once again I felt the Holy Spirit’s presence when, in 2008, my mother became unwell and was in hospital for some months.  She developed septicaemia and then was in a coma for several days.  I drove home from the hospital believing she would not survive the night but that night, in a vivid dream, I saw a vision of her moving towards my bed and I was compelled to sit bolt upright.  A vision of my mother stood before me wearing a pale green suit and a serene, peaceful expression on her face.  I sensed that God was with her and that he was telling me that she was going to be alright.   I slept soundly that night for the first time in several days.

Then I was truly tested.  In 2010 we found out that our eldest daughter had been suffering from a serious psychiatric illness for some years although we were unaware of this.  We were shocked that this had come to light and that her illness suddenly presented an alarming challenge for us all as a family.  In 2011 she spent six months in a psychiatric hospital.    She has now been discharged and we have much to be thankful for.  She received lots of support (some good and some not so good from the psychiatric profession), most especially this support came from our friends and my wonderful bible group and she is doing well.  Her faith is so important to her.

She had found her own faith at eleven years of age when she started going to the Christian Union sessions at her secondary school and did Junior Alpha.  She had also formed a bond with the Lost Property lady at school!  This special lady recognised that God was calling our daughter and encouraged her greatly as her faith developed.

I am guessing the reason you are reading this is that you are wondering what Alpha could mean for you.  My advice would be to go along to the introduction evening with an open mind and see how it feels.  If you still aren’t too sure you might just be curious to find out what it’s all about and feel you want to go again.  Remember you don’t need to try too hard for if you seek God, He will find you.  Taking the first step may be all you need to do in the first place.   God will do everything else.  And don’t be scared by how friendly the helpers are, you will soon get used to this and also get used to the delicious food that you will be served before the evening gets underway!

Nicky Gumbel’s videos are great to watch.  He makes everything easy to understand, throws in some jokes too and the way his wife Pippa lovingly gazes at him as he speaks is just so lovely!  After the video there is plenty of time to explore the video’s main topic and to ask all those questions that are on your mind.  However silly your question might seem to you, it doesn’t feel at all silly to ask, as John Muggleton and all the helpers on the course make it feel so comfortable and natural to ask what you need to know.

The Alpha Weekend in Sussex is the icing on the cake when you will get to deepen your friendship with the other people on the course, get some amazing insights and it is great fun as well.  The walk on the beach is always energizing and it gets you in the mood for the party in the evening.

After the weekend there are a few more sessions and then there is the Alpha Celebration Dinner at the end which is always a beautiful occasion.   What follows may be an opportunity to join a bible group if you wish to, visits to HTB and events such as Pentecost at the O2, yes a proper Christian rock concert! – and much more.

So where did Alpha come in for me? Doing an Alpha course has transformed my life!  That is not to say my journey to this point was always easy but don’t let that put you off, not for a second.

Alpha came along, just like God does, with perfect timing!  Carol Abson, who has taught our girls Suzuki piano, told us about the Alpha course as our eldest daughter and I had mentioned we were thinking of getting confirmed together.  It turned out that because of the difference in our ages it was tricky for us to do the same confirmation class at St Marys, but Carol told us that if we did the Alpha course together this could lead to us to being confirmed at the end of the course if we wanted it to.

Guess what, we did! We were confirmed together in December 2010 and haven’t looked back.  This is my testimony but I have a feeling that further testimonies from the Phillips family may well follow, at least this is what I hope with all my heart.  Thank you Lord for the amazing work you have been doing in my family so far and thank you very, very much Alpha!

Amanda Phillips - January 2012