by Ken Morgan | Aug 27, 2024 | Uncategorized
“We tried Alpha and it didn’t work.” Countless ministers have reported this to me. Yet Alpha is easily the most effective process-evangelism resource used by churches across the western-world. Alpha serves as the centrepiece of the mission process in some remarkably effective churches – most notably London’s Holy Trinity Brompton. I’ve heard other church leaders similarly lament the failure of playgroups, kids clubs, sporting clubs and meals programs. Yet I have seen dozens of churches build fruitful mission pathways featuring these very same programs. Imagine hiring a tradie to build an extension on your house and they showed up onsite wielding only a hammer. When you question their logic and they respond, “This is an awesome hammer. I’ve watched lots of top-notch tradies and they all used hammers like this one.” Churches often fall into the mistake of thinking a single tool will enable them to become effective disciple-making communities. We hear stories about churches that began running a particular program with great success and surmise that running the same program will deliver similar results. Occasionally it works. But more often success in making new disciples is due to a confluence of factors all working in unison. Let’s think about process. Earlier I described Alpha as a process-evangelism resource. In churches that use Alpha effectively, it’s usually a process within a longer process of disciple-making. That process usually includes with an environment that meets a felt need, like a playgroup or mainly music, where warm and trusting relationships can form. From there it might be an invitation to a reading group or the Alpha marriage course – again,...
by Ken Morgan | Aug 13, 2024 | Uncategorized
As a young fella I had a conversation with a heroin addict. Thinking I could educate him out of his self-destructive lifestyle (I was young, naïve and heroic, okay?), I bluntly stated. “You keep doing what you’re doing and you’ll be dead before you’re thirty.” “I know.” He responded blankly. He didn’t need educating on the dangers of drug abuse. He needed a reason to live. He needed an answer to the question, ‘Why?’ Education and training seem to be the go-to solutions for what ails society. Yet education campaigns alone have been pretty ineffective in dealing with problems like obesity and domestic violence. Responding to a problem with education and training assumes the reason people are doing something harmful or not doing something desirable is their lack of understanding and skills. When something isn’t happening in a church, the reflex action seems to be to run some training. Training is useful for equipping people with skills and processes required to effectively fulfil roles in the life of the church. Churches frequently offer training in disciple-making skills like sharing personal faith, sharing the gospel or helping people to develop devotional habits and spiritual disciplines. Yet even if training is front-ended with a rationale or a biblical imperative, it will at best answer ‘Why?’ at a cerebral or subscription level, while primarily answering questions about ‘What?’ and ‘How?’ It equips those already motivated, but doesn’t motivate those who aren’t. The deeper answer to ‘Why?’ usually comes wrapped in human flesh – Jesus came as incarnation, not information. Jesus appointed the apostles firstly to be with him. They followed him personally. Jesus made disciples by...
