Alpha, Bisto and Omega
Date Added: Friday 26th August 2005

The Bishop of Ebbsfleet, Rt Revd Andrew Burnham, is a ‘flying bishop’, created to look after parishes which do not accept women clergy. He looks after several such parishes in the Oxford Diocese. Below, he writes about his ‘conversion’ to Alpha.

THERE has been some surprise that, just before the summer, I launched an Alpha initiative. ‘Isn’t that stuff a bit too evangelical?’ ‘a bit cheesy?’ I was asked. ‘Isn’t it a bit weak on the sacraments?’ (Mind you, what could be more sacramental than meeting together to learn about Jesus over supper?)

I myself was surprised when I first discovered that it is in Catholic countries that Alpha is spreading fastest and doing some of its most valuable work. I was no less surprised by the enthusiasm of the Roman Catholic authorities, from the Pope down. Alpha, as the name suggests, is just a beginning. It is pre-evangelism or, at any rate, pre-catechesis. You become intrigued and infatuated with someone before you genuinely fall in love and get to know someone. Sometimes infatuations blaze for a while and burn out. Sometimes they lead to a real encounter and a real relationship. So it is with our relationship with Jesus.

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