What can Alpha contribute to the emerging Church movement?
A way but not THE way, of doing evangelism. One of my big concerns, as an insider, of the emerging church movement is that we are stuck in deconstruction regarding evangelism. In my view, we too often confuse “intention” with manipulation. Intention is simply the determination to act in a certain way, to aim at a target; it’s the resolve to will something into being; to focus one’s capacity to choose an object or course of action. We all do this everyday. You are reading this article because you intended to do so and had you not, you would not be reading it. If you’re interested you can read another article I wrote called “tension with intention”, One thing I hope Alpha can contribute is to demonstrate a way of doing evangelism that is intentional without being manipulative. I think I know how to do it: take the Alpha Course, or your chosen approach to evangelism, and baptize it, dip it, immerse it in the Golden Rule and the Great Commandment—treating others the way you would want to
