Alpha Malaysia work place ministry conference - please pray with me

On Tuesday (4 October 2011) I will be leaving Cape Town for Malaysia for the Alpha Malaysia work place ministry conference.

I am so excited about this event! The Lord has given me such a deep love for the people of Malaysia - I have had the immeasurable privilege of visiting there many times in the last few years. I have a number of very close friends there. Cynthia Wong, the head of Alpha in Malaysia, contacted me some time last year after getting a copy of my book 'Transform your work life' and asked if would come and speak at the their conference.

Among the speakers at this event will be Graham Power, Doug Spada, Tan Shri Dato' Francis Yeoh, Dato' Sri Idris Jala, and Ps. Dr. Philip Lyn.

The conference takes place in a remarkable venue - the resort of Sutera Harbour in Kota Kinabalu. This resort was developed by the Christian Businessman Edward Ong. He is a man who truly understands what it means to engage in responsible, ethical and sustainable business that brings blessing to the community in which business is done.

Once the conference is done and we have also spoken at the Skyline Church I shall be heading to Hong Kong for some meetings and work before returning home by the 13th of October.

I would truly appreciate your prayers for this special trip, please pray with me that God works in a special way to encourage, inspire and renew the participants. Please also pray that as I share and minister that the Lord will use my me in spite of my weaknesses to achieve His will for transformation in business. Please could you also pray for Cynthia and her wonderful team. Lastly, could I please ask you to keep my wife Megan and our children, Courtney and Liam, in your prayers? Megie is still recovering from surgery to her wrist and so that places an extra little bit of pressure on her with me away.

I will be posting updates on my twitter feed, on tumblr, and also here - so please do check in on all of those platforms for updates. Thanks for your partnership in ministry!

Nicky Gumbel from the Alpha movement shares his thoughts in the Third Lausanne Congress in Cape Town

This morning I had the chance of meeting with Nicky Gumbel, the vicar of Holy Trinity Brompton in London, his wife Pippa, Graham Power from the Global Day of Prayer and some other friends.  He is a super nice guy and is truly down to earth.  He has a passion for the Gospel and a real passion to introduce people to the person of Christ in a way that is built around relationship and community - hence the Alpha Course.

In this photo you'll see (from left to right).  Etienne Piek (international coordinator of the Global Day of Prayer), Graham Power the founder of the Global Day of Prayer and Unashamedly Ethical Movements, Nicky Gumbel and Pippa Gumbel, Tricia Neill (the international coordinator of Alpha) and myself (@digitaldion).

I recoreded this short video with Nicky (forgive me for not having a chance to edit the start!) - in it he shares his expectations and experience of the Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization in Cape Town.

We're working really hard to get the videos from all of the sessions at Lausanne onto the Global Conversation website.  So please visit that as frequently as possible - of course those are official videos (properly edited etc.).

The mission shaped Church and the Alpha course.

Over the last two days I had the joy of attending the Alpha South Africa seminar at Camps Bay United Church. 

Today I spoke on the topic 'Forming a Mission shaped Church' at the conference.  A number of the people asked me for the powerpoint slides and the video that I used.

The basic line or reasoning that I took was the following.

1.  Christianity is shifting from traditional Western Churches (and even in some senses from traditional Western theology) to the South and the East.

2. This shift is both geographical (because of population growth and basic needs such as poverty, health, justice and need), and also theological (from propositions of faith to experiences of faith).  Please see the maps and reasoning in my slides.  For an explanation of this shift, some projections going forward, and some reasons for this shift, please read Philip Jenkins' great book 'The next Christendom' (you'll see an image of the cover in my slides).

3.  The Alpha course is quite well suited to changes in engaging persons with the message of the Gospel since it allows for interaction around the truths (as people engage with the topics, without having to be confronted constantly by 'clear and closed' truths).  It also facilitates community and relationships.  It is a truly wonderful instrument for the Gospel and the Kingdom of God.  I explain how the Church can become more 'missional' by referring to 5 mindset and worldview changes that we shall need to go through in order to engage the world where it is, rather than inviting the world to come to where the Church is.

So, here are my slides (Powerpoint 7MB)

Here's the video that I used (it highlights how the world is changing, and how we need to find new means with which to communicate and create engagement around the message and person of the Gospel). If you're interested in previous posts that I've made on new media and ministry please see my post here, or please see this post and the video on new media here.

Finally, I would encourage you to consider this great promotional video for the Alpha course (done by Bear Grylls - the ultimate 'survival' expert!)

Have you ever run Alpha in your Church, business, or been part of Alpha in a prison setting? I'd love to hear your feedback!  Thanks to all those who prepared the Alpha Conference.  You can find out about the Alpha Course here.

And, you can find out about Alpha in South Africa here.