This article first appeared in Itchen Valley News September edition

The big questions of life: they don’t go away.  Perhaps there was a time as a teenager or a young adult when you used to spend all night discussing the meaning of life with your friends.  Then children come along and ask you the most disarming questions – where do we come from and where are we going?  What is the purpose of human life?  Why did it start?  Or perhaps you have seen a sight which is just so beautiful that it has taken your breath away.  Or you have had some colossal experience of grief or joy – a death of someone close to you, a survival against all the odds or a birth maybe, which has made you wonder if there is more to life than you had thought before.

A poll conducted in 2003 revealed that six out of seven people in the UK would resort to prayer in the face of problems in their lives, those of their friends or the wider world.  Why?

Or perhaps you attend church occasionally, but feel that you don’t really understand what is going on – or that others seem to be engaged in some way or with something that has passed you by.

If any of these points are relevant to you, then please do try Alpha – a series of interactive sessions which freely explore the Christian faith.  We have an introductory evening on 30^th September 2014 at St John’s Itchen Abbas, including supper.  It’s all very relaxed and it’s an opportunity to say what you think about the issues presented.

Please do send me an email to let me know if you would like to attend.  There is no charge, but we need to know numbers for catering purposes.

No pressure.  No follow up.  No charge

“What Alpha offers and is attracting thousands of people, is permission, rare in secular culture, to discuss the big questions; life and death and their meaning” The Guardian

http://itchenvalleychurches.org.uk/2014/08/12/take-a-step-closer/ 

Revd Alex Pease

rector@itchenvalleychurches.org

01962 779845