Sandakan Diocesan Alpha Course for Clergy, Religious and Lay Leaders

Sandakan : The 2 ½ day Sandakan Diocesan Alpha Course tailored for Clergy, Religious and lay leaders attended by 54 participants from across the four parishes held at the Sandakan Diocesan Conference Room, came to an end yesterday,  Sunday 24^th October 2010.

The prayer over session

The second part of the course proper on Saturday 23^rd October 2010 was the ‘Weekend Away Experience’ covering eight topics presented through life talk and DVD presentation. The day’s sessions covered the following topics;

• Who  is the Holy Spirit?
•  What Can the Holy Spirit Do?
•  Repentance and Examination of Conscience
•  How can I be filled with the Holy Spirit?
• Ministry Time
• How can I make the most of the rest of my life
•  How and why should I tell others
•  What about the Church?

Bishop Julius addressing the participants

Bishop Julius, who was with the participants at most of the sessions, right after the final talk on ‘What About the Church?’ said that the Church has many programs designed to bring people to Christ. Many were led into the Church, some remained and again, many had left.  The prelate called upon the participants to take a closer look and reflect on the effectiveness of the existing programs.

He went on to say, ‘Alpha is a proven tool to bring Christ to others. I hope you will bring back with confidence what you had acquired to share with the people in your parish’.

Small group sharing

The sessions yesterday, focused on ‘Training and Planning’ giving participants grouped according to parishes, ample opportunity to share on the practicality of implementing the program in their parishes.  Representatives from the four parishes were very positive towards getting the program off the ground.

Suzanna Hon

Suzanna Hon, of the St Mary's Cathedral RCIA team, has this to say about the course. 'I find the Alpha Course simple, easy to carry out with sufficient supporting training materials. I hope to use certain parts of the course content for the RCIA process with the consent of the team members'.

Sharing by parish representatives

Token of appreciation to the facilitators

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