One of the people in our Alpha course – the one who’s most vocal and gracious about not now being a Christ-follower – was the focus of a few very interesting moments last night.
Stepping into context: He and his wife (both are on Alpha) came to our marriage workshop this spring. We started building relationship with them at that. We swap childcare on Friday nights so that either they or we can have a date. This week the wife’s grandmother died, and she asked me to lead the funeral service (which is a huge honor). Slowly building relationship for the sake of relationship. Relationship in process.
We’re on week 4 of Alpha, wherein the talk focuses on the Bible. This guy has severe vision impairment. It’s very, very hard for him to see details, to read. He can’t drive. His wife drives him everywhere, or he takes the bus.
He pulled me aside after the video and asked if Bibles were available on tape. We had a great discussion about the ones I’ve found on CD, and about large print Bibles, etc. Next week I’m going to be looking for the NLT on CD that Costco was carrying a while back.
We did our first Bible study in the small group, looking at the story of the lost son/prodigal father. It was a very good discussion – those who aren’t regular church attenders, or not Christians at all, participated more than those who were.
The introduction to Luke 15’s story, though, caught this guy off guard. He wanted to know why the tax collectors led the list of “dispicable people”. This guy works as a collections agent for the IRS, and has for 18 years. With some historical context, he felt a bit better. But it was fun watching that discussion unfold.
pat loughery 
Leave a comment