Alpha Lounge--Week 3

After having missed week 2 last Saturday, I made it back tonight. It was an excellent evening. Several of us tonight noted that it really was a worship celebration, like a party. If "church" could be like this on Saturday night, then I feel I could get by without going on Sunday morning. For this evening entailed enjoyable fellowship around another tasty meal (couscous), worship through everyone lighting a candle that was placed on a large shape of the cross on the floor, solid teaching on the question "Why did Jesus die?", worship through singing, communion done in small groups, discussion in small groups about the talk, and dessert.

The talk was not a fluffy, lightweight message. It got into some major theology about the cross of Christ and why it was necessary for our salvation. Besides the solid message, what made it touch the heart even more were clips from 2 films. In the first film, a father was mountain climbing with his son and daughter. They got in a fix where the daughter couldn't hold the weight of her brother and father below here. The father then gave a knife to his son and insisted that he cut the rope. The son didn't want to, as it would mean that his father would fall to death. However, the father knew that if he didn't cut the rope, then his weight would eventually cause all 3 of them to die. So the son eventually cut the rope.

The 2nd scene was the crucifixion from Mel Gibson's controversial film on Jesus. It showed how painful and gory this horrible death was for Jesus. It was very moving to see the price that He paid for our sin.

Tonight was a very participatory evening. That is one thing that I like about some of the emergent church philosophy that I'm reading, especially Doug Pagitt and Solomon's Porch in Minnesota. Tonight at Alpha Lounge, young people interacted with each other and with God.

My role tonight was with welcome and photography, as well as picking up some dirty plates at the end. I check people's names in at the door and get their details if they aren't already on the list. My list shows that we were around 55 tonight.