Church turns to Alpha course leader

­THE pioneer of the Alpha Course in England and Wales has been asked by the Church to inspire parishes to evangelise.

The Revd Nicky Gumbel, vicar at the Holy Trinity Brompton church in South Kensington, London, is due to address 850 representatives at Proclaim ’15, a Catholic evangelisation gathering at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre today.

The Alpha course is a 10-week introduction to Christianity borne out of the charismatic evangelical movement and is now used by more Catholic churches worldwide than Anglican ones.

Clare Ward, home mission adviser to the bishops’ conference said Mr Gumbel had been invited to help parishes shift their mentality “from maintenance to mission”.

At a press conference in London on Tuesday, Cardinal Vincent Nichols said that this was the moment for parishes to boost their evangelisation efforts because the culture sought something deeper than “British values”.

“Our society is tentatively recognising that it needs something more than the comparative shallow soil of our shared public culture,” he said, adding that British-born Catholics should be inspired by the faith of immigrants – they had “enormously enriched” parishes.