A church in France has adopted the Alpha course as its ‘handbook’ for formation and mission. Participants find the approach transformational as students and young professionals become leaders and evangelists

Bringing your parish from maintenance to mission is one of the great challenges of today. Recently I visited a parish in the south of France that seems to have found a way to do it.

The parish of Notre Dame de la Sagesse (“Our Lady of Wisdom”) is located in the heart of Sophia Antipolis, an international technology park north-east of Antibes with more than 30,000 people working there. A large concrete church was built in 2000 but with no real residential population, it was not a popular clerical posting.

Most of Chemin Neuf’s work is in faith formation but it has also had several parishes entrusted to it over the years; and, in 2004, the community was invited to run this parish. The current parish priest at Sophia Antipolis is Fr Jean Hubert Thieffry.

When he began working in a parish in Paris, he was at a loss to know how to meet the challenges of parish life – especially how to reach out to the lapsed and unbelieving. He discovered the Alpha course through his ecumenical contacts in 1998 – a course developed in the Anglican Church in the United Kingdom. He found this to be not only an effective tool for evangelisation, but also useful in forming missionary disciples within the Church.

When he arrived at Sophia Antipolis in 2005, he insisted that all those involved in formation in the parish, as well as seekers on the fringe, “do” the Alpha course. Here the Gospel message is proclaimed in an atmosphere of joyful service and hospitality.