A group of students in Manchester, who are part of the community at Saint Philips Chapel Street, began to wonder how they could do more to share their faith with friends. Theo, one of these students, shares their experience of what happened next...

One night, during our weekly Connect Group, four of us were chatting about life: about Uni, friendships and our experiences of sharing our faith with our friends. We all live with non-Christian house mates, and had all had interesting conversations about God with our housemates. Knowing our call to share the love of Jesus with our friends, we began talking about ways that as a Connect Group we could share the gospel in our friend groups.

Then, the idea of running an Alpha course for our friends surfaced. At first we weren’t sure if it would work- were we qualified to run it? Where would we host it? How would we pay for food? Despite our initial hesitation, the more we spoke about it, the more excited we got about the idea. That night, we prayed and really felt the Holy Spirit’s presence. It was so clear God was in this.

A couple of weeks later, we received a gift from a Church we had a connection with to pay for all the food we wanted to provide to our friends on the course! The four of us invited our housemates and coursemates. When everyone arrived, I was slightly nervous as I had no idea how my friends would respond. We all ate together and had a laugh and then watched the video. Afterwards, during the discussion, I was blown away by how many questions my friends had. We sat for almost three hours talking about the Lord and listening to our friend's thoughts.

All four of us were able to really share about the difference Jesus has made in our lives openly with our friends. They asked question after question. After the discussion, one of my friends asked me excitedly if we would be running Alpha again the next week because she already had so many more questions she wanted to discuss. Another one of my friends, who I’d been hesitant to invite, messaged me after to say how grateful he was I invited him, and that he really loved it.

We ran the course throughout semester two and each week had amazing discussions. We are so thankful that God has been moving within our friend groups. He has been so faithful and it’s so clear he wants to meet with our friends.