This week at Alpha we looked at the role of prayer. John S. gave a wonderfully anecdotal talk on what prayer is and why it's important. One story that particularly stood out was that of a young academic John knew, who was a virtual genius (she graduated from University at sixteen and was given an award by the President of America for her work), but still felt lonely and insecure. She did not used to be a believer, but decided to carry out a number of "prayer experiments" which were answered in very concrete ways, which led to her becoming a follower of Christ. Another involved a friend who had lost his notebook whilst travelling in the countryside with the names and addresses of all the people he knew, in the days when people didn't have mobile phones or computers as back up. There was no way of getting hold of it, but he and his friends had faith enough to pray. Lo and behold, in the next few days the notebook was posted to his house.

John's talk made a real impression on many of those who attended, and his wonderful examples led other Christians to share with their friends personal stories of how God had answered their prayers in powerful, concrete ways. I think some of the seekers who attended found this refreshing and surprising to hear. One girl joked that she always called her university supervisor "God" because he was "unreachable". Please pray that she and others discover that God knows her better than anyone else in the world and always hears her prayers. In fact, her group is praying for a specific problem that she is facing - please pray that she sees God's power and amazing love in this situation, and that other seekers who have given prayer requests would see very definite answers to these prayers.

Looking back at the last few weeks, we can be really grateful to God for the way in which he has very evidently guided each of the speakers, for the many friendships that have been built and are deepening, and for unity among the co-workers which has enabled us to work well to bring all the different aspects of the Alpha course together, and pray for our new friends with one heart and one purpose. It's brilliant to observe!