In 2001 Steve Schindler and a group of other lay members of Our Lady Queen of Heaven Catholic Church in Lake Charles, Louisiana, asked the permission of their priest to start an Alpha course at the church. He gave the go-ahead and since then around 500 people have attended the course:

‘I heard about Alpha from some friends who had done the course and I thought it sounded wonderful. Me and some other friends thought that perhaps we could run it at our Catholic parish.

The Monsignor said “Go for it” so we went to an Alpha conference in Boston in August 2001. The conference totally put me at ease, it was great. We got back and were ready to start the following day. We started with around 75-80 people.

After that first course I saw a room full of people coming to Christ. I saw male friends of mine coming to Alpha with frowns on their faces then leave with beaming, glowing faces.

I saw with my own eyes and experienced in my own heart what Jesus and the Holy Spirit can do in a person’s life.

We’ve run four more since and the same thing has happened over and over again. As a result of Alpha in the church I have seen that there is now a regular flow of people asking to get involved in church life.’

Steve Schindler, Louisiana, USA



Mary Hagar is involved with running Alpha in the Catholic parishes of St Timothy’s and St Mary’s, Minnesota, as well as supporting other local Catholic parishes with their Alpha courses:

‘Alpha is the tool that is bringing into reality in our lifetime the church we have always dreamed of. I’ve been doing evangelisation programmes in the Catholic Church for 30 years. We had been trying to evangelise people with minimal to dismal success. I went to an Alpha conference on the East Coast and came out of that saying, "This is what I’ve looked for my whole life. This is going to change lives."

Our priest was very skeptical at first but I said, “Father, please let us have a go.” He agreed and so then we began running the course. We started with the more committed churchgoers so that we could build up a nucleus. Since then we’ve been getting more and more nominal Catholics. It’s like a rock in a pond – the ripples are finally going out further and further.

Alpha has bought those people into the church as "on fire" servants. They now go to the priest and say, "Father, what can we do to help?" After every Alpha course we offer follow-up courses so that the people can continue studying, learning and praying together.

The life of the parishes is the number one thing that’s changed since Alpha. People are now so excited to be in church and they can’t wait to tell other people about what’s happened to them. Their experience of conversion is so magnetic it just draws people in.

Before we started Alpha the priest said, “I’m going to stand back and watch.” Now he’s the one standing at the pulpit saying, “Alpha is starting. You should consider it.”'

Mary Hagar, Minnesota, USA