Campus Alpha Kingston

 

Ryan and Two of the Guests doing Milkcrate Madness at the Winter 2009 Alpha RetreatGuest, 2008

I first became involved in the Alpha program in the Winter term of 2008. This running of the course was off-campus at the home of a great couple who had been running it for years. I took the course this year as a guest. The following year, my church at the time, First Baptist Church Kingston, decided to run the Alpha course specifically targeted at students. Having the recent experience as a guest, I was asked to help out as a small group leader. From there my involvement grew quickly over the next two years.

Small Group Leader, 2008-2010

I was a small group leader for that course, Fall 2008, leading a fairly small group individually. Over the course of the term I and the other small group leader slowly picked up more of the administrative duties from the church's pastor Kevin Smith, including a large amount of the retreat weekend planning. As the turnout of that course was not that large, we decided the next term to move the course out of the church and into my house, thinking that a student home in the student area of the city would be more comfortable. As my duties continued to grow into more administrative areas, I continued to be a small group leader as well, although slowly shifting my focus from leading groups of guests to providing further discipleship and leadership development to the leadership team.

Administration, 2009-2010

At this point, my co-leader and I assumed all the administrative responsibilities, ranging from finding food to planning the retreat, as well as leading the group (although this time as one larger group). Much of this group became the core of the leadership team for the next year when Campus Alpha took some more major new steps. For one, we went through a lot of administrative work to become recognized as an official club of Queen's University. We made a much more intense marketing push, doing things like handing out free home baking and having a free BBQ on my street. When I stepped down from my leadership role after 5 terms total of Alpha involvement, they had become effectively established as a ministry on campus, well-connected with the international Campus Alpha movement as well as the other campus groups and churches around Kingston.