Emmaus Couse
breadth and depth

The Emmaus Course has long been seen as a poor relation to Alpha. This is totally unjustified and in some ways, Emmaus offers more. The authors include such high-profile names as Steven Croft (Head of Fresh Expressions), Robert Warren and John Finney. All of these have strong credentials in evangelism and church growth within the Anglican Church.

The biggest difference between Emmaus and Alpha is the sheer volume of material. Whereas Alpha has a simple A5 workbook and a set of videos, the Emmaus Course has a large volume of sizeable A4 publications with a host of ancillary publications for further development.

The course offers three stages - Contact, Nurture and Growth

Contact

This is what we call pre-evangelism. It is about equipping the church to develop contact with people outside of church and prepare the whole church for an Emmaus Nurture Course.

Nurture

This is the equivalent to the Alpha Course in that it provides a 15 week course covering the basics of the Christian Faith. It is broken down into three sections i) What Christians Believe ii) How Christians Grow and iii) Living the Christian Life. Like Alpha, it has a strong focus on the Holy Spirit. Also, like Alpha, it offers different models for understanding the Atonement.

Growth

There are three large volumes in this section and it is intended for people who have been through the Nurture section or an equivalent. It is in this section that teaching on the Holy Spirit is explored to the full.

Downside?

I hesitate to use the word ‘downside’ as the course is excellent in its packaging and content. The main difference with Alpha is that you can’t take it out of the box and run with it. I don’t advocate this for Alpha either but the Alpha package is much easier for leaders to digest.

Further Study

There are a number of smaller Emmaus publications which can be used in Bible Study, House Groups or Cell Groups.

I have used ‘Missionary Journeys, Missionary Church’ by Steven Croft with great effect as a means of preparing churches for evangelism. It looks at Paul’s Missionary Journeys and draws parallels between the work he did 2,000 years ago and the task facing us today in the UK. You could use it as a means of encouraging Christians to look again at their faith and how to explain it to people who don’t come to church. Please don’t use it purely as an academic exercise. Always try to follow it by running an evangelism course or event of some kind.

For more details on Emmaus email : emmaus.south-west@tesco.net.
Missionary Journeys, Missionary Church can be purchase through Wesley Owen or CHP (ISBN 0-7151-4972-5)

Emmaus Web Site