0:20 n can you get a a m check hi I'm Nikki
0:23 welcome to Alpha life is
0:26 busy every day we ask so many
0:29 questions what should I wear what's the
0:31 we going to be
0:33 like what's happening
0:37 today how am I going to fit everything
0:40 in but then there are those bigger
0:45 questions like why am I here where am I
0:48 heading is this it is there more to life
0:52 than this these are life's big questions
0:54 but there's rarely enough time to think
0:55 them through
0:57 properly we all have different
0:59 perspectives on the meaning of life and faith
1:00 faith
1:02 and Alpha is an opportunity to explore
1:05 life's big questions this is a great
1:06 place to come together and talk about
1:09 them openly and honestly I'm Gemma I'm
1:21 Alpha um I go on Google Google I
1:24 definitely Google I go on Wikipedia
1:27 internet I uh scroll through all the
1:29 different answers and then I try and
1:30 combine it
1:34 and then make my own kind of Cornerstone
1:37 or myart friend I don't ask Big Life
1:40 questions it's too hard to answer
1:43 Google or my grandmother I meditate or I
1:46 read when I have a big life questions I
1:48 probably go to my family I haven't
1:50 really had any mess what this to my mom
1:54 or my dad basically my mom or my dad
1:56 maybe my grand I get most of my answers
1:59 from the library in any section there
2:00 cuz I don't trust the people that I'm
2:02 around the key is always to yourself you
2:03 got to figure some things out for
2:05 yourself if I'm confused I go to him
2:08 first and he confuses me more but when
2:11 it's something more personal I try to
2:14 find it within myself
2:16 first friends of mine told me that the
2:18 first night they came to Alpha they sat
2:21 in their car for half an hour waiting
2:23 and watching people going in and
2:24 eventually when they'd seen enough
2:26 normal looking people going in they
2:28 thought they' give it a try and one
2:29 thing that might be going through your
2:31 mind is am I going to be the only one
2:32 there who doesn't believe all this stuff
2:33 who's not a Christian that doesn't go to
2:35 church well if that's you then you're in
2:37 the right place Alpha is designed for
2:39 people who wouldn't call themselves
2:44 churchgoers it might feel a bit strange
2:46 to be discussing life and faith with
2:48 people that you've never met before but
2:50 the best thing about Alpa is often the
2:52 great friendships that have formed over the
2:54 the
2:57 weeks for much of my life I was not
2:59 remotely interested in Christianity in
3:00 fact I don't think I'd ever come to
3:01 something like Alpha I was not brought
3:04 up as a Christian my father was a
3:08 secular Jew he was an agnostic and my
3:11 mother didn't go to church a and I had
3:14 no interest at all in Christianity first
3:18 of all I just thought it was so boring
3:20 everything to me about church
3:23 Christianity religion was just dull and
3:24 Dre and it kind of made me feel a little
3:26 bit guilty I didn't know why but I just
3:28 didn't want to have anything to do with
3:31 it and I also thought it was true I I
3:32 thought I'd sort of thought it through
3:35 and uh I come up with these intellectual
3:37 objections and I call myself very
3:38 pretentiously I called myself a logical
3:41 determinist and I quite enjoyed arguing
3:42 with people who call themselves
3:44 Christians and at University I had a bit
3:46 of a reputation for being an
3:49 argumentative atheist and I also thought
3:50 it was irrelevant to my life I couldn't
3:53 see how someone who'd lived 2,000 years
3:56 ago 2,000 miles away could have any
3:58 relevance to my life today it just
4:02 seemed outdated and irrelevant but at
4:04 the same time looking back now I would
4:07 say something was
4:09 missing I say that because I don't think
4:12 I was living in the moment I was always
4:14 looking forward to the next thing in
4:16 life so when I was at school I was
4:19 thinking when I finish my exams maybe
4:21 that will be when I'm going to really
4:23 start to enjoy life I finished my exams
4:25 and then after about 3 weeks I started
4:26 think there's got to be more to life
4:28 than this and I thought well maybe when
4:30 I've left school that that would be what
4:32 life's all about and then I left school
4:34 and after about 3 weeks I started to
4:36 think there's got to be more to life
4:38 than this I thought maybe the answer get
4:40 a girlfriend and somehow I don't know
4:42 how I managed it but I managed to find a
4:44 girlfriend again after about 3 weeks I
4:46 thought think it's got to be more to
4:48 life than this and and basically there
4:53 was something missing I was longing for
4:56 more the actor Jim Cary once said I wish
4:58 everyone could get rich and famous and
5:00 have everything they've ever dreamed of
5:03 so they would know that's not the answer
5:05 some people dream of having their Name
5:08 In Lights of Fame and Fortune some
5:09 people dream of finding happiness
5:11 through relationships careers money
5:14 whatever it may be but do you ever get
5:16 that niggly feeling that as good as
5:18 those things are there must be more to
5:20 life yeah all too often life just
5:21 doesn't turn out the way we think it
5:23 should and even when it does and we
5:25 achieve our wildest dreams it's somehow
5:27 never quite enough it just doesn't
5:29 satisfy it's like there's something missing
5:30 missing
5:32 the comedian and actor Russell bran said
5:35 drugs and alcohol are not my problem
5:37 reality is my problem drugs and alcohol
5:40 are my solution to fill up a hole inside
5:42 me and Jesus said I am the bread of life
5:44 in other words I'm the one who fulfills
5:47 the longing that's deep inside every
5:49 human heart Jesus claimed to be the one
5:52 person who can satisfy that spiritual
5:54 hunger Freddy Mercury the lead singer of
5:57 the rock group Queen had a master a huge
5:59 fortune and attracted millions of fans
6:01 but he admitted in an interview shortly
6:04 before his death that he was desperately
6:06 lonely he said this you can have
6:08 everything in the world and still be the
6:10 loneliest man and that's the most bitter
6:13 type of loneliness success has brought
6:15 me world idolization and millions of
6:17 pounds but it's prevented me from having
6:20 the one thing we all need a loving
6:23 ongoing relationship Jesus said I am the
6:26 way the truth and the life ultimately
6:28 there's only one relationship that is
6:30 totally loving and goes on forever and
6:32 that's a relationship with God and Jesus
6:45 relationship maybe money what makes me
6:49 happy music music ice cream and cheese
6:53 sleep makes me happy I gu James say my
6:57 friends kind Club playing football dogs
7:00 alcohol uh women
7:03 pretty much the idea of life in general
7:04 makes me happy
7:10 clothes uh women more toiz than this
7:12 that's a really good
7:15 question I don't know I can't tell you I
7:16 think we're supposed to learn a couple
7:19 of things there's nothing more I'm still
7:22 figuring that out to be honest uh
7:25 no let's live in the moment absolutely I
7:28 strongly believe that there's more to
7:31 life than this no idea
7:34 sorry when I was about 17 I was sitting
7:36 having a burger with two friends and we
7:38 were looking out the window and
7:39 commenting on a few of the stores across
7:41 the street and I suddenly realized that
7:43 I couldn't read any of the signs even if
7:46 I squinted so I asked if I could borrow
7:48 one of my friends pair of glasses and as
7:51 soon as I put them on I realized I could
7:55 see everything like colors shapes words
7:57 I was amazed at how everything was so
7:59 clear and I could see before but now I
8:02 could really see and to me that's the
8:04 best way to describe the difference that
8:06 Jesus makes Jesus is the lens through
8:09 which we see God and he's also the lens
8:11 by which we see the world in a totally
8:16 different way Jesus said I am the truth
8:18 some people's response to a Christian
8:20 might be well it's great for you you
8:23 found mean and purpose in your life but
8:25 it's not for me but when you think about
8:27 it that's not actually a logical
8:29 position because if Christianity is true
8:31 it's of vital importance to every one of
8:33 us and if it's not true it's not great
8:35 for us cuz it means we're deluded CS
8:37 Lewis was one of the great intellectual
8:39 Giants of the 20th century probably best
8:41 known as the author of The Chronicles of
8:44 nania he said this Christianity if false
8:48 is of no importance and if true of
8:50 infinite importance the only thing it
8:53 cannot be is moderately important I come
8:55 from a family of lawyers so naturally I
8:59 wanted to look at the original documents
9:01 and S sources I never really looked at
9:03 the evidence before and I was astonished
9:06 at how much evidence there is for the
9:09 life death and resurrection of Jesus for
9:10 me it was through reading these
9:12 documents that we find in the New
9:15 Testament that I came to the conclusion
9:18 it's true one of the last cases I did as
9:19 a lawyer was in the court of appeal in
9:21 front of Lord Denning absolutely
9:23 brilliant mind perhaps the greatest
9:26 judge of the 20th century he said on one
9:28 occasion that his Bible was his most
9:30 tattered book book in his Library he'd
9:34 examined the evidence really carefully
9:37 and he came to the conclusion it's true
9:39 one former professor of history at
9:40 Oxford University described the
9:43 resurrection as the best attested fact
9:45 in history I hadn't realized how many of
9:47 the pioneers of modern science were
9:52 Believers deart Newton Kepler Galileo
9:57 Loch kernus Faraday Kelvin Pastor
9:58 Francis Collins one of the greatest
10:01 scientists of time was director of the
10:03 Human Genome Project mapping the three
10:05 billion letters in the human DNA
10:07 considered by many to be the most
10:09 significant scientific undertaking of
10:13 our time he describes how he encountered
10:16 Jesus and came to believe in the truth of
10:17 of
10:19 Christianity well in the home where I
10:21 grew up uh Faith was not something that
10:24 was talked about very much my father was
10:26 a professor of drama my mother a
10:28 playright uh when I went to college and
10:30 those discussions in the dorm late at
10:33 night about religion uh began to occur I
10:37 had no particular reason to attach value
10:39 uh to a faith system it had never been
10:41 something I was familiar with or had
10:44 internalized at all and I assumed that
10:47 any religious feelings that anyone held
10:49 must be on the basis of some emotional
10:52 experience and I didn't trust those or
10:54 on the basis of some childhood
10:56 indoctrination uh which I felt I was
10:59 fortunate to have missed I love Lov D
11:01 the experience of learning about the
11:03 human body and all of the components of
11:05 that and I particularly loved being
11:08 introduced to genetics but then I ended
11:11 up in the medical school curriculum
11:13 sitting at the bedside of patients with
11:15 diseases this was no longer an abstract
11:18 study of molecules and organ systems
11:19 these were real
11:22 people and one afternoon one of my
11:25 patients uh wonderful elderly woman much
11:27 like a grandmother uh who had very bad
11:30 heart disease she had a particularly bad
11:32 episode of chest pain while I was with
11:35 her she got through it and at the end of
11:38 that explained to me how her faith was
11:39 the thing that helped her in that
11:42 situation she realized that the doctors
11:44 around her weren't really giving her
11:46 that much help but her faith was and
11:48 after she finished her own very personal
11:51 description uh of that face she turned
11:54 to me and I had been silent and she
11:56 looked at me quizzically and she said
11:59 what do you believe doctor
12:02 and ultimately I had to admit to myself
12:05 that her question had made me realize
12:07 that I had arrived at an answer to the
12:09 most important issue that we humans ever
12:12 deal with is there a god and I had
12:14 arrived there without ever really
12:16 looking at the evidence and I was
12:17 supposed to be a
12:19 scientist if there's one thing
12:22 scientists claim they do is to arrive at
12:25 conclusions based upon evidence and I
12:28 hadn't taken the trouble to do that I
12:31 was greatly assisted uh by a pastor who
12:33 lived down the road who I went and asked
12:35 about all this and who gave me a copy of
12:38 Cs Lewis's wonderful book Mere
12:40 Christianity because here was an Oxford
12:43 scholar a prodigiously developed
12:46 intellect who had traveled the same path
12:49 within those pages I realized for the
12:52 first time that one can come to belief
12:55 on a rational basis and that in fact
12:58 given the many pointers that one sees
13:00 around oneself in terms of the universe
13:02 and it having a beginning and its
13:04 fine-tuning in terms of the way in which
13:06 all those constants that determine the
13:08 behavior of matter and energy seem to
13:11 have been set just in a certain very
13:14 precise range to make life possible uh
13:16 and many other things including my
13:18 beloved mathematics and why they
13:20 actually work anyway to describe the
13:21 universe something that makes you think
13:24 the Creator must have been a
13:26 mathematician that brought me then to
13:29 the person of Jesus Christ
13:32 as a person who was historically
13:34 extremely well documented that was news
13:37 to me I thought Christ was as much myth
13:39 as history and I realized after reading
13:41 more about it this was a historical
13:43 figure upon which we have a great deal
13:45 of evidence for his existence and his
13:48 teachings and even his rising from the
13:52 dead in a literal way that day at uh my
13:55 patient's bedside started a journey for
13:58 me a journey that I was reluctant uh to
14:00 begin but I felt I needed to a journey
14:02 that I thought would result in
14:05 strengthening my atheism but to my
14:08 surprise resulted in my
14:10 conversion there's a difference between
14:13 knowing facts about someone and really
14:15 knowing them personally now I've know my
14:17 husband Phil for 3 years now but suppose
14:19 if before we met I found him on a
14:22 website called the amazing man now
14:23 there's no doubt I would have looked at
14:26 him and thought okay I'm intrigued but
14:28 what if each page was dedicated to his
14:29 amazing ability
14:32 his sparkling personality his tender
14:35 heart his extraordinary intelligence and
14:37 his cooking abilities well I would think
14:40 wow he does sound like an amazing person
14:42 but that's head knowledge but I also
14:44 have the privilege of being married to
14:46 him and I know that he's an amazing
14:47 person which is knowledge that comes
14:49 from an experience of relationship and
14:52 that's heart knowledge when Jesus said I
14:54 am the truth he was talking about more
14:56 than just a kind of intellectual truth
14:58 the Hebrew understanding of Truth was
15:00 truth as experienced and there's a big
15:01 difference between a kind of
15:03 intellectual knowledge and a personal
15:05 knowledge between your head and your
15:08 heart so when someone says I know Jesus
15:10 is the truth they're not just talking
15:12 about being convinced of the evidence
15:14 they're also talking about experiencing
15:16 a relationship with the Risen Jesus
15:19 Christ so Jesus said I am the way the
15:23 truth and lastly he said I am the life I
15:25 have come that you may have life and
15:28 have it to the full Jesus came to deal
15:30 with the things in our lives that stop
15:32 us from enjoying life to the full the
15:41 Lives I hate shopping I lo it I I think
15:42 I'm allergic to shopping but
15:45 occasionally my wife per persuades me to
15:48 go shopping and just after Christmas uh
15:49 it was the sales and she persuaded me to
15:51 go shopping and we went into the shop
15:55 and we bought this very nice new sweater
15:57 uh same color as all my other sweaters
16:00 and um we left the shop and we went to
16:02 buy a present for her and we went into
16:06 this ghastly shop it was so crowded it
16:09 was unbelievable and even pipper had had
16:12 enough and said okay we're leaving so we
16:14 went to leave and as we left the
16:17 security alarm went off and the security
16:19 guys moved in very quickly and they
16:22 stopped us all from leaving and like the
16:24 crowd that was trying to leave was
16:26 stopped and the crowd that was trying to
16:28 come in was stopped and we were there
16:31 right in the middle middle uh the six of
16:32 us who were going through the security
16:35 at that one time were all taken off and
16:37 sectioned off from all the rest and they
16:39 wanted to see which one of the six of us
16:41 had set off the alarm so they sent one
16:43 of them through and that was fine they
16:44 obviously hadn't set it off then they
16:46 sent the next one through they obiously
16:48 hadn't set it off then the third then
16:51 the fourth none of them set it off so it
16:54 was left with Pippa and I were standing
16:56 there and I thought oh my goodness I'm
16:58 married to a shoplifter it must be
17:00 pipper who got set off the alarm so they
17:04 sent her through and she didn't set it
17:06 off so I thought oh my goodness I've
17:08 obviously got something someone must
17:10 have planted something on me I'm going
17:11 to be arrested I'm going to be sent to
17:13 prison all the crowd were watching both
17:15 sides they were just watching this
17:17 criminal who'd been caught going through
17:19 so they went through and as I went
17:20 through the alarm went off they took me
17:23 to the side they opened up my ruck sack
17:26 on my back and there they found this
17:29 sweater from the other shop with the tag
17:34 still on it I felt so guilty that was
17:37 like false guilt I also sometimes
17:39 experience true feelings of guilt
17:42 because I do things that are not right
17:46 that are not good and this is the wonderful
17:47 wonderful
17:53 news that God loves you and he loves me
17:55 God came in the person of his son Jesus
17:59 Christ to die for you and for me and on
18:03 the cross he took all of your guilt all
18:05 of my guilt everything you've ever done
18:07 wrong everything I've ever done wrong
18:10 said wrong thought wrong and he died in
18:13 our place in order that we could be
18:16 forgiven and forgiveness CS Le said it's
18:19 like a recording of our life wiped
18:22 completely clean and when we receive
18:26 that forgiveness we find life and life
18:28 in all its fullness and that's what
18:32 Jesus wants for you and for me Life in
18:36 all its fullness life at its very very
18:38 best I think for so many years you know
18:41 I always just strived to be strong in
18:43 myself and it was as if that all I
18:45 needed was me and my buddies and you
18:49 know would be like Invincible but the
18:52 truth is none of us are and I don't want
18:54 to do this thing called life I don't
18:57 want to do it on my own and it kind of
19:00 feels like my longing for this this
19:03 light inside is now stronger than my
19:06 fear of what others might think and
19:08 people often ask what doesn't that make
19:12 uh Faith Like a crutch and you know well
19:14 maybe but you know what does a crutch do
19:17 uh a crutch helps you stand and it makes
19:19 you stronger and in that case you know
19:22 sure I need a bit of that but especially
19:25 when it's so much more than that when
19:27 this Faith inside is also also like a
19:31 backbone uh helping me stand tall and
19:33 helping me be strong when I'm really up
19:35 against it facing those odds whether
19:37 it's on a mountain or stuck in some
19:40 jungle or just dealing with the storms
19:42 you know with the storms of life uh sure
19:45 I need it I you know I need that uh but
19:47 at heart my Christian faith says that I
19:50 am that I'm known that I'm known to
19:53 Christ uh faith says that we're loved
19:55 regardless of our mess uh regardless of
19:58 how many times we fall down and that Jes
20:01 Jesus somehow picks me up and sure you
20:04 know I'll reach out to that why why
20:06 wouldn't I I used to think chrisan he
20:09 was boring untrue and irrelevant but
20:11 when I read about Jesus I realized he
20:14 was anything but Jesus said he's the way
20:16 to God he's the one who brings meaning
20:18 and purpose to your life he said he's
20:21 the truth he said he's the life the true
20:23 fulfillment is found in a relationship
20:25 with God through
20:28 him Alpha is a place where you can be
20:31 yourself you can say what you think and
20:33 challenge everything now no question is
20:37 too complex or too simple and what your
20:38 point of view is is as important as
20:41 anyone else's and over the weeks ahead
20:43 we are going on a journey together an
20:45 adventure to explore the questions of
20:48 life Faith and meaning think of it this
20:51 way if you live to be 70 you're going to
20:54 spend 20 years and 3 months asleep 10
20:57 years and 5 months watching TV 5 years
21:00 and 9 months mon in some form of
21:02 transportation 7 years and 6 months
21:04 eating and drinking you have
21:08 approximately 570,000 hours left to live
21:10 so why not spend less than 24 of them
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