Running Alpha Youth in Northern Ireland

‘We were seeing young people genuinely questioning what life is all about.’ We catch up with Fr James O'Reilly and ask him about his experience of running Youth Alpha with the young people in his parish.

Hi Fr James, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your parish?

So I’m a priest of the parish of Antrim, which is a parish about twenty minutes north of Belfast in the North of Ireland.

I’ve been a priest for just over five years, I’m a priest of the Diocese of Down and Connor which is a diocese in the North of Ireland.

The parish here is a huge geographical parish: three churches, a huge hospital, two smaller hospitals, three schools, and thirteen nursing homes. So a wide range of ministries in the parish. It’s a parish that has nearly every kind of social demographic, from the quite affluent to the quite poor and everywhere in between. 

It’s fun, I’ve been here five years and I’m enjoying it.

What have been some of the fruitful areas of your ministry there?

There has been some real fruit around our youth work. We have a youth club in the parish, and a lot of young people are coming through that, and we ran Alpha and a few other things. It built up quite a good group of young people who meet weekly on Sunday nights and that has been encouraging.

What convinced you to run Alpha?

I would be involved in inter-church things, and seeing how Alpha was run in an evangelical and ecumenical context I thought it was just a really good tool for people.

Because I think a lot of people have questions and are searching for answers which they’re not necessarily going to find at Mass you know. 

But a friendly environment where they can ask these questions about who Jesus is, why He had to die, all that kind of stuff - I just think it’s a very good tool that can lead someone to discipleship.

When did you start running Alpha Youth?

So our first Alpha was run in our school with Year 12, sixteen-year-olds. I’m the chaplain at the school and we were trying to find things to do and we were given permission to have lunchtimes on Fridays. So we ran Alpha Youth and it was really cool, there were some really good conversations.

For the Holy Spirit Afternoon, the kids came out of school for a couple of hours down to the parish hall. 

It was just really encouraging, seeing young people who were praying, probably for the first time in years. 

We were seeing young people genuinely questioning what life is all about.

What were your expectations for the course before you ran it?

Well it wasn’t obligatory so there could have been nobody there but thirty sixteen-year-olds showed up. 

Why they showed up I’m not sure, but they showed up, they got their hot dogs, they engaged in the conversations, and it was just really good

Then I did it in the school again and then with the youth group in the parish which was a bit different. We did it over a longer period of time and it was just really good and led to trust and relationship building and young people being able to engage with their faith in a non-threatening way. 

What would you say to people who think that Alpha can’t be used by Catholics because it’s not a Catholic tool?

Yeah I think that that’s just not true, I just don’t agree with that at all. I understand it and I’ve had a lot of conversations of my own about how do we think Eucharistically about this? Because ultimately we are a Eucharistic people and a sacramental church. 

Alpha is a starting point, it is the beginning of a journey that needs to start somewhere. When you get down the line, it’s up to me, it’s up to the Church, it’s up to the parish to start to disciple people who are interested in their faith, back to the sacraments and back to the Church. 

But the fundamental questions about life, about who is God and everything else, I’ve found is done really well in Alpha. 

I mean, I get the concerns, I totally get it, but my challenge would be, show me something better.

I don’t think there is anything better.

Have you seen Alpha help people who already go to Church to think in a more invitational way?

For those who are already on the path of discipleship, for those who are practising, believing members of the Church, they have an obligation, I would say, to be on mission. It’s not an option for any of us. It’s not just the job of the priest or deacon or religious sisters or brothers - it’s not our job to do mission. If you are serious about discipleship you need to be serious about how can I communicate the gospel to the world. And how do I get involved with helping the Church to fulfil its mission, using my gifts and talents?

Even in the pews, you have a wide range of perspectives, from people who are there because their granny is making them go to church to people who are in church every day and that’s their life. So we have to find a place to reach out to all of them. 

Regardless of where they’re at, Jesus wants to meet them and show them who He is.

What would you say to someone who was considering running Alpha?

My encouragement would be that I’ve seen this work. The Holy Spirit is still moving. Find a team of people who can help you to do it and just do it! I think sometimes in the Church we’re so afraid of failure, of things not working, or people not being interested. 

We need to remind ourselves that this is good news, that this is an incredible treasure that we have that is too good to keep to ourselves. 

Get after it, put yourself in the public sphere. Give it a go!