todd hunter interview

jason clark of emergent in the uk interviewed todd hunter this week about his move from allelon to alpha usa. on his site he has the word document with the questions and three wav files, so i've attempted to organize this a bit for you below. these files are large, so be warned if you're dialing up, and also the audio quality is uneven (including the beginning of the first wav file).

1. Pearl of great price
Back on the 9th May 2000, AVC USA published an excerpt from your resignation letter from your post as National Director, which included your comments that you were leaving because, “My dream is to be a church planting missionary to postmodern generations.” What has happened in the last 4 years to lead you to Alpha USA, in what seems to many of us a major U turn of that dream?

answer to question 1

2. A Tale of Two Gospels
In an article you wrote titled “The Tale of Two Gospels”, you proposed a thesis that what had gone wrong with the modern church was a reductionist, bullet point, propositional, pray a prayer to go to heaven when you die Gospel, that had a soteriology and eschatology that needed more than fine tuning but a major overhaul. Alpha to many of us as valuable a tool as it is for reaching modern Christians, seems to embody all the parts of your previous thesis? How are you going to be working with a gospel message tool that seems to embody all the things you said were not helpful for post modern people?

answer to question 2

3. Changing Alpha?
Are you going to be working with alpha as it is, or are you being employed to bring some changes and developments? As we understand it one of Alpha strongest values is that the material is not changed, or enculturate, but taught as is.

4. Your Experience?
Do you come to alpha having led any or been part of any alpha groups yourself, have you enjoyed any evangelistic success with it in your church?

5. Para church – church based?
When the modern evangelical church was at it’s height many people dissatisfied with church moved into Para church groups, YWAM, YFC, OM etc. Do yourself making a similar move here to Alpha?

6. Your own ecclesiology – how are you doing church now?
How are you working out church yourself now? Are you part of a church yourself, and will Alpha be part of what takes place in your own church community?

answers to questions 3-6

if you prefer, jason has everything here, including todd's article "A Tale of Two Gospels".