My name is Ed Zadeiks, and I am a parishioner at Christ the Redeemer in West Vancouver. My wife, Shawna, and two of our three kids attend with me. I wish everyone could feel blessed as I have felt blessed by my Catholic faith. I can’t help myself from sharing my growing love for the Catholic Church with anyone I can! 

I could tell you all about growing up in a great and loving Catholic family, attending Catholic schools in our Archdiocese and the beauty, truth and goodness I see in our Catholic Church, but let me share how Alpha seems to impact me and our parish of Christ the Redeemer. 

In early 2011, my beautiful (and holier!) Wife, Shawna, reintroduced Alpha back to our parish to build community and evangelize to our friends and fellow parents - after its earlier launch by Connie Roche and her team after it was first introduced to the Archdiocese in the 90s.

Initially, I resisted Alpha because I thought I was fairly formed in our Catholic faith after attending Catholic elementary and high schools. I was also active in parish life and ministry. However, although I witnessed friendships form, tears of joy shed, and lives transformed in each session, my wife had to run three Alpha programs before I finally bothered to watch a session.

When I finally watched the first Alpha film, at her constant invitation, I was amazed at how simple it conveyed the Gospel. “The penny had dropped,” as they say. I saw how we could use it to introduce family and friends to the faith and, ultimately and hopefully, to the Catholic Church. It was fun, built relationships and conveyed our faith in an accessible way.

Then, I introduced Alpha to our Friday morning Commuter Club - at that point, it felt like the Holy Spirit inspired the guys to run a parish-wide program. Each program we ran built more momentum. The results were terrific, and with each new season of running, it raised new leaders within the parish and evangelized simultaneously. 

Our current Alpha program is blessed and guided by the Holy Spirit (as do all our previous programs). We invited 20 former parish leaders to an Alpha Vision night a few months ago to present the “fruits of Alpha” and to ask them to join the parish family again more deeply by re-engaging them as part of a valued parish volunteer leadership team.

Twelve people showed up, and ALL 12 said yes to running an Alpha together. All our leaders are working hard together and having fun, too! After a bit of promotion, we had about 40 guests register, and the Holy Spirit surprised us by having 70 people guests for the first night! Half the guests label themselves as “Searching” (as opposed to Catholic), so this Alpha is evangelizing again, too.

We have seen it so many times in the past. Alpha is an easy thing to invite people to. It makes invitation into the Church easy. It has raised new leaders, built community and given us a way to start inviting those far from the Church into full communion with our beloved Catholic Church. Praise God!

Ed Zadeiks is the National Director of Alpha Canada (Catholic Context) and is also a parishioner at Christ the Redeemer Parish in West Vancouver.


#WeAreProclaim is a story campaign by the Proclaim Movement. Inspired by Humans of New York and the Archdiocese of Detroit’s I am Here campaign, it will showcase missionary conversion stories of people from the Archdiocese of Vancouver. Check out the rest of the campaign on Facebook and Instagram at @weareproclaim.