What is Alpha?
Alpha is a ten-week opportunity to explore the validity and relevance of
the Christian faith for our lives today. It is a practical introduction to
the basics of Christianity with loads of opportunity for debate and discussion.
The style of Alpha is informal, friendly and non-pressured - a style which
seems to be appreciated in Canadian culture. Each week people meet together
for a meal, a talk on topics such as Who is Jesus?
,
Why Did Jesus Die?
, How Can I be Sure of My Faith?
, and
Does God Still Heal Today?
, followed by small group interaction.
There is a weekend retreat midway through the course, which focuses on the
person and work of the Holy Spirit.
Alpha is an effective way to reach the spiritually hungry with a sound gospel. Do you long to find an unthreatening way of enabling non-churchgoers to discover the life-changing power of Jesus Christ? Many hundreds of pastors and lay people across Canada are finding the Alpha Course to be a relevant way of making Christianity accessible to men and women of today's culture.
Three Canadian pastors who were the subject of the video
Keys to Church Growth
¹ agreed that they had seen
more people come to faith in the three years since using Alpha than in
all our previous years of ministry up to that point.
In a recent independent
study conducted in the Presbyterian Church in the US, 90% of churches said
they would recommend Alpha to other congregations and 97% were planning
to continue running the course. In a UK study, amid a backdrop of declining
church numbers, those churches running Alpha were seen to be bucking the downhill
trend. Church leaders from all denominations report the astonishing impact
the course has on non-churchgoers and existing Christians in their areas.
And it's spreading fast to many secular locations - prisons,
university campuses, businesses and schools. In UK nearly 90% of prisons
are now running Alpha.
Alpha is enjoyed and appreciated as much by those who have never set
foot in a church as it is by those who once attended and by the regular
churchgoer. No matter what their background, whether investigating Christianity
for the first time or revisiting their faith, participants get a lot out of
an Alpha Course. There are over 1,400 Alpha courses running in Canada
(18,000 worldwide) and about 200,000 Canadians have already participated. The
current edition of Faith Today is entitled the Alpha-tization of Canada.
Alpha people get very enthusiastic about their faith.
Churches of every different type and background, including Anglican, Baptist, Presbyterian, Roman Catholic, Methodist, Pentecostal, Salvation Army, Free Church and House Churches are running Alpha. Because Alpha covers the basics of Christianity, all churches provide the same material, making alterations only to suit the local culture. Church leaders from all denominations report the astonishing impact the course has on non-churchgoers and existing Christians in their areas.
Alpha originated at Holy Trinity Brompton - an Anglican church in London,
England over twenty years ago. The syllabus of the course is contained in the
best-selling book Questions of Life
by Rev'd. Nicky Gumbel. Alpha
courses are now running in more than 130 countries and the course materials
have been translated into a number of languages.
¹ Keys to Church Growth
is available from Norlynn Audio Visual
Services, stuart@lightspeed.bc.ca
For more details contact Tony Copple, Alpha Advisor and secretary of the Ottawa Alpha Promotion Committee, (613) 591-3903, tonyc@ncf.ca.
