Tips and Tricks for Running Alpha
Alpha, a ten-week course in the basics of
Christianity, has been used all over the world as an effective means of
evangelism and pract
ical
introduction to the Christian faith for people of all different backgrounds. The
course is meant to offer a very open and easy place to ask questions and to
explore the claims of Christianity.
Are you interested in running Alpha for the first time, or spicing up your current Alpha program?
These tips and tricks are offered to help get you started. The Alpha program is made to run exactly as packaged, but many churches find ways to modify the format of program slightly to fit their particular needs. There is no “canned” approach that is fully effective, so each church needs to know the needs of the people they are addressing.
Do you have an idea or method that has helped your Alpha program? Send it to us and we’ll add it to these ideas! ccd@churchtoolbox.org
Completely new to Alpha?
Alpha has a comprehensive website with many resource materials, videos, lists of courses nationwide, training conference dates and much more. www.alphausa.org
● Register for a conference near you, with as many people from your team as possible.
● The “How to Run Alpha” Directors Handbook is a key resource to starting an Alpha program.
● Visit one night of an Alpha program near you.
Running Alpha in your church or community
Decide what your target and purpose is. Many churches start with Alpha as an “in-church” educational offering. This is useful, but does not fulfill Alpha’s basic premise of friendship evangelism. Encourage church members to invite their friends and neighbors and co-workers to round out tables with those who are unchurched.
● Typically, the first Alpha course in a church contains mostly church members. The second course tends to be small, with some church members, and those new people the previous course members have invited. The third course tends to grow with previously unchurched members if participants are encouraged regularly to invite others
● Be flexible with Day or Time. Courses can be Day or Evening, Weekday or Weeknight
● Recruit a director with strong administrative gifts. It is key to not burn out the pastor or main speaker.
● Decide on your marketing plan. Only “in house”? Community advertisements in newspaper or radio? Direct mail? Invitations for church members to pass out?
● Alpha can be run in neighborhood homes, for mothers' groups during the day, or as a church-wide evening program
● Try reaching out to the community by offering ALpha at a local shelter, prison, nursing home, etc.
● Be creative with environment. One church has successfully made their Alpha fit a "coffee house" environment. Tables had candles. Food was lighter. Opening music is also interspersed with other people performing, reading poetry, or telling jokes.
Ideas from the trenches
Meals
● Providing the meal tends to be the biggest hassle for many Alpha programs. If this is the case for you, think about these options:
● Ideally find someone, not a participant, to organize meals for each week. Remind them that their costs will be reimbursed.
● The better the food, the better the turn out. Don’t skimp.
● When you don’t have a meal planner, find ways to share the cooking burden.
● In a larger Alpha, have table groups take turns to cook, set up, clean up.
● Adjust the starting time, so that dinner is not too late or too early
● Use the Alpha cookbook for tested recipes for eager but inexperienced volunteers.
● Easy dinners, like frozen lasagna, pizza nights, soup and salad, are all fine.
● Remember to have food for kids available.
● Some churches don’t do a full meal, but rather dessert and coffee. The key is to allow for initial food and fellowship time.
Video Examples
● You can use the videos, but those are best done with smaller groups. They tend to be long for most groups (around 45 minutes)
● Try rewriting the talks from your own perspective. Make them no longer than 25 – 30 minutes
● Use video clips, articles from the newspaper, or excerpts from books to make some of your points. Some video examples:
● “Mr. Bean Goes to Church” is a great clip for the initial talk “Boring, Untrue, Irrelevant”
● “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” has a good clip for “following God’s Guidance” (Stepping out in faith)
● “Leap of Faith” includes a section where the evangelist is using trickery to “prophesy”. Good way to let people express doubts about Christian claims before the “Who is Jesus” or “How can I be sure” talks.
● Tell a joke to begin each session. (Even have participants bring in appropriate jokes)
Give plenty of table time for small group discussion
● One of the major benefits of Alpha is that it can move people into ongoing small groups for further discipleship and growth.
● Purposefully encourage small groups to continue after Alpha.
● Some pastors have found that being part of the small group helps encourage continued small groups after the course.
The retreat is a highlight of the course
● If your Alpha course is small, try going together with one or two other churches to pool resources, speakers, musicians, and to create critical mass for an effective retreat.
● Try a day long retreat: 9-5 ending with dinner. This can be a very effective, especially for a smaller group.
● Overnight retreats when feasible are usually more effective because the added time away from routine helps the Holy Spirit work on the heart.
What about the children?
● Most courses will want to provide weekly childcare at a minimum. Include dinner for the kids.
● Effective programs will have a “children’s track” with some educational component.
● There are middle school and high school youth courses available from Alpha.
● A retreat that includes a program for kids and childcare will pull in more participants.
Follow on
● The Alpha material suggests 3 courses a year, that way you go from Celebration Dinner to Beginning of the course is short order. This can be very hard to maintain for many churches.
● Do try to do at least 2 courses a year, but offer another “beta” course or “alpha formatted” course for a shorter time period.
● One church had success offering a “Questioning Your Faith” course based loosely on Alpha’s Searching Issues book. (What about other religions? What about sex and faith? What about Science and Christianity? etc.)
● Encourage table groups to continue as small groups. If your table leader is a new small group leader, have a preliminary study in mind. Some kind of 6 week study with little or no homework is best to start.
Hopefully these tips and tricks will help. Alpha is a wonderful tool in the toolbox for Christian Evangelism, Discipleship and Growth.
For Further Information Contact:
The Rev. Jeunée Cunningham
Vicar, St. Gabriel’s Episcopal Church, Ashburn, VA
October 29, 2002
