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Alpha Tips: Restarting our Alpha Course
Our church ran an Alpha course in the past, and then we did not offer it for several years. Now there are a few of us who would like to consider restarting it again. What would you suggest?
1. Commit to prayer. Gather a team who will commit to pray and work together. We would also love to pray for you in the process.
2. Study – become an expert on what it takes to run a good course. A few great resources are the “How To Run the Alpha Course: Telling Others Book” the Alpha Course Small Group Training DVD’s. More often than not the quality of the course starts to drop when the "Alpha recipe" is altered and pieces of the course are left out. Starting fresh give you a chance to put into place the things that will help it to thrive.
3. Talk to your pastor. Ask for his prayer and wisdom in the process. The more on board he is, the better. Here is a link for him to watch what other pastor say about the course.
4. Contact either the Regional Director in your area, talk to an Alpha Advisor or contact a church in your area that you know is running a good course. Any of these people will have experience with running the Alpha course and they can listen to you and your team to help you restart the course on the right foot.
Case Study #1
Roseville Lutheran Church first began to offer Alpha in 2003, but after two years and five courses, they stopped offering the course. The pause was largely due to staff changes. They instead focused on the small groups that emerged from the post Alpha grads.
Susan Christopherson, Alpha co-director, had been leading Bible studies at Roseville for years, but says that “During my time as an Alpha small group leader, the Holy Spirit taught me even more deeply about prayer, repentance, and forgiveness. I loved leading the group and we continued to meet when the course was over.”
But Alpha was far from forgotten.... Read more here >>
Case Study #2
Living Faith Alliance Church. Vineland, NJ
We ran our first course the fall of 2002. The first life cycle of the course at our church was very fruitful. It became obvious to me as the pastor that people were different after they had completed the course. They were more relational, more connected, and easily stepped into leadership roles in the church. Even with this encouraging start, looking back I can see that we had several weaknesses that allowed the course to dwindle. Read more here >>
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