8 reasons why Alpha is more popular than ever

Last year, Alpha saw over 2.1 million participants globally, representing the biggest annual uptake since the course began in 1977. The change of spiritual climate is also reflected in the UK, as Alpha is on track to welcome over 200,000 guests this year — potentially doubling the 115,000 recorded as recently as 2021. 

There are few things as wonderful as the experience of being present with someone discovering a relationship with Jesus in real time. It often kickstarts the missional lifeblood pumping around a whole church community again! 

Here are 8 reasons why we believe hospitality-led evangelism is thriving.

1. A new Alpha Youth Series for a new generation

Alpha Youth has been stunningly reimagined and recreated for Gen Z and the aptly named Gen Alpha. After a series of city-wide premiere events, stories are emerging of significant adoption in churches and schools.

In Northern Ireland one Vineyard Church is running the new series for six local schools and over 20 classes.

Jasper, 18, ran Alpha Youth in Tunbridge Wells by recruiting a team of 30 and bringing 100 classmates along. 

History shows there is a tide in the work of the Holy Spirit. Renewal in church and society can’t be controlled or scheduled — but typically, when God is doing a new thing, he moves in a new generation.

2. Cross-cultural mission opportunities

The arrival of some 150,000 people from Hong Kong alone into the UK has presented Chinese churches with a delightful problem: an explosion of overnight growth.

Alpha is contextualising its products for new audiences and the extraordinary opportunity arising for Chinese speakers coincides with a brand new, fully contextualised Chinese language Alpha Film Series.

Meanwhile the number of UK churches offering Alpha in languages such as Ukrainian, Polish or Spanish (to name a few!) continues to grow. The panta ethné (all nations) of Matthew 28 are in our own neighbourhood.

3. Intellectual credibility of Christian faith

Many millennial Christians faced the school playground or university classroom in an environment where the New Atheist movement caricatured faith as unthinking or irrational. Times have changed. Public intellectuals like Ayaan Hirsi Ali turning to Jesus have thrust Christian faith back into popular discourse in a way perhaps not seen since Tolkien and Lewis were recording for radio in the 1950s. 

When God is doing a new thing, he moves in a new generation

4. Good news in a good way

The Celtic monastic movements once evangelised the entire continent of Europe by leading with emotional hospitality, treating people as honoured guests, giving them the best of all they had, and allowing them to taste for a moment what it feels like to belong to Christian community.

The rediscovery of these ancient Celtic practices continues to attract digitally frazzled and proclamation-weary guests who want to explore the relevance of faith on their own terms and at their own pace. There really is a uniquely beautiful experience found in good food, a long table, a thoughtfully asked question and a conversation marked by joy, not intensity. 

5. Pre-Christian students and viral movements

The UK has been in a post-Christian moment for a generation, where everyone’s granny went to church, but nobody knew why. Young adults often felt they’d had just enough exposure to the Christian faith to put them off for the rest of their lives. Increasingly in student cities of the UK young adults are now coming on Alpha with little or no prior knowledge of the Jesus story, creating new potential for a viral, invitational movement as they share their experience of encountering his love.

6. Church planting

Nicky Gumbel was asked recently ‘what’s happening in the UK church?’ and he responded, ‘the church is dying, and the church is coming to life.’ This is especially true in the institutional or traditional expressions of church where closures and amalgamations have transformed the historical shape of Presbyteries and Parishes alike.

However, new strategies and energies for church planting and revitalisation are growing. Typically, church plant projects are infused with the impetus to go outwards in mission and downwards in age, reversing the macro-trends of the last hundred or so years.

7. Invitational confidence

You could be forgiven for thinking that everyone in the UK has already tried Alpha. It has been around for 30+ years. But Ipsos research commissioned by Alpha UK has consistently revealed an alternative picture; there are millions of people in the UK who know what Alpha is, and would likely come along, but have never been asked.

It could be your barber, bus driver, gym instructor or friend at the school gate… 

8. Jesus promised to build his church

Ultimately hospitality-led evangelism in the UK is thriving because Jesus understood his mission as coming to ‘seek and save the lost.’ Going by the stories of transformation we hear week by week, he’s still at it, and we’re invited to join in the fun.