In September 1998, Alpha held its first national ‘Initiative’ with a ?1 million poster campaign. Similar initiatives have been held across the UK each year since. Mark Elsdon-Dew takes a look back:

It all began when a group of 23 churches in the Thanet region of Kent decided to club together to pay for an Alpha advertisement in their local newspaper. They promoted Alpha as ‘an opportunity to explore the meaning of life - starting very soon at a church near you’ and listed all the local churches of all denominations who were involved.

The idea had come from Doreen Verrall, a member of Newington Free Church, Ramsgate, who recalled at the time, ‘Originally we as a church were going to put together a large advert but it was very expensive. ‘My husband John and I have always been keen on working together with other churches in the area and we thought that if all the churches in Thanet could contribute towards the cost, we could have a large page advert.
The result was a huge success, with interest in local courses growing across the region.

That was when the team at Alpha headquarters in London began to think: Why not do something similar on a national scale and join together to advertise everyone’s courses? So it was in September 1998 that the first UK national Alpha Initiative was launched at a high-profile event at London’s Docklands.

More than 1,700 billboards across the country featured Alpha posters. One read ‘Job. Flat. Girlfriend. Car. Season ticket to United. Still not satisfied? The Alpha course...’ Posters were placed on church notice boards and advertisements placed in many regional newspapers.

There were also 158 country-wide prayer meetings involving 10,000 people all using the same prayer schedule in a coordinated event - a model that has been replicated every year since then. The launch featured on ITV’s flagship news programme News at Ten and also in many national newspapers. The BBC devoted an entire edition of Songs of Praise to Alpha.

Religious affairs commentator Clifford Longley described Alpha as ‘an unqualified triumph’ in the Daily Telegraph and an article in The Independent described the course as ‘a flavour of the church to come’.

The following year, more than 1,000 people attended a launch party in London’s Covent Garden - and thousands more at similar parties in major cities all over the UK - as the Alpha Initiative looked forward to the Millennium celebrations with a poster which read, ‘Dome. Bug. Party. Alka-Seltzer. Is there more to the Millennium?’

After that Initiative, polling organisation MORI reported that nine per cent of the British population recognised Alpha as a Christian course. In 2000 the campaign featured a poster of Alpha leader Greta Greenwood. City launch events were held in Newcastle, Derby, Norwich, Belfast, Newport, Hull and Oxford.

The following year, thousands of introductory supper parties took place across the country as the Initiative became an ‘invitation to supper’. A poster featuring the laughing face of Alpha leader Ade Adebajo was put on 1,500 billboards across the country.

Posters were also displayed on the backs of 3,000 national and regional buses and on the platforms of 75 London underground stations. The Initiative was further boosted by the publicity given to the 10-part ITV documentary series Alpha: Will it Change Their Lives, presented by David Frost, which had recently been broadcast.

By the end of the 2002 Alpha Initiative (when an Alpha supper party was held in York Minster for 700 people), 17 per cent of the British adult population could recognise Alpha as a Christian course. Blue Peter presenter Simon Thomas hosted an Alpha event in Reading, Berkshire, declaring ‘The Alpha course is a great place to find out if Christianity is true or not.’

In 2003, 2,400 people packed London’s St Paul’s Cathedral for an Alpha prayer meeting as other prayer events were held in Christ Church, Oxford; York Minster; and Manchester Cathedral.

Tens of thousands of people attended Alpha suppers across the UK. Former cabinet minister Jonathan Aitken spoke at 18 different Alpha supper parties. Big Brother winner Cameron Stout attended an Alpha supper in Aberdeen, Scotland, and encouraged everyone to attend a course.

In 2004, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams spoke at an Alpha supper party at a church in Holborn, London and the biggest-ever Alpha supper was held for 2,400 people in a tent on London’s Clapham Common.

The billboard image that year showed a mobile phone showing the screen message ‘Is there more to life than this?’ As well as being featured on 1,500 billboards, the poster also appeared on buses, tube stations and taxi flip-up seats.

There was also a text message service where members of the public were invited to find out more by texting the word ‘Alpha’ to a special number. Supper parties were held in Ely Cathedral and Dartmoor Prison as well as thousands of other locations.

The 2005 Initiative attracted widespread publicity because it heralded the first time Christianity had featured in a cinema commercial. The 60-second advertisement was seen by more than three million people at 2,000 cinema screens during three weeks in September and October. National newspapers and television all featured the story, with The Guardian headline announcing, ‘God gets glitzy as Christians hit silver screen’.

Last year, London’s biggest and most prominent billboard - passed by 180,000 cars each day - featured an Alpha poster. Cinema advertisements were once again a feature of the campaign. By the end, MORI revealed that 23 per cent of British adults recognised Alpha.