THOUSANDS of churches hosted Alpha launch events across the UK as part of the national Alpha Invitation. Supper parties, drinks parties and a wide range of other events including a street party barbecue for 750 people have taken place to kick off local Alpha courses.

The events coincided with the national poster campaign with the theme, ‘If God did exist, what would you ask?’

Events included:

• An evening with TV adventurer Bear Grylls at Holy Trinity Brompton in­­­­ London, with a crowd of more than 1,200 people gathering to listen to him talk about his adventures, life and faith.
• Two evenings hosted by ChristChurch London at Sway Bar, Covent Garden, where High Court Justice Mark Hedley spoke about the British legal system and his Christian faith.
• A barbecue at Sunningdale, Berkshire, for 750 local residents, with five barbecues and an Alpha marquee with a rolling DVD of the Alpha course.
• An Alpha-sponsored football match in York between York City and Salisbury City FC,where over 2,200 Football fans were handed details of all Alpha courses running in York on their way into the ground.
• Student Alpha launches in Scotland, including Tiger Tiger in Glasgow and Aberdeen, The Native State pub, Edinburgh, and at the Macdonalds Rusacks Hotel in Aberdeen, where St Andrew’s University students attended a black-tie event. The events altogether drew around 400 students.
• An event called ‘Ask the Question at Ask’ held at Ask Pizza in Stamford, with 200 guests filling the restaurant to capacity.
• l A launch at The Ship Theatre, Walthamstow Hall, in Sevenoaks, attended by around 60 guests with guest speaker Tony Bolt from David Frost’s ITV series ‘Alpha: Did it change their lives?’
• ‘Jonathan Aitken telling his story’ at an Alpha event at Guildford Cathedral, Surrey, which drew 400 guests.
• An Isle of Man launch night with the theme ‘Prison Break’, where the team dressed up in prisoner uniforms and guests were jokingly given I.D badges with printed numbers rather than names.
• A launch event at the Helicopter Museum in Weston-Super-Mare, with around 150 guests attending and Bristol City FC goalkeeper, Adrianno Basso, sharing about his faith.
• Dinner at the Porsche Centre in Leicester, where guests were given a special tour of the cars.
• Supper at the Parkway Cinema, Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire, attended by around 130 guests, featuring a talk by HTB’s Nigel Skelsey and a recorded interview with Bear Grylls shown in the cinema.
• An Alpha course cruise at Ullswater in Penrith, where guests of Penrith Methodist Church boarded a steamboat from Glenridding Steamer Pier for dinner afloat and an introduction to Alpha by the Bishop of Penrith.

At HTB’s Evening with Bear Grylls large crowds gathered in the marquee on the side of the church building for a drinks reception before crowding into the church for the main event.

Bear, whose Channel Four series Bear Grylls: Born Survivor is watched by hundreds of millions of people all over the world, was interviewed by HTB Vicar Nicky Gumbel with the night interspersed with several film clips from the TV series.

As well as talking about his passion for adventure, Bear also spoke about his faith and urged people to give the Alpha course a try.

He said, ‘The Alpha course is super laid back and it’s fun. I think the only thing I’d say is you don’t have to impress anyone. You can be yourself and just be honest.’

‘And it’s so low pressure it’s ridiculous,’ he said. ‘If you’re nervous take a friend. But it’s very easy. Just go and listen and have a nice supper. Sometimes it’s good to do something for you, just once in your life, and explore those questions that we bury a lot. And at least then you can make an informed decision. So it’s very low key, but easy to do.’

ChristChurch London’s two evenings at Sway Bar were ‘an invitation to dinner’, with Royal Ballet star Jane Rosier speaking at the first evening, and Mr Justice Mark Hedley sharing on the second night.

Invitations to both events were distributed in advance, and Justice Hedley filled the venue to capacity. “A lot of people were amazed that a High Court Justice was willing to talk about his faith,” said the organiser of the events.

­­Jane Rosier spoke about her faith and career, six ballet dancers who went to hear her registered for the Alpha Course.

In Scotland the Student Alpha launch events were organised in partnership with local churches, university chaplaincies and a number of student organisations, and each of the four launches saw about 100 students attend.

In Glasgow local evangelist James Duce gave the introductory talk. Many of the students who attended the launches were international students from European, African and Asian countries including Nigeria, Eritrea, Germany, China and Malaysia.

“It was exciting to have people arriving at the courses not really knowing anything about Alpha or Christianity – they just picked up a flyer, or were invited by a friend, and decided to come along,” said the organiser of the launch events.

At the York City FC launch York City’s chaplain interviewed former player Gordon Staniforth on the field at half-time, with Staniforth talking about his football career, his faith and his experience of the Alpha Course.

Two Alpha Course banners were displayed on the ground, and Alpha awarded the man-of-the-match a bottle of champagne.

In Stamford, the Ask Pizza event coincided with Youth Alpha’s Coffee shop launch, where 41 youth took over a Costa Coffee shop for the evening. Both events were organised by various local churches and resulted in 83 people registering for Autumn courses.