'First and foremost Alpha has brought people to a personal faith in Christ. The church has grown. God has been really good to us. Four years ago we were a church of about 70-80 people on a Sunday morning and now we're nearly 300. It's grown probably four-fold in the last four years. Alpha has been very, very significant in terms of that growth.'
Colin Mutch, Ayr
'Our church has been running Alpha every term over the last three years and it's been one of the chief ways of introducing people into the congregation and also to the Lord Jesus. We have lots of people from different nations and social backgrounds - on our first course we had 15 to 20 different cultures there and every single person was able to engage both in the talks and groups afterwards. It's been wonderful to see whole families and communities reached through Alpha. We had two teenage boys from a local estate who wandered into the church and brought all of their family on the next Alpha course. 15 of them became Christians and are now meeting as a home group on the estate.'
Frog & Amy Orr Ewing, Peckham
'I've seen Alpha work with all types of people - different nationalities, cynical people, very intellectual people; and people who have no understanding of Christianity. I'm not surprised that Alpha works in the inner city because people in the inner city love community. In Teesside some people still sit out in the streets, in front of their houses - they know their community. And Alpha is all about community - bringing people into a community. Since 1999 we've run more than 15 courses and during that time the church has grown from
around 40 to 200 church members. Up to now, Alpha's been the only evangelistic strategy we've had. And it's worked.'
Steve Whittington, Teesside
'I've been running Alpha in country parishes for the last 7 years and we've seen a succession of people coming on Alpha, some in small groups, some in larger groups, but the important thing is that one-by-one they've been coming to faith and that's exciting.'
Robin Ewbank, Hartney Witney
'We believe that every member of the church is to be a minister, it's not just one or two, it's the whole job of the whole church gossiping the good news about Jesus. That's how Christianity first spread - through personal contact and that's how Alpha works.'
Wes Richards, Slough
'Alpha is a really good way for young people to find out about Christianity, it just takes it right down to the basics, it explains things step by step, what we believe and why we believe it. It's a great way for people to just explore what they believe in a really non pressurised friendly way.'
Sarah Page, Bath
'Over the years I have tried many strategies to help my parishes to grow. Nothing seemed to touch the majority of people until I tried the Alpha course. When members of the first parish group told others of their experiences, they wanted to take part in the next course. This is a fundamental characteristic of
Alpha - people invite others to 'come and see'. In my opinion, in enabling the parish to move from maintenance to mission, Alpha gives the parish a sense of purpose, confidence and hope.'
Chris Brannan, Fraserburgh