AI Global Report 2018

A L P H A I N T E R N AT I O N A L

GLOBAL PROJECTS REPORT

SEPTEMBER 2018

OUR VISION We are passionate about seeing lives changed in the name of Jesus. We believe everyone should have the opportunity to explore a personal relationship with Jesus, wherever they are in the world, for free.

At Alpha, our vision is the evangelization of the nations, the revitalization of the church and the transformation of society.

We work through the local church and our mission is to serve and equip the church in its mission to help people discover and develop a relationship with Jesus.

T H E S T O R Y S O FA R Alpha’s incredible story and global growth shows the growing demand for Alpha in a culture where it is increasingly difficult to share your faith. The demand for Alpha from churches all over the world demonstrates that Alpha works. To date, we estimate that over 26 million people have experienced Alpha, in over 100 countries and over 100 languages.

O U R VA L U E S For the church, by the church and through the church.

Our goal is the revitalization of the church. We don’t invite Alpha guests into a relationship with Alpha; we connect them with the local church for lifelong discipleship in Jesus.

We are passionate about unity.

Alpha runs across all major Christian denominations, including evangelical churches, the Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church and all mainline Protestant traditions.

We believe the church deserves our best.

We want to equip the church with excellent tools that they are excited to share with unchurched guests.

We’re focused on innovation to continuously improve and respond to the evolving needs of the church.

We believe in giving it all away.

We don’t want to monetize Alpha: it’s free to guests and churches. Alpha is God’s mission and the glory goes to Him, not us. |1

A L P H A ’ S G L O B A L I M PA C T

Last year, over 34,000 churches and organizations ran Alpha. This resulted in 1.5 million people, including nearly 400,000 hosts and helpers, hearing the gospel.

WHERE ALPHA RAN IN 2017 Alpha is running in over 100 countries around the world.

Here is a snapshot of where and in which contexts Alpha ran last year:

ALPHA LO CAT I O N S

Alpha Youth Student Prison Workplace

ALPHA CONTEXTS

UK 31% North America 23% Asia Pacific 20% Europe and Middle East 15% Latin America and Caribbean 6% Africa 5%

71% 21% 3% 3% 2%

‘Alpha does something that is really, really rare in our culture. It provides a safe space for people to ask whatever questions they have without fear of judgment.’

JON TYSON CHURCH OF THE CITY NEW YORK, USA |2

THE NEXT SEASON FOR ALPHA We have seen Alpha thrive for over 20 years as God has blessed this tool to change so many people’s lives. The story doesn’t end here; we are at an inflection point in Alpha’s remarkable story. There is more to do, and we know that what got us here won’t get us there.

Demand is growing and we want to accelerate our mission by looking for new and effective ways to serve the church.

We’ve set a global goal of doubling the number of churches running Alpha to 68,000 by the end of 2022.

To achieve this, we have identified three areas where we want to invest over the next three years - we are calling them our global gamechangers.

GLOBAL GAMECHANGERS

GLOBAL GOVERNANCE GETTING THE RIGHT LEADERS WITH THE RIGHT S T R U C T U R E S A N D T H E R I G H T A C C O U N TA B I L I T Y Following a comprehensive review in 2017, we recognized that our existing global structures could not support the long-term growth we want to see, along with the necessary levels of transparency and accountability.

We want to develop strong leadership in the regions and National Alpha Offices (NAOs). As part of this, we are implementing a new governance framework, which will give our regions and NAOs the ability to be agile and respond to the growing needs of the local church, while remaining connected and resourced at a global level.

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T R A I N I N G A N D D I G I TA L EQUIPPING MORE CHURCHES TO RUN EXCELLENT ALPHAS

We want to see significantly more people given the opportunity to explore a personal relationship with Jesus.

Currently, the demand from churches worldwide is outstripping our ability to provide face-to-face training. We are missing significant opportunities to support more churches in sharing the gospel through Alpha. To address this, we are creating an immersive, dynamic, digital training experience that will see us engaging and training the same number of churches in the next five years as we have trained in the past 25 years. This will be supported by a new digital platform which will provide updated training content and will also allow us to measure our depth of impact and engagement with churches more effectively.

FUND DEVELOPMENT E N A B L I N G T H E G O S P E L T O B E S H A R E D G L O B A L LY Alpha is blessed with generous and committed partners and we are thankful that God continues to richly provide for our needs.

We want to avoid funding being a constraint to our ministry and all that God is doing through Alpha around the world. To ensure that we deliver our mission successfully, we want to focus on training and mobilizing leaders within our global organization to help raise healthy, reliable and sustainable funding that allows our ministry to flourish and grow.

L E A D I N D I C AT O R S To know that we are on the right track to achieve our goal, we have identified three lead indicators.

By the end of 2022 we hope to see:

•

350,000 churches globally considering running Alpha (10% of all churches globally).

•100,000 churches across the world equipped to run excellent Alphas, with 80% of all equipping to include a digital element.

• 500 strategic hub churches established globally.

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STORIES FROM THE FIELD From the gospel spreading through the church in Syria, to new roots being planted in Asia Pacific; from the outworking of miracles in prisons, to marriages around the world being strengthened and restored.

Here are some of Alpha’s latest stories:

LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE 2018

‘HOPE IS OUR SUPERPOWER. H O P E A L L O W S U S T O C H A N G E T H E W O R L D .’

B R YA N S T E V E N S O N L AW Y E R A N D E X E C U T I V E D I R E C T O R O F T H E E Q U A L J U S T I C E I N I T I AT I V E

In May 2018, over 4,500 people gathered at the Royal Albert Hall for the Leadership Conference (LC) 2018 to learn, worship and be inspired.

The theme of this year’s conference was reconciliation and speakers included Bryan Stevenson, Lawyer and the Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative, and John C. Maxwell, #1 New York Times bestselling author, coach and speaker.

Over the two days there was a strong sense that God was calling the church to ‘wake up’ and so many people said they were forever changed by encounters with God through the talks and the worship.

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L C 1 8 I N T E R N AT I O N A L H U B S As part of our vision to invest in and raise up our Alpha offices globally, for the first time following LC18 in London there were hub events held around the world - in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), Los Angeles (USA), Washington, D.C. (USA) and Mexico City (Mexico).

LC18 MEXICO CITY Over 550 Catholic and Protestant leaders from across Latin America gathered for the first ever LC hub event in Mexico City. Speakers included Danielle Strickland and Jose Henriquez, one of the 33 Chilean miners who survived for 69 days trapped 700 meters underground.

As well as the focus on raising up young leaders across the region, the event saw the official launch of the new Alpha Youth Series in Spanish, a product that is set to powerfully impact the lives of many young people across the continent.

LC18 USA LC hubs were run in two strategic Alpha churches in the USA – Vintage Church, Los Angeles and Holy Trinity Church, Washington, D.C. Lead Pastors of Holy Trinity Church, Jamie and Andy Haith, previously served at Holy Trinity Brompton in London for 20 years, so the church has a shared vision to see the evangelization of the nations, the revitalization of the church and the transformation of society in their local context. The LC hub in Washington was a huge success in expanding the reach of leadership content to their community that wouldn’t have experienced it otherwise, with people commenting that they loved the times of worship and prayer and were particularly moved by the Bryan Stevenson talk.

The event at Vintage Church saw a mix of live speakers and worship times alongside streaming the talks from the Leadership Conference in London.

The event attracted a young audience with the average ages of between 20-30. Many people invited their friends who were not regular church goers, enabling the church to reach out to those in their local communities and invite them to explore more about the Christian faith on Alpha. |6

LC18 KUALA LUMPUR More than 800 people joined together in Kuala Lumpur for a life changing week of teaching, ministry and worship at Alpha Asia Pacific’s Hub. The Leadership Conference saw two days of hearing from exceptional Christian leaders and their insights into leading from a place of God’s love.

The line-up of speakers included Lyndon Neri, a renowned architect and Founding Partner of Neri&Hu Design Research Office, Anthony Tan, Group CEO and Co-Founder of Grab and Steven Chao, host and producer for Al Jazeera’s 101 East, speaking on his calling as a journalist and how God has saved him during times of adversity.

Being based in the vibrant city of Kuala Lumpur meant the conference had a huge reach, enabling delegates from Mongolia, Indonesia, China and as far as Africa to attend.

LC18 was followed by Experience Alpha, a one day event designed for church leaders to learn about Alpha and see first-hand how it works in a local church context.

The combination of these two events, with the aim of reimagining leadership development in a way that is global, innovative and sustainable, proved so fruitful in Asia Pacific that that the team now plan to run an LC hub on an annual basis.

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ALPHA YOUTH SERIES The number of youth trying Alpha globally has increased significantly year on year, growing by 24% from 2016 to 2017.

In October last year, we launched the new Alpha Youth Series (AYS).

The AYS is an updated, interactive series which helps churches connect with young people and help them discover and deepen a relationship with Jesus.

We first launched the Alpha Youth Film Series (AYFS) in 2013 and it has been more successful than we could have imagined. It is used across 49 countries and in 19 languages, revealing the global need for an Alpha resource contextualized for the youth context.

Just like the AYFS, the new AYS is designed for 13–18 year olds, but now it is more global and more diverse. Visuals and references have been reimagined to connect with and inspire a new generation. Original hosts Ben and Jason are joined by new young sub-hosts, each presenting different insights and perspectives in the episodes.

GLOBAL REACH Following the launch of the material in English, in June this year the Alpha Youth Series was launched in Latin American Spanish, which was the first translation to be launched globally. You can watch some of the newly translated material here: https://bit.ly/2wESOQZ.

In August, there were similar launches across Asia Pacific in Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Bahasa Malaysia, Mongolian, Vietnamese and Burmese.

We also hope to launch the series in Korean, Hindi and Tamil later this year.

Ben and Jason, presenters of the Alpha Youth Series, have been at various youth festivals over the summer and have heard personally from so many young people, with comments including: ‘ M Y L I F E WA S C H A N G E D O N A L P H A ’ ‘I GOT TO SEE MY FRIENDS COME TO KNOW JESUS’ ‘ M Y FA I T H C A M E A L I V E F O R T H E F I R S T T I M E ’ ‘ I R E - D E D I C AT E D M Y L I F E T O J E S U S ’ |8

RE-FILMING THE MARRIAGE COURSE Alpha’s vision is the evangelization of the nations, the revitalization of the church and the transformation of society. The Marriage Courses are a central part of our strategy as we know that strong societies are built on strong families and strong families are built on strong marriages.

We are making exciting progress on the project of re-filming both The Marriage Course and The Marriage Preparation Course. Remaking these courses is essential if we are to equip churches to engage with millennials around the world and help them build strong, lasting marriages.

We are aiming to film this new product in early 2019, and have it completed by the end of the year. The new material will be authentic, bold and ambitious and will feature younger, global contributors and a more contemporary tone.

BEHIND THE SCENES ON THE RE-FILM Here is a behind the scenes look at some of the exciting recent developments with this project:

SCRIPTING We have edited the existing course scripts, updating and strengthening the core material. Every session has been reviewed by a global working group to ensure the material is culturally relevant. The new content has been tested and trialled at Holy Trinity Brompton in London (the original home of both Alpha and The Marriage Courses) over the past six months.

S O FA C O U P L E I N T E R V I E W S Sofa couples are real-life couples who share how they have practically applied the course teaching to their relationship. The new sofa couples have been chosen from across North America, Latin America, Asia, India, the UK and Europe and will be short listed to 30 couples.

EXPERTS The new course will include some of the best experts in the field, speaking on topics such as money, sex, love languages, healthy boundaries and building connection. At least eight experts have now been identified. |9

ALPHA IN PRISONS

‘I spent four years in prison. I was a drugs smuggler, I witnessed my mum getting abused all the time. I was a broken man. I used to go to prison just to feel safe. I remember bumping into an evangelist and he just said, ‘Listen, Jesus has a purpose for your life’. I was sitting with a couple of kilos of cocaine and I remember thinking, ‘There has to be more’.

R YA N D I D A L P H A I N A P R I S O N I N N O R T H E R N I R E L A N D A N D H I S L I F E WA S F O R E V E R C H A N G E D . H E N O W R U N S ALPHA IN PRISONS AND IS SEEING THE PHENOMENAL DIFFERENCE IT IS MAKING IN THE LIVES OF OTHERS. ‘Everyone who did the Alpha course came because I was running around the ring promoting it. I told them to give it three weeks. By the second they were ready to give up... but then every single one who took the course accepted Jesus as their Lord and Saviour.’

GLOBAL HIGHLIGHTS

Alpha in prisons continues to grow, with an overall 14% growth of participants globally in 2017. Alpha is now in over 900 prisons, with 52,000 prisoners experiencing Alpha in 2017.

In the UK, Alpha is now running in 48% of all prisons in the country.

AFRICA Westville prison in Durban, South Africa is the largest prison in the Southern Hemisphere holding over 10,000 prisoners. Following several meetings and trainings with the prison authorities, the first Alpha was run in November 2017 in the women’s section by a team from local churches. It was a great success and a second team has been trained to run Alpha in the men’s section.

L AT I N A M E R I C A

In September 2017, the Alpha Prisons team met with government agencies in Colombia and gained permission to run Alpha in the prisons. Since this trip, 11 new Alpha courses have begun in four prisons across the country.

EUROPE

Following the European Prison Ministry Conference held in Poland in June 2017, Alpha has begun in a prison in Wadowice, southern Poland. Krzysztof spent 30 years behind bars and was invited to try Alpha by one of the officers. He describes his experience: ‘I used to be aggressive and only out for myself but now I care about people and want to help them in any way I can. Through Alpha and encountering Jesus, my whole life has changed!’ |10

A L P H A I N A C AT H O L I C C O N T E X T

K E Y PA R T N E R S H I P W I T H D I V I N E R E N O VAT I O N Divine Renovation is a global ministry that inspires and equips parishes to become mission-focused. The ministry was birthed out of a real experience of renewal at St Benedict Parish in Halifax, Canada, where Alpha is not simply one of many programmes run by the parish, rather it is foundational to their identity as a missional and evangelizing church.

Alpha and Divine Renovation have a shared vision to equip parishes in evangelization and are collaborating at a global and national level, in particular in the UK.

MISSION TO MAINTENANCE CONFERENCE For the first time, Alpha UK, together with Catholic leaders from the Bishops Conference of England and Wales and other evangelization-focused organizations, hosted the Maintenance to Mission conference in October 2017 in London. The event, which was oversubscribed, attracted over 300 delegates, including 100 priests, two bishops and lay leaders from approximately 100 churches across the UK. There were also key representatives from dioceses in Austria, Spain and France.

Fr James Mallon and the Divine Renovation team shared the importance of fostering a culture of mission in parishes and stressed the effectiveness of Alpha both as a tool for evangelization but also in shifting the culture of the parish from maintenance to mission.

From January 2018, the Divine Renovation Coordinator will be working closely with Alpha UK delivering several regional Divine Renovation events as a follow up to Maintenance to Mission, as well as engaging with parishes who did not attend the conference. Alpha training will be offered as part of these regional events. |11

REGIONAL HIGHLIGHTS

MIDDLE EAST EXCITING DEVELOPMENTS IN SYRIA There have been very exciting developments with Alpha in Syria, with around 80 leaders from Syria representing 19 churches (Catholic, Orthodox and Evangelical) from ten cities attending an Alpha training in Lebanon in April this year.

Following the conference, churches in Latakia, Aleppo, Homs and Damascus (the four major cities in Syria) have begun to run Alpha.

Four churches have come together to run Alpha from the Catholic Orthodox church, the Christian Missionary Alliance, Presbyterian and Nazarene denominations. This is particularly ground breaking for Syria as it is not usual for churches to work together.

Alpha’s partnership with Open Doors has been key to this development. Open Doors work with the local church providing relief to communities and their vision is to open Hope Centers across the country. Through our partnership with them, there are opportunities to work with new churches, training them to run Alpha in the Hope Centers.

An Orthodox Priest from Homs attended the conference in Lebanon. He spoke to the team after the conference with tears in his eyes and said his only sadness was knowing that Alpha had been translated in Arabic all this time but he hadn’t heard of it.

He hoped to return to Syria to speak to the bishop about implementing Alpha in the parish. He oversees over 3,000 families in Homs and we are praying for many people to come to know Jesus as a result. |12

A S I A PA C I F I C

PLANTING ROOTS IN MONGOLIA

In October 2017, a team from Alpha Asia Pacific met with 237 pastors at the discipleship conference organised by the Mongolian Churches Council (MCC) in Ulaanbaatar. 233 churches were represented, making up approximately one third of the total number of churches in Mongolia.

Following this conference, a group of senior pastors from Mongolia attended LC18 and Experience Alpha in Kuala Lumpur. They were able to experience first-hand Alpha being run in a local church context and were inspired to see the impact it has had across Asia Pacific. This group will return to Mongolia to spearhead rolling out Alpha across churches in Mongolia, which we hope and pray will have a significant impact on the nation.

‘I came to see the Church HTBB and observed how it works when Alpha is at the center of the church.

I’m so blessed to be here and satisfied with what I see. I will return to Mongolia and realign our church to focus on Alpha ministry and develop it more.’

Ps Batbold, Mongolia delegate

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AFRICA

EAST AFRICA HUB A new East Africa Hub office has been set up in Nairobi, Kenya and commenced operations in May this year. The vision is for the Hub to become a space of excellence of Alpha practice across Africa. It will also provide a ‘come and see’ model of culture, operational practice and strategy for other National Alpha Offices to learn from.

The East Africa team has grown with the addition of a new Operations Manager who will facilitate donor communications and church engagement.

The team are continuing their preparations for hosting the East Africa Alpha Conference in Nairobi in November, for an anticipated 400+ leaders from across East Africa.

A F R I C A L E A D E R S ’ G AT H E R I N G I N E T H I O P I A Our Africa Leaders’ Gathering in Addis Ababa in March this year was attended by 60 delegates from 12 countries. The gathering was an opportunity to clarify our vision, mission and direction of travel. Our National Alpha Directors and Board members returned to their offices in Africa realigned with our vision and mission, and energized and inspired to contribute towards our ambitious new 5-year goal to increase the number of churches running Alpha across Africa from 1,774 to 6,000 by 2022.

In addition to the Leaders’ Gathering, an exciting project to translate the Alpha Film Series into Amharic has begun. This will be the first Alpha series to be translated and recorded into an African language. 70 churches have already been trained to run Alpha this year, and we expect that this new resource will make Alpha accessible to many more people in Ethiopia.

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NORTH AMERICA

THE ALPHA CONFERENCE 2018 In February this year, over 800 leaders from across the US gathered for The Alpha Conference 2018 in Phoenix, hosted by Hillsong Church in the Mesa Campus. This was the first Alpha conference to take place in the US for over a decade and speakers included Eleanor Mumford, Jay Pathak, Bishop Eduardo Nevares, Dave Gibbons, John Mark Comer and more. Worship leader and contemporary music artist Matt Maher led times of worship and celebration.

The theme of the conference was cultivating kingdom culture within the local church, and the talks and the worship were centered around themes of unity and renewing a passion for evangelism. There was a range of different denominations represented and it was a unique time to gather as a united church and focus on bringing hope to the US. A survey done following the conference showed that 95% of delegates felt that The Alpha Conference 2018 was worth their time and resources. Given the success and positive feedback received, the Alpha USA team are in the planning stages for The Alpha Conference 2019, which will be returning to Hillsong Phoenix-Mesa on 3 January to 1 February 2019.

‘One of the best experiences at a conference I have ever had in 45 years of ministry.’ The Alpha Conference attendee

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EUROPE AND UK

ALPHA UK ANNOUNCES STEPHEN FOSTER A S N E W N AT I O N A L D I R E C T O R In the UK, more people are coming to faith through Alpha than ever before. As a leading Alpha nation (with the highest brand recognition of 27%), Alpha UK has recognized the need for strategic reorganization in order to see our mission significantly accelerated.

Stephen Foster, Preaching Pastor at HTB, has been named as Alpha UK National Director and will be spearheading the initiative to reignite the Alpha brand across the nation, with a vision to give every person in the UK the opportunity to discover and develop a relationship with Jesus by increasing the number of churches running Alpha and the quality of the Alphas they are running.

Alongside Stephen, Dave Matthews, Curate (member of the clergy) at HTB, will serve as Associate National Director. Dave will lead the new Church Engagement strategy to ensure we provide the best support possible to churches across the UK. By bringing clergy leadership into Alpha UK, we are ensuring relevance and clarity in our mission to serve the church. Alpha UK will also continue to drive innovation in communications and training, testing ideas through HTB, the home of Alpha.

Successful innovations will be shared with NAOs and churches in the UK and globally.

C AT H O L I C PA R I S H E S E M P O W E R E D A C R O S S S PA I N Over the summer, Alpha Spain ran their second annual SumĂŠrgete (Immerse yourself) training weekend for over 300 priests, nuns and lay leaders from Catholic parishes across Spain.

The vision for the event began in an Alpha Spain Board meeting two years ago where a strategic need was identified to equip more traditional parishes to run Alpha, not just practically but in the power of the Holy Spirit, so that guests could truly encounter Jesus and be transformed.

The event was run in partnership with 24-7 Prayer and focused on the essential need for Alpha to be powered by prayer and the incredible potential for impact when reliant on the Holy Spirit. The training was first run with 150 Alpha leaders in 2017 and in June 2018 over 300 leaders attended and left excited to return to their parishes to run Alpha with a renewed passion and power. |16

L AT I N A M E R I C A

BUILDING STRENGTH IN THE LOCAL OFFICES

Following the Leadership Conference in Mexico City, there was a two day gathering for the National Alpha Offices in Latin America. This was an opportunity for the senior global team, including CEO Mathew Neville, to envision and share the latest on our vision, mission and strategy and inform the teams on developments in our key focus areas of governance, digital engagement and fund development.

A L P H A G R O W I N G E X P O N E N T I A L LY A M O N G Y O U N G P E O P L E Since the launch of the first Alpha Youth Film Series in 2014, the number of young people trying Alpha in Latin America has grown exponentially year on year, growing at a rate of 57% over the past three years. This makes it the fastest growing region. In June this year, the new Alpha Youth Series was launched across Latin America and we are excited about the impact this new material will have. The number of young people trying Alpha in Latin America now represents 17% of the global total.

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T H A N K Y O U F O R PA R T N E R I N G W I T H A L P H A Thank you once again for your friendship, support and prayers as we seek to serve the church around the world in its mission to help people discover and develop a relationship with Jesus.

We hope you have enjoyed reading about some of the things we have been able to achieve.

If you would like any more information, please don’t hesitate to contact:

TRICIA NEILL P R E S I D E N T O F A L P H A I N T E R N AT I O N A L +44 (0)20 7052 0250 tricia.neill@alpha.org

Alpha International is a charity registered in England & Wales (no. 1086179) and in Scotland (no. SC042906) and a private company limited by guarantee and registered in England & Wales (no. 4157379). The registered office is at HTB Brompton Road SW7 1JA.

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