Alpha Ideas

A Baptist Church on the edge of Coventry has been running Alpha courses in homes and on church premises for the last 14 years. When they found the church premises were booked when they needed it, they decided to move to the local Campanile Hotel. With good food, good parking and in a well-known location, it was an easy threshold for a guest to cross who would otherwise be put off by a church or home venue. Organisers have also found that they’re meeting the guests in the hotel, too, many of whom are there week-in week-out, and at least one has joined in with the course!

After asking his friends (who weren’t churchgoers) where they would feel comfortable doing Alpha, Rev Vaughan Pollard from Spalding approached the local bookshop. The owner was amazed, he said, ‘She’d just been at a conference where she met a Scandinavian man who was telling her all about his recent enrolment in an Alpha course. She was blown away and said, “I found out about Alpha last week and now you come and ask to come and hold it in my shop!”’