Student Alpha is a seven week course introducing people to the Christian faith. Over the last ten years Student Alpha has proved to be one of the most effective tools for university students and young adults to explore the Christian faith, with over 600 courses now running worldwide.
Its simple format has seen courses run everywhere from churches and halls, to McDonalds restaurants, curry houses and night clubs! It contains the same material as ‘classic’ Alpha, except that it’s been ‘squeezed’ (into seven weeks), ‘squashed’ (into thirty minute talks) and ‘spiced’ (with multi-media ingredients).
Example Videos
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
HOW LONG DOES A TYPICAL STUDENT ALPHA COURSE RUN?
Student Alpha runs for seven weeks, whereas the Alpha course is 10 or 11 weeks in length.
WHY IS STUDENT ALPHA ONLY SEVEN WEEKS LONG? HAVE YOU CUT OUT SOME OF THE TALKS?
It’s seven weeks long so that it fits into a university term, which in the UK tends to be about 10 weeks. We haven’t cut any of the talks out as they are all really important. Instead we have ‘squeezed’ the talks down by merging some of them together. For example: What about the Church and Telling Others on Student Alpha is actually two separate talks on the Alpha course.
DO I NEED TO BE GOOD AT GIVING TALKS TO RUN STUDENT ALPHA?
No. The end. (You can run Student Alpha without giving a talk at all. All the Student Alpha talks are available in video format to download and watch from the resources page. You can just download them, find somewhere to put your laptop so all your mates can watch, click play and relax. Easy peasy! Alternatively the talks are available to buy on DVD here).
WHERE CAN I BUY A STUDENT ALPHA DVD?
The Student Alpha DVD is available from the Alpha online store. Click here to buy online.
CAN WE CHARGE A FEE FOR PEOPLE TO COME ON STUDENT ALPHA?
It’s very important to us that people are not charged for coming on the course. Evangelist Billy Graham said it’s really important that people can hear the gospel free of charge. If you prefer, you could always ask for a donation towards food, but don’t make it compulsory. At the same time we understand that running a course can be costly so why not check out some of our creative ideas for funding your coursehere.
IS IT POSSIBLE TO RUN STUDENT ALPHA WITHOUT THE WEEKEND OR DAY?
No, unfortunately not – it just wouldn’t be Alpha. We’ve found that the weekend or day with teaching on the Holy Spirit is one of the most crucial parts of the course. When the Methodist Church did a survey of all the churches that were running Alpha, they found that there were a handful of churches where Alpha was not working that well, and there were also a handful of churches that had cut out the weekend or the day on the Holy Spirit. They were the same churches.
DO WE NEED TO HAVE A SONG OR MUSIC WORSHIP?
No, not necessarily. We will leave it up to you whether you think it would work or not, depending on your course. For example, if it’s just you and two mates in your kitchen, leading worship with a guitar might be a bit awkward. There are other ways of including a ‘worship’ element – like watching a youtube video of some worship or putting on a worship CD. You might also like to put on some non-worship Christian music whilst you’re eating supper together.