I am grateful for the invitation to present this paper on Alpha and some aspects of its theology. Some years ago I asked a member of our congregation, who was a student at the London School of Economics, what he was studying. He replied, Well, I think we are trying to discover whether what works very well in practice can be made to work in theory! I feel a little bit like that when we come to talk about a theology for Alpha but nevertheless it is still worth it. Alpha is quite simply an introduction to the Christian faith that takes place in 15 sessions over 10 weeks. We advertise Alpha as an opportunity to explore the meaning of life, and it is designed primarily for those who would not say that they are Christian and who do not go to any church. As an opportunity to discover what becoming a Christian might involve, Alpha has proved to be extremely popular, partly through the hard work that Nicky Gumbel has put into the course in developing it and adapting it to the needs of enquirers as their questions develop and change over the years but partly because--and I say this reverently--the Holy Spirit seems to have adopted the course so that it is now running in so many totally different cultures and with a huge variety of cultural differences amongst the enquirers all over the world. In 1992, there were five Alpha courses of which we were aware. There are now something over 30,000 that we are aware of and we believe that something approaching seven million people worldwide have now completed the course in 154 different countries, and the materials have been translated into 61 languages. In the UK alone, 1.8 million people have done Alpha and there is an effective Alpha course running in 80% of the prisons. There are already national advertising initiatives in the UK, New Zealand, Canada and Australia, and others, including the United States, are planning to advertise in the near future. Alpha works on a number of principles. For example, we believe that experience shows that in the current climate evangelism takes place best in a local church setting. We recognize, too, that evangelism or evangelization is a process. In the United Kingdom, for example, where there is today very little background of Sunday School attendance let alone adult Christian education, it is less likely now than it was in years past that someone will decide to become a Christian on the basis of a 25-minute sermon. We recognize, too, that evangelism has to appeal to the whole person, and Alpha recognizes the need to attempt to reach both the head and the heart, the soul and the conscience, where the Spirit of God can be active in drawing someone to faith in Jesus Christ. We want to assert, too, that evangelism needs to show a Christian concern not just for the soul and salvation in this world and the next, but a genuine desire to see the transformation of society, and the effects of a generous and loving God being worked out in the approach of the Christian church in practical ways to poverty, justice, etc. In all this, the activity of the Holy Spirit needs to be honoured and fostered both in those seeking to bring people to faith and in the hearts of those who are enquiring. One of the astonishing aspects of the Alpha course has been its success in cultures totally different from ours in the United Kingdom. For example, my wife and I were invited to visit a church in Almaty, Kazakhstan two or three years ago. As we were flying over, I remember asking my wife what on earth we were going to Kazakhstan for, and I suppose I thought that perhaps I might be able to introduce them to the possibilities of the Alpha course and encourage them in their evangelization of the largely Muslim population in that country. When I arrived in Almaty I discovered that the church already had 300 people meeting on Tuesday nights to do the Alpha course, with 300 different people doing the same course on Wednesday nights. The first time the church ran Alpha, the chef at the local branch of an international chain of hotels had been converted and he offered to do all the catering for the church's future courses. …