Alpha Online
Engage with people who wouldn’t usually come to church – online.
Alpha is a free, easy-to-use tool that helps you engage people with the gospel through a series of interactive sessions online. Alpha lets you create space for welcoming, life-changing conversations about the Christian faith – all from the comfort of your home or anywhere where you can connect virtually.
Benefits of running Alpha Online
Reaches new people
More people than ever can join your Alpha and the gospel becomes more accessible when you share it online.
Reaches youth
Young people are more likely to try out or host Alpha because of the flexibility of hosting and attending online.
Grows strong leaders
Places responsibility into the hands of your team.
Impacts lives
Jesus is transforming lives through Alpha online.
The Complete Guide to Alpha Online gives you all the tips and tricks you need to run a successful Alpha Online.
The Short Guide to Alpha Online will give you a quick overview of running Alpha using Zoom.
Alpha Online Top Tips
Hospitality
- Ask all guests to be on video.
- Ask all guests to join in a quiet environment if possible
- Ask all guests to unmute during discussion. (Unless in a noisy setting). This allows for a more organic, free-flowing conversation.
- Ask guests to not use green screen backgrounds to create a more natural environment.
Logistics
Internet Connection: If you are hosting Alpha Online, make sure you have a strong internet connection. If possible, plug directly into an ethernet cable.
Short and Sweet: Churches have found that in an online format, people start to lose interest at around the one-hour mark. We recommend keeping the full session to 1 hour or 1 hour and 15 minutes.
Session Engagement
Ensure either the course host or group host engages with guests from the beginning of the online session – saying hello to people, asking questions, telling jokes. Avoid the silent downtime to keep excitement and enthusiasm high.
Host Preparation
Prior to the Alpha session, hosts should have all video files and discussion questions ready, as well as access to the digital solution the church has chosen. Churches have found that guests tend to get more vulnerable, more quickly online. Prepare your hosts so they can expect this.
Chat functionality
Encourage hosts, helpers, and guests to utilize the chat functionality to comment and ask questions during the video as well as during discussion time when others are talking.
Heavier Email Communication
Send weekly emails re-capping last week’s talk/discussion and ask guests to share their thoughts via email. Make sure to check in if someone missed a night.
Testimonial
Alpha online is important to us because it brings the gospel to where people are. We realized that the harvest is online yet the harvesters are offline.
