Alpha USA – 2008 Strategic Plan
Introduction
Rationale for Alpha: Alpha is the best evangelism tool available to local churches. It also works well in the workplace, in prisons and in schools, etc, because it perfectly fits the needs of contemporary seekers—the desire to be heard and respected within emotionally, intellectually and relationally honest communities and to connect with others around story: theirs, ours and God’s.
Alpha USA Mission: Alpha exists to equip American churches, through the tool of The Alpha Course, to do the work of evangelism in contemporary culture; to make disciples of Jesus Christ from all walks of life to transform our society one life, one church, and one community at a time.
Core Alpha Values: include an under-girding of prayer and worship; genuine love and acceptance of others; hospitality, warm friendship, laughter and fun; listening to others, conversation in emotionally, intellectually and relationally honest environments; servant leadership; an expressly Trinitarian understanding of God which leads to an openness to the person and work of the Holy Spirit. Within the Alpha family, we have a commitment to unity, thankfulness, encouragement and to building one another up in love.
Background
Alpha came to the USA ten years ago and experienced rapid growth under the founding leadership of Ali Hanna and the tireless work of Brian Dahms and other early pioneers. The core strategy driving this rapid growth was Alpha Conferences. During peak years Alpha USA hosted up to 40 events.
In time it became clear that Alpha USA could not carry out that strategy indefinitely. A change was then made to multiply the NYC national office in 20 key cities across the USA. This proved to not be scalable as local teams could not raise the money to support themselves; they were getting burned-out doing conferences; and were having an increasingly hard time getting good attendance at conferences. 2003 began a trend of 20+ % decrease in active Alpha Courses.
Todd Hunter was recruited in 2004 to bring Alpha closer to churches—especially evangelical churches—and to develop a culture of innovation within Alpha USA in order to better contextualize The Alpha Course in America. In spite of adding hundreds of new courses each year the last four years, the net decline has continued.
In time it was noted that Todd’s skills were best used when he was partnered with senior leadership which is more operational.
Gerard Long came on board in the fall of 2006 to strengthen the various operations of Alpha USA; to organize innovation, improve financial planning, re-structure staff to a new national headquarters in Chicago, and execute plans with more effectiveness and efficiency. With the addition of Gerard we now have strength on both railroad tracks: churches/innovation and practical planning.
Presently, the challenge is to insure the railroad tracks are in perfect alignment, thus giving Alpha its best chance to achieve its mission in America.
Constituent Parts and Reporting Relationships:
Constituent Parts:
Alpha USA has been delegated from Alpha International the ministry of spreading the Alpha Course across the USA. While we have significant freedom to pursue ministry as we think best for our context, we stay connected to AI through our chairman, David Segel, who participates on the AI board of Directors, serving as its overseer for America.
Alpha USA also liaises with AI on a number of issues including global fund development, technology strategies, international specialty ministries, global best practices, the advancement of Alpha in Latin America, etc.
Alpha USA is comprised of several constituent parts:
· A network of churches which has the mandate to multiply itself across America through local and regional teams which are ideally based in hub churches; alternatively, as a temporary solution, the network could have its expression as a team made up of local senior pastors and business people.
· A central support team (CST) in Chicago which has the mandate to build the infrastructure for Alpha USA
· Specialist teams (Prisons, Youth, Campus, military, workplace, etc)
The goal of these various elements is to strengthen and grow the Alpha ministry in America. To do this, we want each part to operate in its ‘sweet spot’ (or gifting) to ensure that the overall Alpha ministry is as efficient and effective as possible. In summary:
· Existing and new Alpha churches are supported and served by local teams.
· Local teams are supported and served by hub churches or regional teams; and
· The CST supports and serves the whole network of churches and the specialist ministries.
Key Tactics To Grow the Alpha Movement:
- Developing, empowering and releasing a highly effective Network of Alpha Churches is the primary strategy for growing Alpha in the USA. These churches run excellent courses, embrace and model the Alpha “DNA”, and lead the way in spreading The Alpha Course in their sphere of influence. Related tactics and tasks include:
- Gerard Long will join the RLT and will support and assist the effort of the network of churches and other key leaders (regional teams, practitioners, specialty and local teams, etc.) to insure that all the constituent parts are aligned and meeting together on a monthly basis.
- Identify, recruit, deploy, monitor, nurture and celebrate hub, resource and other churches; include, and celebrate level-3 churches; “three-fifths churches”. Note: For this item, we need to determine how churches actually develop from 3 to 4 to 5 e.g. how much is organic and/or relationship. If the latter, what is the “best practice” to facilitate the development.
- Discern which churches could become the regional “home”/champion for the various specialty ministries.
- Design and produce the tools (especially the Alpha Options Website) and products necessary to resource the network of churches.
- Create processes to help level 3, 4, and 5 churches to grow into their full potential; choose specific cities i.e. Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, etc.
- Develop solutions for under-developed and non-developed areas of the USA
- Multiply Strategy Days to six; hosted in various hub churches
Note: see flow chart in appendix 1 for how this process works.
- To strengthen the network, re-invigorate Alpha conferences (marketing and training) through:
- Hosting national conferences
- Supporting 2-day regional conferences as requested by hub-churches, resource-churches or regional teams
- Promoting and supporting various local 1-day training events
- Encourage, support and celebrate innovation in training and marketing a la Phil Jeansonne’s recent pilot conference
- Distribute best practices which emerge from this innovation
- To create and support the network, conduct city-wide Invitations/media campaigns/partnerships
- Where we have a strong regional team led by a hub church
- Where we have a team, but an Invitation could further develop the network and recruit a hub-church for a particular city/area
- Where the Alpha network is weak or non-existing, but we have contact with city-wide church groups, run Invitations that can create new courses, which in turn can be the basis of the network in that city/area
- Create new partnerships with like-minded organizations:
i. The Luis Palau Association – Alpha is seen as the main ‘follow up’ tool
ii. The Billy Graham Center - Alpha is seen as the main ‘follow up’ tool
iii. Soul Survivor, Fusion and Inter Varsity to help Alpha to ‘go younger’
iv. Mission America – To help with Invitations
v. Conversational Evangelism – to raise the profile of Alpha
vi. Christian Life Ministries – For prayer support
- Course / Market Development – to meet the demand from Alpha churches including:
- Alpha Options
- Alpha for Seniors
- An Addicts course
- Global Alpha Training
- Specialty Ministries: Through local Alpha churches (ideally, we’d like to find churches who are willing to champion a specialty ministry), identify, recruit, deploy, monitor, nurture and celebrate courses for specific groups of people including:
- Catholics
- Youth
- Prisons
- Military
- Campus and Young Adults
- Workplace
- Ethnic Groups
- Marriage courses
NOTE: Items 2 (e.g. a National conference), 3 (i.e. an Invitation) and 4 (e.g. working on a LPA Festival), helps to generate a ‘buzz’ and momentum, which helps in building local churches, local teams, prayer support, training etc.
The Support Functions that will be developed to achieve the Mission:
1. Prayer
a. Partnering with prayer warriors in Uganda
b. Regular prayer calls across the country
2. Metric, Data and Coordination
a. Using data to measure progress
b. A structure e.g. regular communication and surveys to ensure that the requests of the Alpha churches are being heard;
c. Establish contact points across the Alpha network of churches
3. Practitioners and Alpha Advisors
a. Establishing ‘best practice’ to support local Alpha churches on how to run their course e.g. leader training, practicalities, w/e etc.
4. Alpha Connected and the Web
a. Establish an outstanding information source providing easy access to ‘best practice’
b. Creating a ‘wow’ factor with the web e.g. to help attract younger people to Alpha
5. Communications
a. Establish regular and relevant communications across the Alpha family
6. IT
a. Establish an outstanding infrastructure to support the local Alpha churches e.g. with resource orders, local networking etc.
7. Marketing and PR
a. To support local Alpha courses, establish a plan to promote and endorse the Alpha course across relevant parts of the Christian and secular community
8. Publishing
a. Establish an infrastructure that supports local Alpha courses but also financially under girds the Alpha ministry
9. Continuous Improvement
a. Establish an environment and process that encourages the development and sharing of best practice across the network of Alpha churches.
10. Finance
a. Develop a strategy to identify and secure support from donors for the Alpha ministry
11. Finance and HR
a. Establish best practice to support the CST and local Alpha teams
NOTE: The Tactics and the Support Functions are designed to stop the drop off of Alpha churches (approximately 20% for the last 4 years) and to develop new courses that model the Alpha DNA.
