Stats Update

15 million people have attended an Alpha course!

46,940 registered courses

Courses registered in 164 countries

Noticeboard

Dates for your Diary

International Week will take place 5-11 June 2011

Staff Notices

Lilian Tan resigned as National Director of Alpha Singapore last month. Vinnie Tang is overseeing Alpha Singapore for the time being.

Betsy Swann has left the EMEA team after 4 years at Alpha International, as she and Adam are relocating to New York next month. I know you will join us in thanking Betsy for her amazing commitment and contribution over the past few years - she will be sorely missed by us all.

Please also join us in welcoming Isabelle Lucas who has taken over from Betsy as the new EMEA Team Coordinator. Isabelle was previously working at the Council of Christians and Jews and we are delighted to have her join the team. She will be very happy to assist you with anything administrative related to the EMEA region and their team. Please click here to read a short interview with Isabelle.

Michael Roche will be joining the Alpha for Catholics team as part-time UK Relationship Manager and part time UK adviser. Please click here for a short biog of Michael.

Downloads

EMEA Newsletter

Prayerforce Newsletter

Regional Country Split Document

Letter from Tricia

Dear all,

It has been wonderful to see many of you recently during EMEA and Americas Weeks – we have had such a wonderful time meeting with you and hearing exciting reports of growth and development happening all around the world. I’m looking forward to the opportunity to talk with you again on the Nicky Gumbel conference call this week – please see below if you haven’t registered yet!

It is now only a week before we pack up HTB and head to Lincolnshire for our annual church holiday – Focus! I know some of you will be with us, and are excited to catch up with you there!

Love,
Tricia

EMEA week

We were thrilled to host more than 1200 people from 77 countries and across 28 denominations during EMEA week last month, including 8 archbishops and 38 bishops. It was such an exciting week, meeting with many of you and hearing feedback from all across this vast and varied region. It is such an encouragement to us to hear about all that God is doing through you in your countries!

Some particular highlights were:

• The Archbishop of Westminster Vincent Nichols, head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, gave an address to members of Alpha's EMEA week at Westminster Cathedral on Tuesday. There were seven Roman Catholic Bishops, and four Archbishops from Europe, the Middle East and Africa who attended the event and following reception. More information can be found here
• On Wednesday and Thursday morning of the week delegates from around the world gave feedback on the growth of Alpha in their country.
• The week was brought to a close with a worship and prayer celebration at HTB on Thursday night, where Tim Hughes led the worship and Pete Greig the prayer. Delegates who have suffered persecution in their home countries were honoured and prayed for.
• On Friday many EMEA delegates attended a Marriage Conference and GAT training day at HTB.

For a short clip of the week click here and for more information and to listen to the talks please go to: http://www.alphafriends.org/alpha-emea-week-2010
 

Americas Week

We were very excited to take part in the first ever Americas Week last month in Chicago at Calvary Church. The conference was attended by 1200 people from over 20 denominations, with reports from around the US, Canada, Latin America and the Caribbean.

As well as speakers from around the region, Nicky and Pippa Gumbel, Toby Flint and Paul Cowley delivered talks, and Brenton Brown led worship during the conference.

One of the most exciting pieces of feedback was from Nicaragua, where 500 churches have been trained to run Alpha by a church from USA who has been doing GAT Events there since 2008. Jeff Scott from Indiana and Pastor Belcer from Nicaragua spoke to other churches interested in going out and doing GAT Events. Pastor Belcer said that everything which is happening in Nicaragua now was born out of their relationship.

The Americas Week was well received by the delegates and we are excited to add this to our biannual calendar of events. Well done to the team at Alpha USA who did a fantastic job in hosting this event!

Nicky Gumbel Conference Call

The next Nicky Gumbel Conference Call will be taking place on Wednesday 21st July at 3pm BST. If you would like to join the call please register here

N.B All participants MUST register for this conference call using the link above otherwise you will not have details to be able to join the call.

Once registered you will be sent a confirmation email with the dial in numbers and passcode. For those countries that are NOT listed in the dial in numbers, please send your direct line telephone number to international@alpha.org and we will dial out to you within the 30 minutes before the call takes place.

If you have any questions that you would like Nicky to be asked, please email them to international@alpha.org

Alpha Hong Kong – Change of Leadership

We are pleased to announce that Mrs Caroline Wong Liu (known as Carol) has been appointed as the new National Director of Alpha Hong Kong, taking on the huge challenge of following Hannah Miller who did the role for over 10 years.

Please find attached a short biography about Carol, who took this opportunity to praise and give special thanks to Hannah Miller, the first National Director of Alpha Hong Kong, for her dedicated and invaluable contribution in establishing and developing Alpha Hong Kong in the past dozen years. "She started it from scratch and made it into a household name in the Christian community in Hong Kong. Her contribution to the Alpha Hong Kong ministry is unmatched, she is a true role model for me," said Carol.

In addition Gary and Garland Cheng have been appointed as the new chairs of the board, and we wish to thank John and Sandra Snelgrove for all their faithful service in this role over many years.

HTB Leadership Conference 2011

Following the success of HTB’s first Leadership Conference earlier this year, we are pleased to announce that dates for next year’s conference are now confirmed for 10-11 February 2011. The conference will be a multi-site event featuring a mixture of Christian and business speakers, and may be translated if there is enough demand from international delegates.

In addition to worship and ministry, teaching seminars will focus on the three key themes of Leadership, Vision to Action and Church Planting. The Leadership Conference is aimed at church leaders from all denominations and their teams, including staff, lay leaders, councils, elders and congregation members.

We would love to host National Alpha Office staff and church leaders from around the world for this key event, so please pass on the details to your teams, put it in your diaries and promote this event in your countries. Please note that we cannot offer bursaries or hosted accommodation on this occasion for international delegates, however National Alpha Office staff may attend the conference free of charge. Please contact events@htb.org.uk for more details.

Registration opens 20 September 2010. For more information visit: www.htb.org.uk/leadershipconference If you are unable to attend the conference, the full content of the main sessions and seminars will be made available online after the conference.
 

Pentecost Festival – Part of Alpha International Week 2011

In May 5000 worshippers from Holy Trinity Brompton, Jesus House and Hillsong came together to celebrate the birth of the church and the coming of the Holy Spirit in Acts 2:1-13. The three churches hosted the evening, which was open for the whole church, with worship led by Tim Hughes, Reuben Morgan (Hillsong), Pete Wilson (Hillsong), and the Jesus House Choir.

Next year the three churches will again host the festival, which will mark the end of Alpha International Week – this time in the O2 Arena which holds 20,000 people! The dates for Alpha International Week are 5 – 11 June 2011, and we are excited to bring together members of the church family from around the world to celebrate Pentecost together!

To see a short clip of the event featured on HTB News click here

CFEO Receives Award from the Centre for Social Justice

Caring for Ex-Offenders has been given an award for effective poverty fighting by the Centre for Social Justice. Amongst nearly 500 applicants, they were one of seven charities presented with an award at a ceremony hosted by J P Morgan Asset Management.

On the evening, the audience heard the judges comment on the outstanding number of volunteers the charity engages with across the UK, and the innovative way that they connect with established church communities to provide a wide network of support for each ex-offender.

The judges also praised the thorough and sensitive training they give to volunteers, and noted the flexibility of the mentoring system which allows the support for each ex-offender to be highly individual.

Following a short film about their work, Paul Cowley accepted the award presented by Francis Maude MP.

Paul said ‘We are so grateful for this award, this is the first thing we’ve ever won and it’s so encouraging to be recognised in the sector.’ He thanked the volunteers who give their time to support ex-offenders to live transformed lives.

St Augustine's and HTB

The Bishop of London has granted HTB a third church building in the parish to conduct worship in. St Augustine's, a beautiful church close to St Paul's Onslow Square, has an existing congregation of about 35 people who attend a traditional service at 11am, which Paul Cowley and David Walker conducted for the first time two weeks ago.

St Augustine's will also house the Wilberforce Centre, which will be the home of the Social Transformation work done by HTB. This will include the Recovery Course and the Money Course, among others.

While there is a lot of building work to be done to the site, we hope to be able to utilise this space during Alpha International Week for some of the sessions.
 

The Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization

Nicky Gumbel has been invited to lead key sessions at the Lausanne Congress on World Evangelism (www.lausanne.org/cape-town-2010) taking place from 16 – 25 October, which is held in collaboration with the World Evangelical Alliance. 4000 leaders are coming together from over 200 countries in Cape Town, South Africa, to discuss to the future of the Church and world evangelization. Alpha International has been given an excellent opportunity to talk about Alpha and meet with many of these leaders.

We would love your help your help in two areas:

1. Could each National Alpha Office please let us know who will attending the event from your country, and
2. Please let us know which of these people you would like us to connect with whilst there

If you haven’t already, please also let us know if you are planning to attend the Congress. Do liaise with Nel van der Walt (nelinha.vanderwalt@alpha.org) and Lyndsay Hirst (lyndsay.hirst@alpha.org) with your country information please.

Resources

The full versions of Why Jesus in English, Traditional and Simplified Chinese are now available on the Alpha Malaysia website – www.alpha.org.my. It can only be read from the web and cannot be downloaded or printed.

As we are trying to spread Alpha to the Chinese Community in our region and especially to China, this will be a great step forward in making our resources available there.

If you would like to install this into your web system, please contact Ben Randall at Ben.Randall@alpha.org.my