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"We've had success with Catholics and people from historic denominations who think of themselves as Christians but don't have much of a personal relationship with God," Gumbel said. "We help them take a step forward without confronting them that everything they have believed they must discount.
"All of us can take a step forward, from atheist to agnostic, from no faith to some faith, from committed Episcopalian to committed Christian," Gumbel said.
"I thought it might be more interesting if I taught the course myself in my church the second time around," said Jay Trygstad, pastor of St. Mark Evangelical Lutheran Church in Worth, Illinois, "but Nicky is so good, so engaging—we've used the tapes through three courses now."
Trygstad was one of almost one thousand church leaders attending Gumbel's first Chicago conference. "Response to our first class was great. We had 60; many were church members who wanted to see what Alpha was about. We are completing a course with about a dozen now. Alpha encourages us to run the program at least nine times, because later on we begin to draw non-Christians and agnostics. That's happening now for us."
Trygstad is also requiring the course of new members and couples who want to be married at his church.
A survey commissioned by the Presbyterian Church (USA) showed 58 percent of the denomination's churches that were running Alpha gained new members. More than a quarter reported their church as a whole has experienced a spiritual reawakening. Alpha will conduct 40 training conferences across the U.S. this year.
Homegrown, program-free
Mark Jobe has a vision for reaching Chicago. After 40 days of fasting and prayer, he felt led to ask God for one percent of the city. "One percent didn't sound that bad until I did the math," Jobe said. One percent is 30,000. Jobe wants to lead 30,000 people to Christ by 2010.
The son of American missionaries in Spain, Jobe was called to pastor a dying south side church in 1986. He was in Bible college, completing a degree, so he made a three-year commitment—to a church of 18 people. That church today is 1,500 people meeting in six locations across the city. Two of the services are in Spanish, many attenders at the other services are also Hispanic. Some are black. One congregation is upscale Yuppie in a re-gentrified urban neighborhood.
Jobe's secret: make evangelism the responsibility—and the joy—of every member and attender.
"Every small group knows that part of the reason they exist is to bring people to Jesus," Jobe said. "We had really pushed E.E. We had 40 people participating for several years, and we had a couple hundred people pray a prayer of conversion each semester. But when we looked around, we had to ask, 'Where are they now?' "
That's when Jobe began emphasizing mentoring relationships through small groups. When new attenders begin asking questions about the faith, they are given a mentor and are enrolled in a Bible study that Jobe wrote called "First Steps."
