OxfordPress.com

Glitzy British ad seeks to recruit Christian worshippers

LONDON — A sexy model sashays down the catwalk. A famous soccer player scores a huge goal. A mountaineer climbs to the top of a rock face.

At their moment of triumph, they ask themselves: "Is there more to life than this?"

These aren't just three young people pondering life's mysteries. They're the stars of a glitzy new ad for Christianity.

The 60-second ad, currently appearing on 2,000 cinema screens across Britain, is believed by organizers to be this country's first theater advertisement for Christianity. It's part of a nearly $2 million campaign promoting a course called Alpha that's designed to explore the meaning of life.

All three people starring in the ad have attended the course themselves.

"There were about 15 of us and we met in a home," said Linvoy Primus, who plays for the Portsmouth soccer club. "The course covered a lot of things — the whole range.

"We were all at different stages, but we all grew," he said.

Also appearing are model Kim Johnson, whose career was launched by the British reality show "Model Behavior," and Bear Grylls, who at age 23 in 1998 became the youngest Briton to climb Mount Everest.

"I find church often quite daunting and people smiling too much," Grylls said. "Alpha was a real relief in that I found that ... actually faith isn't smiling and polite.

"It's very raw and very painful sometimes, but always forgiving," he said.

The Alpha course was launched at Holy Trinity Church of Brompton in London in October 1977. The personable Anglican pastor Nicky Gumbel took it over in 1990 and changed the focus from those inside the church to those outside.

It is aimed at those who aren't exactly sure what they believe, and want an introduction to the Christian faith. It takes its name from the Biblical assertion of God as both the Alpha and the Omega, or the beginning and the end.

Attendees express their personal views in a non-threatening setting where no question is too simple or too skeptical.

Sessions generally start with a casual free meal, after which a lively video is shown on topics ranging from "Why did Jesus die?" to "Why and how do I pray?" to "What happens when you die?" The class then breaks into small groups to discuss the topic.

In Britain, which has seen a massive decline in church attendance, the 10-week Alpha course has been taking parishioners by storm.

It is running in more than 7,000 United Kingdom churches of all denominations. More than 1.8 million people in the U.K. have already attended the course — including inmates in the majority of British prisons — and more than 7 million people worldwide.

The Alpha course has been catching on in the United States as well. About 7,500 churches offer the course, a number expected to climb dramatically in the next few years.

"The day could come when there's an Alpha course within everyone's reach in the States," said Mark Elsdon-Dew, communications director for Alpha International in London.

Christ Church of Atlanta has offered the course twice a year for the last eight years.

Until now, it's been mostly offered to new members as a means of grounding them in the truths of the Christian faith. About three-fourths of the 300-member congregation have taken it.

"But we'll definitely use Alpha as an outreach tool eventually," said Jeff Taylor, the church's minister of family life. "We've found the course to be very popular. It's a very effective way of teaching the basic doctrines of the Christian faith in a gentle and non-threatening way."

Douglas LeBlanc, a spokesman for the Anglican Communion Network, a conservative Episcopal Church group based in Pittsburgh, Pa., said he believes "Alpha has caught on with such impressive speed and thoroughness because it explores the gospel of Jesus in a relaxed, friendly environment.

"Contrary to those writers who have dismissed it as didactic and fundamentalist, Alpha welcomes all questions — but Alpha also dares to offer answers that satisfy both the mind and the heart."

The cinema ad is just the latest — and most glamorous — of a string of campaigns for Alpha here that previously consisted mostly of billboards and posters plastered on buses and taxis.

"With an increasing number of young people in their 20s and 30s attending Alpha courses, cinema advertising is ideal for us to increase the profile of the course among those who are most interested," said Alpha U.K. director Rebecca Stewart.

Behind the cinema ads is a film production company called The Mob, the agency that boasts a wide range of clients, including Pringle fashions and PC World.

Many pastors say the Alpha course is just the solution for turning around declining church attendance.

Earlier this month, new forecasts were released suggesting that church attendance in Britain could fall to as low as 2 percent of the population by 2040. Christian Research, which reports on the state of Christianity every two years, says 18,000 churches might shut down if the current trend continues.

But whereas the average age of the typical Anglican congregation in Britain is now at 64 and is climbing, the average age of those taking Alpha courses are between 27 and 35.

According to Alpha International, a fifth of those who take the course start attending a church regularly.

Gumbel said that the annual marketing initiatives for Alpha are designed to make it easier for church members to offer a personal invitation to their friends.

"All the evidence shows that they are working," he said.

Shelley Emling's e-mail address is semling@coxnews.com