Youth Alpha contains the same teaching material as the Church Alpha course, but it is packaged in a way to appeal to teenagers. Youth Alpha looks at key aspects of the Christian faith such as ‘Who is Jesus?’, ‘Why did Jesus die?’ and ‘Why and how do I pray?’ in a non-threatening, fun environment where the young people are free to ask any question they wish. The course content is communicated through multimedia presentations, and group activities.

All young people are welcome on a Youth Alpha course, and they have a wide variety of reasons for attending. Some want to investigate whether God exists and if there is any point to life; others are concerned about what happens after death; still others may have attended church all their lives but feel they have never really understood the basics of the Christian faith.

A typical session of Youth Alpha will usually involve food and fellowship, a talk by a youth pastor or leader, and group discussion where participants are encouraged to ask questions and speak whatever is on their mind. No questions are considered too silly or too hostile, and the group leaders are trained to facilitate discussions so that participants can find answers to the questions on their hearts and minds through communication and relationships.

Although it is an outreach-focused course, Youth Alpha is also a proven tool for disciple-making of young Christians and second generation Christians, and for raising young leaders within the Christian and wider community.

Youth Alpha for National Service Camps

In 2009 Youth Alpha and the National Evangelical Christian Fellowship (NECF) partnered to facilitate the rollout of the Youth Alpha course in National Service (NS) camps across the country - as the new curriculum for the Christian moral and religious classes which take place each week.

There are 85 National Service camps across Malaysia, but only about forty of them have Christian classes. The vision of Alpha Malaysia is to see Youth Alpha running in all 85 camps across the nation. Alpha Malaysia and NECF are providing churches and youth groups with resources and training to run the course, and both organisations hope that the National Service Youth Alpha course will enable churches to start work in their local NS camps.

Many teenagers who have participated in Youth Alpha at NS camps have been encouraged by a place to interact and express their faith during their months away from their families and local churches.

School Alpha

School Alpha is a condensed version of Youth Alpha that is run in schools either as part of the extra-curricular activity (in schools where the Christian Fellowship is allowed to run) or in small groups where students meet at their own convenience. School Alpha was first developed and used in Kuching schools in 2009, and leaders’ materials will soon be available so that all Christian students will be able to begin courses in their CF groups.

Because School Alpha is usually run in CF groups, the time schedule of each week is compressed to one hour, with the talk divided into three short sections and interspersed with discussion time. The course also relies much less on multimedia presentations than regular Youth Alpha, allowing CFs to use it in any classroom with minimal setting up required.

Campus Alpha

Campus Alpha is a seven week course introducing college and university students to the Christian faith. Over the last ten years Campus Alpha has proved to be an effective tool for helping young adults to explore the Christian faith, with over 600 courses now running worldwide.

Campus Alpha contains the same material as Church Alpha and Youth Alpha, except that it has been ‘squeezed’ (into seven weeks), ‘squashed’ (into thirty minute talks) and ‘spiced’ (with multi-media ingredients). The course is structured to fit into semesters and exam schedules, and is perfect for CF groups.

All the resources needed to run Campus Alpha, including the video talks and discussion notes, are available online.