The Alpha Course is due to launch a massive advertising campaign that will see it run promotions across mainstream television, cinemas, bars and buses in the UK.

|PIC1|The Alpha TV commercial will be broadcast on Channel Four on the night of Wednesday 12 September at 10.10pm during 'Brothers and Sisters', a drama starring Calista Flockhart.

The advertisement will be seen by millions of people across the nation during the next fortnight.

As well as being shown on Channel Four, it is appearing 58 times on the E4 digital channels and on 2,200 cinema screens nationwide for a week from 7 September.

The commercial will appear on screens in hundreds of bars nationwide and hundreds of buses in London and Birmingham.

The 60-second advertisement is for the popular Alpha course now running in 7,000 UK churches of all denominations across the UK.

The Alpha course is a 15-session introduction to Christianity for non-churchgoers run by churches of every major denomination. It is supported by senior church leaders around the world including the Archbishop of Canterbury and many Roman Catholic cardinals.

More than 10 million people are estimated to have completed the course, which originated in an Anglican parish in London, led by Charles Marnham at Holy Trinity Brompton in October 1977.

The advertisement depicts human life as a conveyor belt from birth to death, and was created by Alastair Duckworth, 24, a young Alpha supporter.

Supper parties and other events are being organised by local churches in thousands of locations across the UK - including hotels, sports centres and prisons - to promote the course.

More than two million people in the UK have attended an Alpha course and an Ipsos MORI survey has revealed that 23 per cent of the British population now recognise Alpha as a Christian course. This is the tenth annual national advertising campaign.

Alpha says the campaign is being financed by churches, charitable trusts and Christian benefactors.

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

Nicky Gumbel, pioneer of the course, said, "We have heard many wonderful stories of people - many of them young - whose lives have been changed by God through the Alpha course in churches of all denominations throughout the country.

"These annual initiatives are intended to make it easier for church members to offer a personal invitation to their friends. All the evidence shows that they are working."

The 60-second advertisement can be viewed on www.alpha.org