Selected teens offer feedback on a video series that will impact future Alpha releases around the world
By Emily Booker
The Cathedral of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus was recently selected as the only U.S. location to host a special focus group for Alpha, a program that offers a course of video series to introduce key concepts of Christianity while encouraging participants to reflect on their own beliefs and form bonds with others through small-group conversation.
The focus group of teenagers provided feedback on the Alpha Youth series, and that feedback will impact the new videos coming out next year.
Sacred Heart students take part in Alpha Youth, a series designed to get young people thinking and talking about their faith. (Photo courtesy Rick Grinstead)
Rick Grinstead, director of youth and young adult ministry at the cathedral, is an Alpha coach who has been involved with the program on an international level for several years. When the program was looking for a location for a focus group in the United States, it turned to Mr. Grinstead and the cathedral community.
“There are six focus groups in the entire world, only one in the United States, and that was us because we have had a very good relationship with Alpha for the last five years now,” Mr. Grinstead said.
He also said that the cathedral fit a lot of the demographics the focus group team was hoping to reach: a variety of young people of different ethnicities, both sexes, and in middle America.
“They didn’t want to go to the extremes like one end of the country or the other. They wanted to find somewhere where it’s a bit more of a melting pot and a place that was warm and welcoming. So, that’s why they thought of us.” Mr. Grinstead said.
The teenagers who participated in the focus group were selected to represent as much diversity as possible, including some who had experienced Alpha before and some who had not. There was a mix of Catholic school, public school, and homeschool students ranging in age from 13-18.
Mr. Grinstead began the day with food and an icebreaker to welcome the teens and get them comfortable talking with one another.
Then the participants gathered on a big, inflatable, circular couch provided by Alpha to view video and interview clips and give their feedback.
“The focus group was really to ask young people if the current versions of Alpha Youth are effective, elicit good conversation, and make them want to share the Gospel message with other people their age. It did focus some on presentation, what styles were good, what they enjoyed, but it mainly revolved around conversation and either the conversation that it kind of fostered or not,” Mr. Grinstead explained.
Mr. Grinstead said he was surprised and impressed by the depth of the teens’ conversation.
“The first round of discussion was very good, great insights, but it was after the stories that they started saying things that I did not expect. They started giving answers that were very deep, talking about the biggest issues of life, not just specifically about faith but the bigger questions young people have about life.”
“The stories really focus in on people’s encounters with a relationship with the Lord. Many of the stories that we watched, the people didn’t have a relationship; they were not churchgoers. They had not heard about the Gospel at all. And so, when the young people started seeing those stories, because a lot of our young people at least have a taste or know people or are themselves Christians, so to see these stories kind of pop on screen about oh, they’ve never even heard of Jesus? What is that like? It really got the ball rolling in conversation, talking about and envisioning well, who else might be out there who’s young who doesn’t know about Jesus, who doesn’t know what a relationship with God is like?”
Janet Perez, who also works in the cathedral youth and young adult ministry office, said the teens expressed a desire for authenticity.
“I noticed that a lot of them brought up that they want people who are real; they want people who are authentic; they want people who are genuine, and I think that’s an echo of what all youth want these days. I think they want people to be genuine. They want people to be real.”
Some of the questions, like “do you prefer subtitles?” sparked surprisingly heated and deep response.
The cathedral offers several Alpha courses throughout the year for adults, couples, young adults, and youth. (Photo courtesy Rick Grinstead)
“Honestly, I was blown away at the depth they were willing to talk and share personally. There was one question that seemed to spark the greatest conversation, and you might not expect this, but it was when I asked them what do you think about subtitles on the videos?” Mr. Grinstead said. “There was a great divide between subtitle people and non-subtitle people. But then it went deeper: why is it that you like subtitles? Why don’t you like subtitles? They spoke about being easily distracted or not, or they need subtitles to understand people. It’s the way they communicate with other people, being self-reflective and looking beyond self in that moment of conversation, going, ‘Oh, that’s the reason why I like that.’ It was beautiful to see.”
The focus group was recorded and transcribed. Ms. Perez also kept notes throughout. The transcription and notes will be sent to Alpha, which will use the feedback, along with that of the other five focus groups across the globe, to create an updated series of videos.
Participants’ names were kept anonymous for the reporting to Alpha. Mr. Grinstead said that wound up adding a bit of humor to the day.
“We used superhero names. So, everybody got a nametag and got to choose their superhero name. Throughout the discussions they would refer to one another by the superhero names, which was just a beautiful touch. They would be like, ‘Oh, Wonder Woman over there mentioned this,’ and that was really fun.”
Mr. Grinstead said that he was honored to have the cathedral selected as the United States representative for the focus group, and he’s looking forward to seeing how their feedback affects the new Alpha series.
“We’re really excited to see what kind of impact our own focus group here in the United States is going to have. Because Alpha is international and used in every country, this will be interesting to see what our impact in the States is,” he said.
He said that he had such a positive experience with the focus group that he hopes to continue it for the cathedral community.
“While we were here to focus on the new Alpha Youth series, a subculture of the focus became the participants, and it encouraged Janet and I so much that we want to continue focus groups on our own for the cathedral on things that are happening here locally and see how that can prompt us into doing better, reenvisioning what we could be doing. I told [the Alpha representative] you’ve inspired us to do something on our own that I think is going to change the course of our ministries here at the cathedral in terms of at least youth and young adults and quite possibly even larger.”
The cathedral parish hosts several Alpha sessions every year for youth, young adults, and adults, including Alpha’s marriage course for couples.
“A lot of my young adult friends here said they started to come to cathedral events and young adult events here because Alpha was the one thing that really allowed them to build, allowed the space to make friends and then from there be comfortable enough to come to our events that we host monthly,” Ms. Perez said.
“So, it’s like a great kick start. It’s a great chance for them to just talk with people, make friends, and just really get a feel for the culture of the cathedral.”
Mr. Grinstead said that parish ministry really builds on relationships and deep conversations, and Alpha opens the door for people to connect and talk.
“I really like helping people have conversations that are different, engaging, and things they want to come back to. And that’s really the focus of Alpha,” Mr. Grinstead said.
