As we prepare for the future in light of Vision 2033, a big focus will be on ‘going younger.’ Across our teams, offices and region, how can we encourage and raise up young leaders, and how can we reach the next generations? 

World Youth Day 2023

Our main drive this year toward engaging with youth has been around World Youth Day (WYD), taking place this August 2023 in Lisbon, Portugal. WYD is a Global event, hosted by the Pope every 3 years, which gathers over a million young people and youth leaders as an “opportunity to personally experience the universality of the Catholic Church.” 

This year, Dez, EMENA Regional Youth Director, and Maria, Director of Catholic Development, will be leading a group of EMENA staff and volunteers to showcase Alpha as an evangelism tool. We’ll be present both at the Vocational Square and at a local Hub church in Lisbon, where we will be engaging in conversation with youth leaders and young people, connecting them with local National Alpha Offices, and facilitating a taster of the Alpha course in a fun and friendly environment.

Alpha For Students in Sweden

During the pandemic, Alpha Sweden began a new initiative focused on Alpha for students and young people, with the aim to pray with, equip, and inspire leaders and students running Alpha for their peer groups.  

Alpha Sweden are pleased to now be seeing the fruits of this initiative, with Alpha Youth growing throughout universities, in a country known to be secular and closed off to the Gospel. A particularly inspiring story is of a student leader who brought 15 of his classmates to Alpha and saw 12 of them come to faith by the end. This year, they are leading their own Alpha small groups and have paved the way to reaching universities across the country! 

The Middle East and North Africa

We are so excited to see development across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), and have focused so far this year on increasing our on-the-ground team, as well as looking to future with Alpha Product contextualisation. 

Within the last 6 months, we have welcomed new Syrian and Lebanon coordinators, whose backgrounds and passion for Alpha have already been a great strength and blessing to the work in the Levant region. Both came to faith on Alpha and have a passion for seeing others, including young adults, come to faith. 

As we look to the next 6 months, we look forward to welcoming coordinators in both Iraq and Jordan. 

Of course, to support the work they are doing, we also need high-level translated and contextualised product. Soon to be launched is The Marriage Course (TMC) in Arabic, and plans are underway to film vox pops for Alpha Israel. With the Global Alpha Film Series 2.0 being developed, the team are also reviewing the scripts from the perspective of Majority Background Believers (MBBs) and the Orthodox church. 

Please do pray for the continued work in the Middle East, that God will continue to open doors, and strengthen the team there. 

Another way in which we are ‘going wider’, is Alpha’s increased presence within contexts such as The Marriage Course, Prisons, and Forces, as well as building upon key partnerships with others. 

Alpha Poland Conference

Following the Regional Prisons Conference held in Poland in April, Alpha Poland organised an Alpha Conference hosted by Archbishop Gregory Rys, from the Diocese of Łódź, with almost 300 people attending, including representatives from the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine. 

A few highlights from the conference included Archbishop Gregory’s interview with Nicky Gumbel, speaking on the primacy of evangelism and the importance of parishes having a missionary mindset and forming missionary disciples, as well as a powerful testimony from Fr. James Mallon from Divine Renovation. It was a greatly successful event, and an opportunity for important partnerships to be formed within the Catholic context. 

Alpha Prisons in Ukraine

For the first time, we saw Alpha being run in a Ukrainian prison, with 50 prisoners joining the course, and an amazing Alpha team from Martusivka and Kiev facilitating. With outreach within prisons being an important ministry, we are so thankful to God for the ability to run Alpha in this context. 

Alpha for Forces

In June, Alpha Spain received news from Iraq of two Spanish military priests, who attended Experience Alpha at HTB earlier in the year, who started to run two Alpha courses across military bases there. Equipped with English and Spanish guest manuals, they ran Alpha with 20 guests each. It was exciting and encouraging news for Alpha Spain to hear of the materials being used in this way! 

The Marriage Courses

The impact of TMC continues to be great within EMENA, thanks to our part-time regional coordinators who have facilitated online cohorts, translation projects, EMENA participation at Global gatherings, as well as having helped obtain funding for new part-time TMC coordinators in Eastern Europe.  

With EMENA also being so diverse in its culture and languages, it was wonderful to hear of how a Hub church in the Gulf facilitated a simultaneous TMC course into English, Korean and Portuguese! 

These are exciting times ahead for Alpha products – read below to find out what Michal Rajs, our Regional Product Manager and others, have been involved in over the last few months! 

Alpha Film Series (AFS) and Alpha Youth Series AYS 

• Being part of the review team for the scripts of the upcoming Alpha Film Series 2.0, due 2025. The team, including representatives from our region, include 60 representatives of different age groups, denominations and contexts. 

• Visiting the Alpha Film Studios being built in Kuala Lumpur – getting ready for the production of AFS 2.0. 

• Contributing to Vox Pops questions, ahead of filming taking place this Summer, and research on which cities from EMENA could be represented. 

• Research carried out with National Alpha Offices surrounding technicalities such as dubbing, subtitles and discussion breaks. 

• Submitting stories from around the world to be included in the series. 

• Contributing to the development of the new Alpha Youth Series 3.0, due 2024. 

  

 Our hope is that these new products will be game changers for our ministry, and that by introducing localised and contextualised street interviews and stories, we will be able to reach more people than ever with the Gospel across Europe, the Middle East & North Africa.