In 2024, Alpha Gulf’s ministry grew significantly, with more than 100 churches running Alpha, reaching around 10,000 people. One man in Dubai, whose church began running Alpha in 2024, shares how it has helped him to live out his Christian faith in fresh ways.
Profoundly moved by the Holy Spirit during the Alpha weekend run by a church in Dubai, Michael*went to the beach to reflect on what he’d just experienced. There, a woman approached him for help, explaining that she’d lost her job, become homeless and had been sleeping on the beach.
If this had happened a day earlier, Michael admits he would not have got involved. Instead, he felt the Holy Spirit prompting him to do something he’d never done before for anyone: to offer to pray for a stranger and invite her to church, both of which she gratefully accepted.
It was like God was saying,
‘This is why I put you here’
“It’s truly amazing how God connects His people to find their way through to Him,” he notes. “I introduced her to the prayer team and then the welcome team, and this has led to a transformation in her faith journey. She asked for a Bible and the rest is history.
“I feel a sense of purpose like never before. It was like God was saying, ‘This is why I put you here.’”
Michael’s church (one of the biggest evangelical churches in the UAE) officially introduced Alpha to their international congregation in 2023 and ran five Alphas in 2024 (four in-person and one online), each attended by up to 100 guests. Many became Christians and were baptised.
In 2025, this church plans to launch a new Alpha every month, inviting new visitors to sign up, and run four ‘outreach’ Alphas in 2025 to reach the thousands of unchurched expatriates in the city.
*Name changed to protect identity.
