An annual two-week event run in partnership with local churches and The Message, saw 150 young people make a response to God last week.

Message theatre group In Yer Face and bands LZ7 and Blush spent time in schools across the area, taking lessons and running lunchtime concerts, as part of the two-week event known as ‘Vision’.

The lessons focused on suffering and how God can help us. Jess Cook from Blush, explains, ‘We chose to look at suffering because it is a subject that comes up everywhere we go: “If God is so good, why does he let bad things happen?” Instead of spending two minutes answering it, we wanted to go more in depth. It gave us the chance to share stories of how God has helped us through difficult situations’.

The fortnight ended with three concerts featuring live performances from Blush and LZ7 together with other local bands and teams.  Over 1,000 young people attended the three concerts, most of whom took an Alpha invite at the end of the night. Over three nights around 150 young people came into the response area to find out more – 80 of these are now attending Vision’s Youth Alpha course.

The Vision team donated all the proceeds from the concert tickets – over £3,000 – to Tearfund to provide water and sanitation equipment for villages in Uganda.

The Rossendale schools weeks were just two of 22 schools weeks booked in for our bands and theatre company between now and Christmas – our busiest Autumn term ever.

Tags: Bands, Blush, In Yer Face, LZ7, Manchester, schools, students, testimony, young people