Starting September 12, young people across the nation will be taking part in Textify, the first youth campaign of the relaunched Hope Revolution movement.

Young people taking part in Textify are being challenged to pray for three friends for three weeks, texting them to start a conversation about Jesus. The organisers hope the ensuing conversations will result in many young people beginning a journey of faith.

Textify promo on YouTube

Some young people have started already and have been in touch to say how it’s going.

One texted to say: ‘Praying for my friends… they seem to be more open about Christianity everyday since I’ve started.’ Another wrote: ‘I casually mentioned Soul Survivor to my friend, she then started to ask loads of questions about God and Christianity – she is now staying over for Bible study Praise the Lord )’

Message Founder and CEO Andy Hawthorne is one of the youth agency heads warmly endorsing the Textify initiative.

He said, ‘Something really, really cool is going to happen through Textify. Bit by bit, people are going to be open to spiritual truth, then we’re going share the good news with them… The only thing we can take with us into eternity is people. And as a result of Textify this September that is exactly what is going to happen.’

Watch more Textify promo videos on Youtube

Sign up to the Hope Revolution mailing list

In North London, Eden Tollington N4 is partnering with Tollington Parish, a Church of England team of three churches: St. Mark’s Tollington, St. Saviour’s, Hanley Road and Emmanuel, Hornsey Road. Tollington is classified as a UPA (Urban Priority Area) which has seen multiple waves of immigration, becoming densely populated and wonderfully ethnically and religiously diverse.

The church runs night pastors, youth clubs, work with refugee communities, drop-ins for mums and toddlers, Alpha in the community centre, and much more, including the hugely successful annual Soul in the City event aimed at young people and families.

The new Eden Tollington team is led by Jahaziel Elliot. A successful and award-winning rapper, Jahaziel felt God calling him and his family more deeply into the life of a needy local council estate. Jahaziel is also the subject of the latest film in the Being Extra Ordinary series. In the film, he talks about his experiences moving his family on to the estate and what he thinks success really means.

Watch it now and comment on the Eden Network website.

Find out more about Eden in London and how you can get involved.

The films give a window into the lives of people who have chosen to live in challenging communities as part of the Eden Network.

Collecting the award on behalf of the production team at Message:Creative, Eden’s National Director Matt Wilson spoke of the inspiration behind the short films: ‘The Being Extra Ordinary films are designed to foster a richer understanding of what life is like in the communities we’re serving. Through the real-life stories of our team members and their neighbours, we hope to break down the assumption that you need to be a superhero to be involved in this kind of ministry.’

The latest film, number four in the series, features Chris and Laura, team leaders of Eden Byker, who talk about how God interrupted their lives to call them to the North East. Watch it below.

It follows number three in the series, telling the amazing story of Tony Grainge and his work with young people on the Easterside estate near Middlesbrough.

Click to watch Part Three on YouTube

Part Two featured Jackie and Simon Blanchflower, part of Eden Notting Barns (W10). They talk about how they moved on to the Lancaster West estate, the thrill of living in multicultural London and their dream to build ‘a local church for local people’.

Watch Part Two (featuring Jackie and Simon) on YouTube

Part one featured Ben and Amy Woodfield, team leaders of Eden Old Trafford, which gives glimpses of life on Eden Old Trafford together with some of the couple’s experiences and motivation behind being part of Eden.

Watch Part One (featuring Ben and Amy) on YouTube

Eden is looking for 100 people to join their teams in Manchester, London and in the North East in 2011. Could you be one of them?

Find out more at the Eden Network website

We’ve been working with Amy (not her real name) for the last six years, since she was just 11. She’s had lots of tough things to deal with in her life – she didn’t engage well at school and was passed around social services from a young age.

Her future looked likely to follow the same pattern as her family’s past – three generations without work, education or training. She always seemed to think she couldn’t do anything.

Amy started coming along to one of our follow-on sessions where we cooked tea together, ate and chatted. We noticed that cooking seemed to really inspire her so we started encouraging her to have a go. To our amazement, this August she had enough confidence to apply for a course in catering at college – and they accepted her!

With a bit of support, Amy’s now doing really well. We believe that showing her unconditional love over the long term has helped her to realise that she is valuable and can do something positive with her life – what a transformation!

We need your help to put another vital Eden Bus on the road. Will you ‘get on board’?

many years of faithful service, one of our two Eden Buses is about to go into retirement. We’re now seeking your help to put a new Eden Bus on the road.

The Eden Bus is much more than a youth club on wheels; it’s aimed at those hanging around with nothing to do, sometimes getting involved in anti-social behaviour.

And it’s working – to the point where reports of anti-social behaviour have fallen as relationships between young people, local churches and police are strengthened.

Demand for the Buses’ unique contribution to community transformation has never been higher and young people are starting to say ‘I can’ instead of ‘I can’t’.

Our friends at Stagecoach Manchester are generously donating a bus. But before we can take it out on the streets it needs a thorough refit to make it a safe, attractive youth facility on wheels.

Will you stand with us to help refit this new bus? We need 100 people to donate £22 each month for 3 years so our work can continue to give hope to a lost generation.

Click here to download a form to start giving to the Eden Bus project today.

Four of the UK’s most dynamic churches and mission organisations are joining forces to share their expertise in church planting this November 10 and 11.

The Message, Holy Trinity Brompton, St Thomas Crookes and St Thomas Philadelphia are the four partners behind the PLANT CHURCH conference in Sheffield.

The speaking team features each organisation’s senior leader – Andy Hawthorne, Nicky Gumbel, Mick Woodhead and Paul Maconochie – together with Bishop of Sheffield (former leader of the Fresh Expressions initiative) Bishop Stephen Croft.

The two-day event forms part of a Europe-wide initiative to stimulate church planting and share learning among those committed to reaching the unreached across Europe. Similar conferences are scheduled to take place in Athens, Stuttgart and Sofia over the coming months.

Eden’s National Director Matt Wilson is hosting the event, which will take place at St Thomas’ Church’s Philadelphia campus.

He explains the thinking behind PLANT CHURCH: ‘Research has shown that the most successful means of evangelism in terms of producing lasting disciples is church planting.

‘Through Plant Church we’re all attempting to share what we’ve learned over the years – our breakthroughs as well as our mistakes – in our different contexts. This includes planting dynamic missional communities in tough urban neighbourhoods, breathing life back into dying churches or transitioning from a comfortable attractional church model into a vibrant, sending church.’

The two-day event features a mix of sessions and seminars, an evening celebration event on the Wednesday night, an interactive question time and lots of opportunity to network and spend time with other delegates. To get the most out of the event, senior leaders are encouraged to come as a team with two or three other leaders.

Bookings are now open for the Sheffield conference, with tickets costing £55 per adult and £45 for students. Book now for the PLANT CHURCH conference.

There are 3 versions of the track that all count towards the chart and if you buy all 3 versions it counts 3 times. Each version costs just 79p. Here are the links to buy now on iTunes:

LZ7 – This Little Light:
1. Radio Edit
2. Starz Angels Remix
3. AATW – Kenny Hayes Remix

The single has been promoted by the band during a special eight-date schools tour and special appearances in churches during September. A live launch event gig at the Manchester Apollo on Saturday 25.

Click here to access a special media hub with the full video and details of how you can get involved with promoting the single.

WATCH THE VIDEO

Since Message 2000, The Message has been involved with well over a thousand more community action projects in every corner of Greater Manchester.

‘We’ve cleaned and painted and fixed and helped, and as a result, crime has come down, whole areas have been changed, and — yes — we’ve been privileged to have some great opportunities to share our faith’ says Andy Hawthorne.

‘For me the secret to success in any ministry is to genuinely combine word and deed. We have to ditch the dualism that says that it’s only words that matter, or that actions win out every time. We have to have both, because that’s how Jesus did it.’

The latest in this long line of word and deed evangelism projects is this year’s Shine Your Light campaign. This nationwide initiative fronted by Lindz West and LZ7 kicked off earlier this year with the Shine Your Light website. It will continue throughout the summer on a long tour of Christian festivals.

The campaign challenges young people to do fifteen specific acts of kindness for their friends, family and local community, including spending time with the elderly, buying lunch for a homeless person or dropping in a thank you card to the local police station.

After completing each challenge, young people are encouraged to post pictures, videos and stories on the website and Facebook, helping spread the positive and encourage others to do the same. The goal is the same as ever – that these small acts of kindness will point towards a generous God and provide opportunities for the good news.

‘Facebook and social networking give us an unprecedented way of communicating with vast numbers of people,’ comments Andy. ‘They make peer-to-peer evangelism easier than ever before.’

Shine Your Light ties in with a government campaign for young people, Shine Week, running from July 12-16. Over 6,000 school and organisations took part in Shine Week last year, involving nearly 1 million young people, showcasing their talent and putting young people in a positive light. Shine Week’s theme song is none other than LZ7’s This Little Light, which will be released into the UK charts at the end of the summer.

A nationwide competition to create a music video for the expected chart hit is one of the ways young people will be able to engage with Shine Week, bringing many into contact with The Message’s bands for the first time and opening doors for sharing the good news.

‘Shine Your Light and Shine Week really are awesome opportunities for the good news to go further than ever – quickly and relevantly,’ says Andy. ‘This has all the potential to be the biggest thing we’ve ever been involved with.’

More…

Perhaps the most powerful change in all has been in the lives of the thousands of individuals who took part in serving during ‘word and deed’ events.

One young man, Tim Mycock, was 19 at the time of Message 2000. He had made a commitment to Christ at a World Wide Message Tribe gig some years earlier and had volunteered to help on the merchandise stand during Message 2000.

Finding himself with a bit of time on his hands during the day, Tim volunteered to help wherever he was needed and was soon asked to go and help with a project in Oldham where a particular young man had been causing discipline problems. Tim picks up the story:

‘My first introduction to this kid was to stop him bringing a chair down on the head of another young person. He was a troubled young man but through the week as I got to know his story and understand him, God broke my heart for him and other young men on the margins, the disaffected.’

‘A police officer I talked to told me about him. He called him a lost cause, a hopeless case. I knew that wasn’t true – that God could change his life if he’d let him. On the last night of the event, miraculously this kid showed up and I had the chance to pray with him as he gave his life to Christ.’

As a result of serving on Message 2000, Tim gave up his ambition to be a music teacher and instead trained with The Message’s Xcelerate course. Today he works with young offenders with the Reflex prisons team.

‘I never saw him again so I don’t know where he ended up. But I wish I could have a chance to let that young man know that getting to know him had a profound impact on my life.’

More…

One of the most remarked-upon aspects of community action evangelism events is how they act as a catalyst for unity among churches. This always produces results far greater than churches could ever see alone.

Momentum from unity-building work among churches for Festival:Manchester in 2003, resulted in the creation of an initiative designed to help churches support their local police and the public sector, Redeeming Our Communities.

The strength of the partnership which has developed over the years will be shown by a Community Showcase event at the Manchester Velodrome on June 30, held in association with Greater Manchester Police and Fire and Rescue Services. And the results speak for themselves: Greater Manchester Police’s latest figures show crime at its lowest level for 10 years – a fact which they attribute to their operations, changes to policing and new initiatives like Redeeming Our Communities.

What was pioneered in Manchester is now being investigated and adopted by other cities. A Merseyside initiative launched last year; Birmingham launches in November 2010 and London in April 2011. Redeeming Our Communities is also now working with the police nationally through the National Policing Improvement Agency which works with all 43 police divisions in England and Wales and the Home Office.

Debra Green, founder, remarks: ‘There has been a bridge built across the sacred-secular divide which we would never in our wildest dreams have thought possible ten years ago. The idea that we could put on a big event that politicians, police, local authorities would gladly come and be a part of – and that is unashamedly Christian – was inconceivable.’

More…