The Message Trust is celebrating Two Decades of Changed Lives.

Everything we’ve achieved over the past twenty years, we’ve done together with other churches, with other movements who share our hearts and together with people like you.

To celebrate this time with you, we’re running a competition to win one of twenty exclusive Message20 Celebration Packs filled with music and literature from the Message Trust including personally signed items.

To win one of these amazing celebration packs, just answer this question:

HOW MANY YEARS IS THE MESSAGE TRUST CELEBRATING THIS YEAR?

How to respond

Post your answer with your full name, address and contact number to:

Supporter Relations
Message Trust
Lancaster House
Harper Road
M22 4RG

Email your answer with your full name, address and contact number to:

supporter.relations@message.org.uk

(Competition closes 20th March 2012)

Competition Terms & Conditions

1. Open to persons aged 16 years or over. Excluding employees of the Promoter, their families, agents and agencies and anyone else professionally connected with this promotion.

2. No purchase necessary. [Winners will be notified by email or mobile.]

3. Final date for receipt of postal & email entries is 4pm Tuesday 20^th March 2012.

4. Prize consists of: a selection of signed literature and music produced by The message Trust and its associated ministries.

5. The winners will be selected at random from all valid entries on the 21^st March 2012.

6. No cash or other alternative in part or full will be offered in lieu of the specified prizes. Prizes are not transferable.

7. By entering participants will be deemed to have accepted and be bound by the rules. All entry instructions form part of these Terms and Conditions.

8. The Promoter reserves the right to withdraw or amend without notice this promotion in the event of any unforeseen circumstances outside their reasonable control.

9. The Promoter’s decision is binding in all matters.

10. The prize winner(s) will be contacted via email or telephone by 5pm on the 21st March 2012.

11. Winners must respond to notification of their prize within 48 hours otherwise the right to claim the prize will be lost and the promoter reserves the right to re-award the prize(s).

12. Winners may be required to participate in reasonable publicity as specified by the promoter.

13. The promoter can accept no responsibility for, and reserves the right to refuse, entries which are corrupt, incomplete, lost or damaged or fail to arrive by the closing date. The promoter can accept no responsibility for entries which are lost or damaged in the post. Proof of posting does not constitute proof of entry.

14. The Promoter accepts no responsibility for inability to access the website.

Promoter: The Message Trust, Lancaster House, Harper Road, Sharston, Manchester M22 4RG.

Location : Message Enterprise Centre, Harper Road, Sharston, Manchester, M22 4RG

Hours : Full-time : 5 days per week

Date : August/September 2012

Salary Scale : Negotiable : basic not less than £20k + share of profits

Further details are available in the job description click here .   To apply, please download a form and forward to recruitment@message.org.uk

Location : Message Enterprise Centre, Harper Road, Sharston, Manchester, M22 4RG

Hours : Full-time : 5 days per week

Date : August/September 2012

Salary Scale : Negotiable : basic not less than £20k + share of profits

Further details are available in the job description click here .   To apply, please download a form and forward to recruitment@message.org.uk

Location : Message Enterprise Centre, Harper Road, Sharston, Manchester, M22 4RG

Hours : Full-time : 5 days per week

Date : August/September 2012

Salary Scale : Negotiable : basic not less than £20k + share of profits

Further details are available in the job description click here .   To apply, please download a form and forward to recruitment@message.org.uk

Location : Message Enterprise Centre, Harper Road, Sharston, Manchester, M22 4RG

Hours : Full-time : 5 days per week

Date : August/September 2012

Salary Scale : Negotiable : basic not less than £20k + share of profits

Further details are available in the job description click here .   To apply, please download a form and forward to recruitment@message.org.uk

Location : Message Enterprise Centre, Harper Road, Sharston, Manchester, M22 4RG

Hours : Full-time : 5 days per week

Date : August/September 2012

Salary Scale : Negotiable : basic not less than £20k + share of profits

Further details are available in the job description click here .   To apply, please download a form and forward to recruitment@message.org.uk

Location : Message Enterprise Centre, Harper Road, Sharston, Manchester, M22 4RG

Hours : Full-time : 5 days per week

Date : August/September 2012

Salary Scale : Negotiable : basic not less than £20k + share of profits

Further details are available in the job description click here .   To apply, please download a form and forward to recruitment@message.org.uk

For here is a young man once again ‘in his right mind’ after having almost killed himself through overdoses, self-harm and suicide attempts. It’s impossible to imagine how he could have turned his life around – expect for Jesus.

‘From as young as I can remember, I was never able to handle my temper,’ says Jason. ‘I was always in trouble in school, always smashing up my mum’s house, always running away from home. I even stabbed my own sister. My mum put me in care because she didn’t know what to do with me. I was just out of control.’

Introduced to drink and drugs while in a children’s home, Jason’s life was soon marked by violence and criminal behaviour.

‘I had no good influences. Looking back, 
I know I didn’t want to be that way. I remember thinking, “This isn’t me.” Deep inside my heart, I was always upset, always crying on my own. But I didn’t know how to get out of it.’

Jason was given his first prison sentence aged just 15, and went on to spend most of the next 12 years in custody. Prison itself didn’t help him – he continued taking and dealing drugs, still full of anger and unable to understand his emotions.

His self-destructive streak took over, as he tried one thing after another to harm himself: ‘I stopped eating for a week. I cut my wrists. I took overdoses. I whipped myself with a belt and buckle, cutting myself open. There was a point I was screaming so loud and for so long that blood was coming out of my lungs.’

After one of his sentences, he was so afraid that he would kill himself, he voluntarily handed himself in to a psychiatric unit. Jason was confined to a cell, with staff at a loss what to do. But then, one night, Jason had a dramatic encounter that would change everything.

 ‘I remember shaking, the blood in my veins was boiling – my whole body was in pain. I began walking round my cell, thinking that if I stopped moving, I would die. That was when it happened. I didn’t know anything about Christianity or God but I knew Jesus was speaking to me. I felt like I was getting cleansed and cleaned by him right there in my cell.

‘After three hours, everything just stopped. All the pain, all the bad thoughts disappeared. My brain was empty and hungry for what God was showing me. I asked someone to go and bring me a Bible I had seen once on the hospital wing.

‘I opened it and started reading about sorrow, repentance and salvation. It was for me! God was speaking to me. I started crying my eyes out. Over a small space of time, he built me up rapidly. Before I knew it, I was finding out I can sing and play the guitar. I can speak to people about God. The staff couldn’t believe it.’

Soon after his life-changing encounter, Jason heard about some courses Reflex were running on the wings. Impressed with his new state of mind, staff gave him permission to join a group, where Jason met Simon, Matty and Nick from the Reflex team. They began to mentor him in his walk with God.

‘They’ve become like brothers to me – I feel like I’ve known them all my life. When it came to getting out, they set me up with a church. They come and pick me up, bring me into The Message, encourage me and help me out with what God’s got planned for me.’

Jason is now being considered for a place in one of the new businesses to be housed in the Message Enterprise Centre, opening later this year. He is eager to work to establish a good life for himself and even has business ideas of his own.

‘I feel like a tree that’s come into the light – I’m getting the right nutrition at last. Words can’t describe what he’s done for me in my life — and this is just the beginning!’

The movement Matt describes has already taken in neighbourhoods far beyond Manchester, where the first Eden teams began working with young people in 1997. Now regional hubs are thriving in the North East, Yorkshire and London, and exciting new doors are opening up in both the Humber region and Merseyside.

NEW PARTNERSHIPS

In all, 24 Eden partnerships are now active or on the cusp of launching.

In Hull, Eden Preston Road is urgently recruiting its team who will live and minister on the estate which has long-standing challenges: the area is in the bottom 0.26% of multiple deprivation nationally, with high levels of crime, benefit dependency and worklessness. The partnership will be boosted by strong links with the newly re-sited Archbishop Sentamu Academy on the estate (see picture). This 1500-pupil high school has a strong Christian ethos and its Principal is keen to work closely with the Eden team to make a significant difference in the lives of young people and their families.

Sited in a highly multicultural area of Sheffield, Eden Fir Vale is the third Eden team to be established in Yorkshire. Team leaders Ben and Beth Baker are building links with local people and organisations and engaging cross-culturally, getting to know their Muslim neighbours and even learning Urdu.

In London, two new partnerships are set to commence in 2012, adding to the four already under way. Eden Brunel will be based on an estate in the Paddington area and Eden Plaistow is to be located in the area close to the West Ham football stadium in East London.

And here in Manchester, plans are being drawn up for a new Eden in partnership in an estate called the Merseybank, in partnership with a church called Ivy Manchester.

We hope to bring you more news about these exciting new Eden teams in the next edition of Flow. However, if you can’t wait that long you’re welcome to contact the Eden office directly, details below.

ASSOCIATES NETWORK

A further significant development for 2012 will be a whole new kind of growth, an opportunity to go far beyond the current geographical boundaries of the Eden Network. Matt explains more:

‘We’re approached often by people who are encouraged by what God’s doing through Eden – they want to connect and receive support from us but they don’t fulfil our criteria for various reasons. Perhaps they’re not focused within a big urban population, maybe they don’t place the same emphasis on youth, or maybe their community isn’t quite in the bottom 10%. But we really want to help them succeed too – we don’t want them to find themselves repeating mistakes we’ve made before. We recognise we need an easier way for them to connect with us to obtain some level of support, encouragement and resource.’

With that in mind, Eden is working behind the scenes on the nuts and bolts of what will become an Eden ‘Associates’ network. This will allow interested groups to benefit from Eden’s expertise without becoming full-blown Eden partners. Associates will have the opportunity to train with experienced Eden workers, join networking events and access lots of great resources.

‘In kingdom terms we hope this shift will have massive impact because it will offer us the opportunity to begin making a difference in many other places – perhaps even in other nations,’ says Matt.

PROXIMITY CONFERENCE

One part of the Associates package will be an invitation to be part of national events such as the upcoming Proximity conference, taking place on 25th and 26th May at World Harvest Bible Church in Salford Quays.

Proximity will feature as its keynote speaker Dave Ferguson from Community Christian Church and NewThing Network (pictured). Dave is a serial church planter who has seen exponential growth in his movement of missional communities around Chicago.

Also speaking will be Patrick Regan of XLP, who works with young people in several inner-London boroughs. Because of his experience of gang culture, Patrick became a key voice in the wake of the riots last August.

And Nims Obunge, CEO of the Peace Alliance and pastor of a church in Tottenham, has also joined the speaking team, responsible for leading the conference’s devotional times.

‘Nims actually gave me a great insight that helped me see Eden in a whole new way,’ says Matt. ‘He said to me, “Biblically, Eden signifies the work that God’s begun and is inviting us to be part of.” Wow! Now that’s great theology! We’ve always known that Eden is God’s movement, not ours, he’s doing something special through Eden and we just want to keep up with him.’

You can find out more about the Proximity conference and the new Eden locations on Eden’s website.

Contact the Eden team now via email.

Matt’s new book, ‘Concrete Faith’, is the inside story of the Eden Network

It’s packed with inspirational and personal stories and shares the lessons learned and challenges faced by Eden teams over the last 
15 years. The book will be out in March, but you can pre-order a copy for just £5 right here.

But there’s a new dimension beginning to open up for Genetik, as Mission Director Ian Henderson explains:

‘So far, Genetik has been about investing in individual young people who share our passion for mission, and that will definitely carry on. But we’re also keen to see whole schools teams joining us to be trained on Genetik and then sent back to their own cities or countries with a continued relationship with us as Associates.’

It’s already happening: two former students from the 2010–11 intake Georgia Houghton and Heather Turkington (pictured) trained with us last year and while here, heard God talking to them about setting up a new theatre-based schools team based in Belfast.

Within weeks of graduating from Genetik, the new On The Edge Theatre Company were performing at the Summer Madness festival and spreading the word about their vision to share the good news in schools in Northern Ireland. On The Edge are now Message Associates – supported by The Message, sharing our values, but independent.

Also last year, The Message was approached by a youth network in Norway called Impuls to help train and release a new schools team for Norway. This year and next, youth workers from Norway are training alongside our teams with a view to launching a groundbreaking new team there soon. Similar projects are being explored by groups from the UK and the US.

‘The dream is quite simply loads more schools teams all over the place,’ continues Ian. ‘We have the best people to help put together high-impact schools bands, and invaluable experience of recruiting the right people, helping develop the music and getting teams ready to hit the ground running.’

We’re eager to talk with anyone who shares that vision – individuals and groups alike. Get in touch to start a conversation: email genetik@message.org.uk

Genetik is an outstanding springboard into a career in youth evangelism or schools work.

Many other graduates from the 2010–11 intake have gone on to accept a wide range of paid and voluntary youth work and ministry opportunities in Manchester and beyond.

APPLY NOW for the
 2012–13 Genetik course