So which is it; light-as-in-not-heavy or light-as-in-not-dark? Whichever way you read it, the title of the latest LZ7 released by Fierce, on October 25th, is bang on. With twelve tracks (plus two bonus remixes of the impossibly good YouTube sensation ‘This Little Light’) their label debut is their strongest, brightest and most dynamic work yet.

All summer long the Shine Your Light campaign has been raising the bar on social action. And having adopted ‘This Little Light’ as its anthem of choice, by the time the single was released to the mainstream at the end of September, it charted straight away at number 26. There’s still more to come from LZ7; a band that are about to step up a gear. With its passion, its range, its ability to connect and the simple fact that the songs are so good, Light is just the album to do it with.

Let’s take the light-as-in-not-dark line. Apples don’t fall far from the tree, and LZ7 follow in the footsteps of the legendary Message bands The Worldwide Message Tribe, blush and others. ‘Light’ is as evangelistic as the sun is hot, with every song drawing the listener back to the source of it all. At times that means being direct – like the songs ‘Four Points’ and ‘Fall At Your Feet’ – but LZ7 know how to turn a decent pop lyric too, and songs like ‘Ditto’, ‘Greatest Day’ and ‘Dance This Night Away’ bring all the power of the gospel in a unique way.

But what about the light-as-in-not-heavy thing? Surely LZ7 haven’t ditched the grime in favour of sugar-sweet europop? Don’t worry, they haven’t. They’re still just as much a Beastie Boys/Dizzee Rascal/N-Dubz mash-up, and get the opening seconds of ‘Superstar’, ‘Come Alive’ and the heart-shredding ‘Four Points’ up loud enough and your sub-woofers will testify in force. But there’s something light, flexible and nimble about the way that ‘Light’ moves throughout its 53 minutes. One track they’re getting you head-nodding to a confession of sin, the next they’re plugging your feet into the mains in celebration of salvation. ‘Light’ moves around the floor with all the freedom that lies at the heart of the gospel.

The album was executively produced by brothers Jorge and Obi Mhondera (WhistleJacket) and Lindz West, who teamed up with a variety of different production teams, and fused them with LZ7″s authentic writing skills for an electric combination. Fierce Distribution! is just as excited about the next few steps for LZ7 as the band are. Keep your eyes open to see what happens next.

The album is available now at www.messagetrading.co.uk

come to an end. Blush scooped an exclusive Gospel Music Award (GMA) for Best Group in December 2009, fighting off competition from such big names as the London Community Gospel Choir, Four Kornerz and Hillsong London.

In a series of ‘God-incidences’, each band member has seen exciting things happening in their personal lives which have resulted in the band deciding to call it a day.

Speaking about the decision, Andy Hawthorne commented, ‘In every way Blush is coming to a good end. Jess and Jim are expecting their first baby at the beginning of June; Holly is love-struck, getting married to James and moving to London to be a part of a church plant; Pippa is going to work for her church, Ivy Manchester; and Nic will be continuing the heartbeat of Blush through a new music venture.’

Band leader Jess Cook explains from the band’s perspective: ‘Since last year, we’ve heard God very clearly speaking to us about “only doing what only we can do”. That’s enabled us to focus our work on helping girls and young women see their true value in God’s eyes and for that reason, this year has been the band’s most effective and authentic ever.

‘We’re very strong as a four. But we’ve come to realise that God is now moving us all on individually.

The heart for young women and girls continues just as strong as ever through each of our ongoing journeys and we are planning new things to help the girls we’ve worked with over the years.’

‘Of course it’s a sad day for everyone at The Message,’ added Andy Hawthorne. ‘But it’s been an extremely fruitful seven-year journey for the girls.’

The band  ended this chapter of their lives with a farewell gig on May 7 2010 at Wythenshawe Forum that was an awesome send-off.

The Message’s youth discipleship resource Start Something is now available to download for free via iTunes.

Featuring Lindz West, Andy Hawthorne and members of Blush, Start Something answers 12 burning questions facing young Christians and includes tracks from the bands.

Previously full-priced at £4.99, well over 5,o00 copies of Start Something have already found their way into the hands of young people.

Click here to go direct to iTunes to download Start Something as a podcast.

Click here to download the original CD artwork.

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What makes our schools bands different from ‘regular’ bands? We look back at the history and impact of our schools work, from The World Wide Message Tribe to Twelve24.

Back in 1988, Andy Hawthorne and his brother Simon ran a week-long youth mission at the Manchester Apollo. Thousands of young people turned up and hundreds responded – clearly God was at work.

Soon after, Mark Pennells approached Andy and Simon and started to work with them full-time in schools, singing and taking lessons, whilst music producer Zarc Porter honed his skills by working with Manchester’s popular rave bands in his home-built studio. What followed was ‘The Message to Schools’, a team dedicated to taking the gospel into Manchester’s schools, and a fore-runner of today’s Message Trust.

In 1992 Andy joined Mark as a rapper and communicator and Zarc as a producer and formed The World Wide Message Tribe (WWMT).

Andy explained their vision in an interview with Cross Rhythms in 1993, ‘God has called us to work in Manchester’s schools. There are so many kids here for us to reach with the gospel. Our long term aim is to have more than one team working in the area. We want our music to be as good as possible, but everything is a servant to evangelism.’

Over the next twelve years, the WWMT (just ‘The Tribe’ by 2001) performed in hundreds of schools weeks, concerts and festivals, released ten albums and led thousands to Jesus. The line-up changed over the years, as did their sound (and their outfits), but their vision remained the same: to share the good news in a relevant, meaningful way, to as many young people as possible.

In another interview in 1997, Andy Hawthorne commented, ‘All this stuff can easily become religion: trying to be funky, getting new haircuts and clothes, pushing the boundaries…it becomes the focus. If that’s an end in itself, it’s rubbish…it’s whether Jesus is at the centre of it. That’s what really matters.’

As the ministry developed, the band become overwhelmed by the number of requests to go into schools. In 2001, a second band, Blush, was formed to help cope with demand. The band is made up of young women who have a heart for teenage girls and takes lessons on issues such as self-esteem and ‘real beauty’.

In 2004, The Tribe took their final bow, but their influence didn’t stop there. Ex-band member Tim Owen took on the dream of forming a training centre (called ‘Genetik: The Tribe Academy) for potential new youth workers, musicians, and communicators. Tim and fellow ex-band members Lindz West and Andy Hawthorne regularly teach at the centre, which has seen two new bands form: LZ7 (fronted by Lindz) and Twelve24.

LZ7, formed in 2005, use a fusion of hip-hop, rock, free running and DJing in their shows. Two albums in, the band are planning an assault on the pop charts later this year: ‘This Little Light’, a song from their latest album ‘Gasoline’, has already received well over a hundred thousand views on YouTube and was used in a government-backed youth initiative, Shine.

Front man Lindz West comments, ‘When we’re in schools or at gigs, we want to be the best rappers, singers, drummers or DJs we can be, so that more people will get the opportunity to hear about our awesome God. We want young people to see, from our shows, that it is possible to live your dream and use the skills God’s given you in a positive way.’

Our newest band, Twelve24, are picking up the trail blazed by The Tribe, Blush and LZ7. They are named after John 12:24, where it says, ‘unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.’ The band is made up of three 20-somethings fresh out of the Genetik training programme.

Band mentor Tim Owen comments, ‘They’re taking the big issue facing young people today and hitting them head-on…they’re not watering down the gospel. They are committed to the young people of Manchester…their passion is growing by the day.’

In a culture where success is determined by how much money you earn, and how popular you are, The Tribe, LZ7, Blush and Twelve24 come as a shining light in the darkness. With a heart for showing young people that they are loved, and with Jesus at their centre, these bands show that they care more about the young people of Manchester than about selling records or rising to fame.

*Get The Message in your school*

You’re just one call away from having one of our bands or theatre company coming to your local high school. If you’re a church, please ask email Alan Saunders. For schools, please email Nathan Milnes. Our contact number is 0161 946 2300.

A benefit concert rushed together by The Message and Ivy Manchester has raised over £60,000 for the survivors of the Haiti earthquake.

Heart for Haiti at the Manchester Apollo on Thursday night was put together within ten days of local leaders Andy Hawthorne and Anthony Delaney returning from an emergency mercy mission to the disaster-stricken island.

Booking the Manchester Apollo, they managed to persuade Hollywood actor Stephen Baldwin to join the line-up, fresh from his recent appearance on Celebrity Big Brother. He joined Manchester bands LZ7 and Blush and singer Hannah Atkins in the 90-minute show which also featured a full gospel choir and local theatre company In Yer Face.

Andy Hawthorne (of Manchester youth charity The Message Trust) and Anthony Delaney (of Didsbury-based church Ivy Manchester) returned from Haiti on January 25 They were part of a team delivering life-saving medical supplies to emergency clinics in Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince and nearby island La Gonave set up in the wake of the January 12 earthquake.

After seeing with their own eyes the great need for life-saving food and medical supplies, they decided to rush together the benefit concert in order to raise funds and keep the needs of Haiti’s people in the public eye. Both men shared personal stories and footage from their trip during the night.

Money raised from the event is going direct to Haiti relief efforts through charity Compassion UK. Compassion also found sponsors for 73 children from Haiti and a number of people expressed their interest in going to help as medical volunteers.

‘I was thrilled to be a part of it,’ commented Stephen Baldwin. ‘We all need to respond to this crisis. Even though the pictures are starting to fade from our TV screens, we need to keep the people of Haiti in our minds and hearts.’

Andy Hawthorne added: ‘The people of Manchester have responded wonderfully to the call to help the people of Haiti through giving, sponsoring and even going. Thanks to everyone who was involved in the night in whatever way.’

The Heart for Haiti show is being aired on UCB TV on February 27 and 28. Find out more.

Donations are still being received for the Heart for Haiti appeal here.

See pictures from the show on our Flickr page.

Message schools band Blush were awarded a Gospel Music Award for Best Group at a glitzy award ceremony this weekend.

Blush attended and performed at The Gospel Music Awards 2009 on Saturday night (Dec 5) at the prestigious Hilton Metropole in London, where they received the award for Best Group/Choir, fighting off competition from artists such as the London Community Gospel Choir, Siani, Four Kornerz and Hillsong London.

Blush’s Jess Cook comments, ‘We are gobsmacked that we’ve won, as we were up against some very talented bands. We’re not in Blush to win awards, but we are so passionate about working with young people and are thrilled that our work has been recognised. It’s like a little kiss from God, letting us know that we’re doing a good job. It was amazing to see God claiming back the music industry through great acts such as Rachel Kerr and Michaela the Poet. Thank you to everyone who voted for us, we feel very blessed. ‘

Blush would like to thank everyone at the Gospel Music Awards for their support, and Vicky Martin for lending them the dresses.

The band’s new single ‘Beautiful’ is now available for pre-order on their website.

The Gospel Music Awards 2009 is the first ever annual GMA ceremony in the UK. The event, including an Awards ceremony, concert and party, seeks to recognise and appreciate the best gospel music in the nation and showcase the diversity of the genre.

Blush have been nominated in the Best Group category and have also been invited to perform at the Awards ceremony on December 5 at the prestigious Hilton Metropole in London.

Please take a moment to vote for Blush to recognise their hard work over the last year – and the whole schools department working hard in schools week in, week out.

Voting closes on November 30 so don’t hang about!

Click here to cast your vote for Blush now.

Recent feedback shows that the group is meeting a deep need among girls in schools where they have been teaching sessions on self-esteem, body language and self-confidence. Jess Cook from Blush comments, ‘Our sessions expose the lies the modern media tells girls every day, like retouched photographs and plastic surgery. We want girls to see that make-up and nice clothes are fine, but when it’s all stripped away they are beautiful as they are.’

The band recently illustrated the principle by filming a photo shoot, showing the girls with and without makeup. The reason? To show girls that they believe what they say: To God, they are always beautiful.

One girl recently wrote to the band to say, ‘I’d been feeling so down about how I looked. There was a lad I liked but I soon realised he was only interested in one thing. I saw your video online and it made me cry… since then I have felt much more confident.’

You can watch the video of Blush’s ‘no make-up’ shoot on our website.

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(This article was taken from the Autumn/Winter ’09 issue of flow Magazine)

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An estimated 50,000 copies of The Message’s youth discipleship DVD Deep are poised to be distributed across Central Asia thanks to a partnership with Kairos Media Trust.

The DVDs, dubbed in Kyrgyz and Russian, are just the latest batch to be distributed. Thousands of copies of Deep and Fresh have already reached young people across Central Asia. Kairos trustee Nick Hall comments,

‘There is such a need for these DVDs. Over half the population of Central Asia is under the age of 25, yet there is almost nothing on DVD to point them to Jesus. Right now, demand for the resources is far outstripping supply.’

Importing DVDs into countries like Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan is fraught with difficulty, so local churches are pioneering production and distribution themselves. But you can help. Every £1 donated pays for two DVDs to be produced.

If you’d like to help, contact silkroad@kairosmedia.org.

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The 2009-10 school year looks set to be the busiest year by far for our bands and theatre company working in Greater Manchester’s schools.

A total of 75 schools weeks are planned for LZ7, Blush, Twelve24 and In Yer Face next year and we are working harder than ever to ensure that the majority of schools weeks are done in partnership with local churches.

Check out the ‘Day in The Life with Nathan Milnes’ story for a behind-the-scenes look at our schools work in action. And there’s more.  Look out in the new year for news of our biggest ever evangelism event in Manchester. We can’t say too much yet but it’s going to be… big.

Also next year, we are attempting to get the LZ7 anthem This Little Light into the UK charts, not so that the boys can be stars but so that we can reach even more young people. ‘White label’ versions of the track will appear in clubs from the summer and a release is scheduled for next autumn.