Ten years since Message 2000: What’s changed?
‘I can still remember feeling the shock when, during the planning for Message 2000, Mike Pilavachi sat me down and told me he was convinced that at least half the young people involved should be out there performing random acts of kindness,’ recalls Message CEO, Andy Hawthorne.
‘I was surprised. What on earth did washing someone’s car have to do with the gospel? How did painting park benches lead to salvation? I couldn’t remember Jesus talking about the importance of weeding communal gardens!’
But his decision to agree with the Soul Survivor leader led to the creation of Message 2000, an unprecedented festival of ‘word and deed’ evangelism that was to set the tone for the rest of the next ten years.
Over ten summer days in July 2000, 400 community action projects across Greater Manchester involved almost 10,000 young Christian volunteers in social, environmental and crime reduction projects on some of the city’s roughest and toughest estates. The results were instant and dramatic. New life burst out on old streets.
Andy continues: ‘There was something remarkable about that time we spent together in the summer of 2000. It was as if we did ten years’ work in ten days. Perhaps some of our earlier attempts at ‘hit and run evangelism’ had led people to believe that we were some kind of foaming-at-the-mouth fundamentalists. But suddenly we had the police and local authorities on our side, seeing us as a real force for good rather than people to be avoided.’
In the coming years, The Message built on this momentum with Message 2K1 (2001); Festival:Manchester, in partnership with the Luis Palau Evangelistic Association (2003); the Big Deal weekends in Salford, Stockport and Macclesfield (2005-6); the UK-wide Hope 08 initiative in partnership with dozens of other agencies and thousands of local churches (2008), and last summer’s 10,000 Hours of Hope, part of the !Audacious youth conference.
Stories of how lives were changed and whole new initiatives were birthed as a result of Message 2000 and subsequent word and deed evangelism find their way back to The Message all the time.
Communities benefitted from the sudden influx of fired-up young people with a paint brush in their hand and a smile on their face. In several cases, whole new churches or community organisations were set up as a direct consequence of people being inspired by what they saw was possible when churches worked together to make a difference.
Over the next few weeks, we’ll be looking back on Message 2000 and asking: what’s changed?