This year, I’ve been reflecting on Galatians 2:10 which says, ‘All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I had been eager to do all along.’ I really believe the reason the Lord keeps blessing us and growing our mission, here at The Message Trust, is because we keep three things central to everything we do: prayer, the gospel of Christ and the poor. As we serve the poor, lonely and lost through Eden, Community Groceries, and work in prisons and schools, I truly believe God will keep using us to see lives transformed. Thank you for standing with us as we do this.
As I look back on the past year, what a year it’s been!
2025 started with the No More Knives tour heading to Preston in January. Taking power-packed lessons into four schools, the team met 3,000 young people and got to invite each one of them to the end of week evangelistic gig. Here, 117 young people came along and, when they heard the gospel shared, 57 responded and gave their lives to Jesus – including a security guard working the event! January also marked our annual Global Advance Day where we saw over 10,000 new groups launched around the world, each mentoring men and women in their evangelism.
Genetik Sessions Winter School returned in February where we invited young people to spend a week with us enjoying creative workshops including dance and music production. Through these sessions, young people grew in skills and confidence but also heard about how loved they are by Jesus – it’s beautiful to see. Our Eden team in Brazil’s Santa Marta favela also ran something similar, partnering with five local churches to run an eight-day kids’ camp where 110 children came along for workshops and fun. In Uganda, we launched schools work for the first time and saw 20 children respond to the gospel, and over in South Africa, the team took the Higher Tour into a prison and saw 80 young men there accept Jesus into their lives! We also had the first Proximity retreat of the year where we took urban missionaries away for a time of refreshment and encouragement.
We were blessed to partner with our friends at The Send in March for a special Greater Manchester Prayer Gathering. It was such an amazing time where Francis Chan brought a word from the Bible and Martin Smith led us in worship as churches from across the North West came together to cry out to God for a move of his spirit in our world. Our creative mission teams were back on tour in Tameside reaching almost 5,000 students with Respect ME lessons and inviting each of them to the LIFT gig. There, 200 people came and we saw 50 responses to the gospel! We launched our Message Africa Leaders Network in March too with 20 leaders from 11 African countries and, in Uganda, the team shared gospel-filled lessons with over 3,000 students and saw 700 people give their lives to Jesus! Closer to home, we launched a Community Grocery, feeding struggling families in Kirkby-in-Ashfield.
Another Community Grocery was launched into South Bank (Middlesbrough) in April, partnering with our brilliant Eden team there and, wow, we’ve seen so much fruit from this grocery as the teams share the love of Jesus in word and action. The No More Knives tour was back on the road, this time heading to Hackney, reaching 2,000 students and partnering with local churches to run youth outreach alongside the tour. The week ended with a LIFT gig where 43 responded to the gospel! In Manchester, our team ran Easter outreach for the local community including litter picking, giving out Bible packs, running cooking classes at the Community Grocery for children, hosting an Easter Story Trail – an interactive trail walking through the last week of Jesus’ life and his resurrection – and running a huge Easter Extravaganza where the gospel was shared. We were also excited to have Songs of Praise visit our HQ and you can check out our feature on the programme here. April was also busy for The Charge, through which we equip young people and churches in evangelism. In Brazil, 80 young people were trained in evangelism and in just one and a half hours, they’d shared the gospel with 106 people and saw 20 respond! And in the Netherlands, young people took part in The Charge and saw 10 people respond to the gospel!
May saw us take The Message on tour across the UK, starting with Cardiff and Stockton-on-Tees. These were special evenings where we shared incredible stories of men and women whose lives have been changed through the mission work of our hubs. It was so inspiring! We celebrated 10 years of the London hub with a powerful Urban Heroes Awards evening sharing even more stories of lives transformed, and we reached 50,000 Advance Groups around the world! In the Netherlands, SoulBox performed their tracks at Opwekking Festival (the largest Christian festival in Europe) and Sammy shared the gospel and saw hundreds of responses. In Germany, mission band NGHTNDAY shared their testimonies at a ‘Jesus Night’ where 1,000 people got to hear how loved they are by Jesus, and our team in Uganda launched Genetik Sessions in Kalerwe slum. In May, we also gathered urban missionaries from across the country at our annual Proximity Conference which was such a special day of equipping and refreshment.
In June, I tackled my biggest physical challenge yet – the Cross Brazil Cycle Challenge where, alongside a precious team of supporters, I cycled for nine days across 1,050km in scorching heat and torrential rain, and up and down mountains, all to raise money for the work of The Message Trust. If you supported me and the team, thank you so much! I also got the chance to visit our hub in Canada and encourage our team there. Back home, we commissioned our amazing Message School of Evangelism (MSE) students into the next chapters of their lives as they completed 10 months of training with us – during which time, they reached over 6,000 people with the gospel and saw 140 responses to follow Jesus! And the No More Knives tour was back on the road in Glasgow and in Sheffield, seeing over 100 young people accept Jesus into their lives during these two tours.
Every summer, young people take to the streets across the UK sharing the gospel with those they meet as part of The Scattering mission weeks. And this July was no different, seeing young people head out on mission in London, South Wales and the North East. I’m always so inspired when I see young people taking their faith seriously! NXT CHAPTR released a new remixed version of the World Wide Message Tribe’s track ‘Jumping In The House Of God’ here in the UK. You can listen to it here. Our schools teams also wrapped up the school year with more gospel-packed tours, including a Still Standing tour in the North East all about resilience and mental health, and a No More County Lines tour in Macclesfield and Poynton where 38 young people responded to the gospel!
Things didn’t slow down in August as our teams visited Christian festivals across the country, sharing about the work of The Message and encouraging everyone there with stories of how God is moving. Message Brazil saw over 150 young people come together for more evangelism training, the Higher Tour was back out in South Africa and saw 50 people respond to the gospel, and band SoulBox headed to Zimbabwe for the Love Bulawayo Festival that was run in partnership with Global Network of Evangelists and Advance. The team reached over 80,000 people with the gospel and saw more than 7,000 people respond!
In September, we celebrated 10 years of mission in Wales and also ran our first International Vision Night, called Going Global, where we shared about what God’s doing around the world through our international Message hubs. It’s incredible to think, what started out as one band in Manchester, has now truly grown into a global movement – I am so thankful to God! We launched Advance Groups in Bangladesh – a country with 120 million people who’ve never heard the gospel! – so please do be praying we see God change hearts and lives through Advance. Added to this, our team in Germany ran a schools tour seeing 200 young people respond to the gospel over five days. In the North East of England, our hub team helped put on the annual IMPACT Youth Conference, all about equipping young people in their evangelism, and in Cardiff, the team partnered with churches across the city for another Youth Night prayer and worship night where over 300 young people serious about their faith came to grow and encourage each other in mission! It’s so encouraging that we’re seeing generations of missional young people step up and out.
I was so blessed in October to learn that The Message had not only been nominated for, but also won, a Spirit Of Manchester Award for Community and Business. This was a great celebration of our beautiful partnership with our friends at The Flava People, who are one of our key partners supporting our Community Groceries. The Message Tour was back on the road, this time heading to Derby and Leeds, SoulBox and Georgia headed to Canada to help launch creative mission there, and I headed back to Brazil with Michele to catch up with our team there. Every October, we also join Christians around the UK in prayer for Prisons Week, where we ask God to transform the lives of those living and working in prisons and all those impacted by crime. We also celebrated five years of the Community Grocery network – we now have 33 groceries across the UK. Since day one we’ve served 80,000 member families and provided more than 15 million meals! I can’t believe how much God has blessed and expanded this mission and we’re now seeing so many people respond to the gospel as they shop in store. Check out some of the stories here.
In November, Ben Jack who heads up the Advance Network headed to South Korea to share about Advance at the World Evangelical Alliance general assembly and the Global Harvest Summit for the Billion Soul Harvest movement, and we launched Advance groups in the Middle East and in South Sudan – our 107th nation! In South Africa, our team there took the Higher Tour back into a local prison reaching 204 people with the good news of Jesus, and saw 56 accept Jesus into their lives! And in the North West of England, we launched a brand-new tour called ‘The Ultimate Influencer’ all about Jesus. Off the back of this tour launching, 56 students are now on a Youth Alpha course in school finding out more about Jesus! In Tameside, the teams ran a Respect ME tour alongside the No More County Lines tour and saw 220 young people come to the end-of-week LIFT gig where they heard music from the bands and got to hear the gospel, and 22 responded!
Wrapping up the year, December was packed with mission that shared the real meaning of Christmas. Eden teams have run community outreaches, carol services and given out Christmas gifts to those on their estates, our prisons teams have run prison chapel services, including on Christmas Day, and the Community Groceries gave out thousands of free Christmas hampers to bless struggling families. In Manchester, over 800 guests came to our Christmas Extravaganza full of festive fun and we saw 191 people respond to the gospel! How incredible that this year, they got to experience the real meaning of Christmas!
Wow, what a year! And this is just a snapshot of the mission that’s been happening. Day in, day out, our teams are sharing the love of Jesus in schools, prisons and communities and do so much behind the scenes, discipling people as they discover more about Jesus. I hope and pray that you’re as encouraged and stirred as I am from how many lives God has transformed this year. I can’t wait to see what God’s got planned for us in 2026. Thank you for being on this journey with us!
