20,000 Christian young people converged on Manchester for SOUL SURVIVOR THE MESSAGE 2000.

Andy Hawthorne

Led by Britain's premier Christian youth event Soul Survivor, the mission is working with the World Wide Message Tribe (Message To Schools Trust), Oasis and Youth For Christ in a monumental thrust to impact a city for Christ. The director of Message To Schools and founder member of WWMT, Andy Hawthorne, spoke to Tony Cummings about the epic initiative.

Tony: How are the preparations for Message 2000 going at this moment?
Andy: "They are both terrifying and exciting in equal measure. It's by far the biggest thing the WWMT, Soul Survivor, Oasis and Youth For Christ have ever been involved in. The budget is well over a million pounds for this mission. It's the largest youth mission, as far as we know, that has ever happened in this country. The logistics of it are absolutely terrifying. That's the scary side of it. The encouraging side of it is that the local churches are really getting on board. We're seeing more people at our events, more bookings coming in every day, the venues are getting in place, the bands are getting in place, the speakers, the team leaders are being trained and we're holding onto promises that God's gonna do something absolutely awesome this summer."

Tony: Has it actually started or is there a particular date when it technically goes on-line as it were?
"We've been working on Message 2000 for two years locally. We've been building up a -network of churches across Manchester who are ready to receive young people and they've all been active in local mission. The Tribe, rather than just flitting around the city, have been doing very strategic schools work, area by area, over the last year, working with other bands like Shine and MIC, In Your Face Theatre Company, Slide and Purity, all these different resources who are all working in Manchester at the moment doing what we call regional action plans. Once we've blitzed all the schools in the area, we have a regional event and that event is followed up the same way the Message 2000 event, will be followed up in the summer. The local stuffs been going on for a year now and it's ramping up all the time, more and more activity going on. The big summer event Soul Survivor Message 2000 starts on 28th July and that is when the 20,000 workers are going to come from all over the world to well and truly blitz this city with the Gospel. The idea is that event comes on the crest of a wave of evangelism all over the city."

Tony: Does the local media wwithin the city know what's going to hit them in July?
"Well, we're letting them know bit by bit. We're saving some of it for nearer the event because we don't want to reveal too much too soon, but there's going to be a massive publicity campaign in the month it starts - billboards all over the city, TV, radio ads. Nobody is going to be able to not hear about this thing. We've got a documentary on Granada TV, regular updates on the local news. We've been talking to guys at the Manchester Evening News. We're really starting to ramp up the whole media. We've got a couple of girls working on PR for us, who are great girls, getting more and more interest in the media."

Tony: How does the local council, local Mayor react to these plans?
"To be honest, one of the most frustrating things has been trying to get local government on board. We're just starting to get local MPs very supportive. I'm hoping to get a meeting with the Chief Exec of the council very soon. I'm seeing another key MP in a couple of weeks time. We're starting to get into those guys to say, "this is a significant event that can really impact this city and we need you guys to be behind it". Manchester Council has been quite resistant previously to Christian things, but more and more we're praying and starting to see stuff change. They opened the Town Hall to us for a prayer meeting a couple of weeks ago and it was standing room only. Every chair in the place at the biggest hall was used. There was just an awesome time of prayer and one of the key guys from the council was at that, so we're starting to break through in that area."

Tony: When the Soul Survivor dimension of the mission starts, is it going to be a series of events on consecutive nights? How is it going to work? Give me a bit more about the structure of that.
"We're building a tent city in the biggest park in Manchester, Heaton Park. All the delegates will camp on Heaton Park and they'll be bussed into the Evening News Arena every morning by a fleet of coaches we've got a deal with. Every morning there will be Soul Survivor-type worship, teaching ministry, Andy Hickford is doing Bible teaching. Obviously Mike Pilavachi is involved in that in the morning and then we're praying that God will really touch those young people and send them out in the power of the Spirit in the afternoon. 40 percent of them are involved in social action projects all across the city, working with local churches. Lots of stuff that's kicking off and lasting long-term in the future. We're looking to set up a couple of big social action projects there at Message 2000. 60 percent are going to be involved in evangelism on the streets. We've got stages all over the city centre, we've got Soul Survivor-type cafes, taking short-term leases on lots of premises in the city centre where people are going to be reaching out from. There's going to be bands, theatre, video, cyber cafes, plus open-air stages giving a real festival feel to Manchester. The 12,000 delegates are going to work out on the streets, letting people know what's going on and inviting people to the evening events. In the evenings at the arena, which we're setting up for 16,000 people, there are going to be two presentations. At seven o'clock there will be an evangelistic celebration, which Soul Survivor is heading up. It's going to be short, sharp, accessible worship, plus bands and videos and then an evangelistic preach. 9.15pm will be bands like WWMT, Delirious?, Shine, Tree, MIC. We're hoping to have Out Of Eden and GRITS, loads of different bands coming in from all over the world for evangelistic presentations."

Tony: Do you think that the church is really up for this now?
"I think that the church in Manchester is more ready than at any time since I started doing mission, and we've been working for eight years to prepare for this mission. Our dream has always been that every young person in Manchester would at least have a chance to respond to Jesus, and that everyone that responded to Him would have a church they could go to and grow up and be fed. Obviously if we waited until the church was totally ready, we'd never do mission, but we are in the best place we've been in since I became a Christian over 25 years ago. The prayer movement in this city, the way leaders are working together, obviously Eden is a key part of our follow-up. By the end of the mission, there'll be four Eden projects in the toughest parts of Manchester with another six coming on the back of it. Where there are big holes, we're moving hundreds of youth workers into the inner city to follow up all the kids who are coming to faith."

Tony: Do you have any picture or idea of how many people you would like to see make responses through the initiative?
"I can't tell you, Tony. You just don't know what God's going to do. In a way, anything I say would be limiting God. All I know is that from the word go, God's done more than we've asked or imagined from the day we started the World Wide Message Tribe. Every step of the way he's done more than we could have dreamt. In the last year at Message 2000 events we've already counselled well over 700 young people. I'm believing that every young person in Greater Manchester will at least have a chance, through media exposure and all these workers on the street, to hear the Gospel. That's half a million young people and I'm praying that many, many of them come to faith. It's going to be another step of the spiritual atmosphere stepping up in this city. Message 2000 isn't just the crest of a mountain; it's another stride forward for what we're trying to do, going deep in this city."

Tony: Above all, what would you say that all the listeners to Cross Rhythms Radio and Cross Rhythms magazine need to be doing to help at this time?
"We're at an exciting time of partnership. I don't think youth organisations have partnered quite like this before? I was at the Assemblies of God conference this week and they're completely cancelling their Flame Throwers programme this year and moving everybody to Manchester. Youth For Christ are not doing their street work this summer, but joining with us. All over the nation they're moving everyone to Manchester. Salvation Army, their big summer missions are all happening in Manchester. There's an incredible sense of partnership, so the youth organisations are really partnering and serving this vision. We now need thousands more partners because it's ok all us youth leaders agreeing it's a good idea, but unless the people catch it and say I'm gonna come as a worker on this mission and move into Manchester for a week or two weeks in the summer, it's not gonna work. We need workers, people who will come and book early. Everybody is saying that in these days of 'lastminute.com', that's what the Christians are doing. We have an event at the Apollo every month that's often full, but a week before we're often looking at a few hundred tickets sold. We need people to book before June and July because we've got massive deposits to pay. We need to book all this publicity. We are just so far out-of-our-depth with this thing that if the Christians don't catch on... And we need 3,000 team leaders. Imagine the logistics of sending 20,000 people on the streets in teams of 25. We need those team leaders in place; well trained, well-prepared who will come on board and help us do what God's called us to do."

And prayer of course.
"Oh man, I forgot about that one (laughter). The exciting thing is that I got an e-mail in from Yongi Cho's church in Korea (biggest church in the world) saying that at six o'clock every morning, thousands of people are meeting to claim Manchester for Christ. My friend went out to Panama and there was this incredible gathering where 10,000 people were just crying out to God for Manchester. The next week they were moving it to Columbia to a football stadium with 80,000 people in and they were all praying for Manchester for Message 2000. I just sense that God is raising up this prayer movement and that's why we're so full of expectancy."