This week, Message Germany celebrated their fifth birthday and wow, what a five years of mission it’s been! From launching an Eden team, to going into prisons and schools, we’ve seen God use the team in amazing ways to share the good news of Jesus with communities and young people. We caught up with Message Germany’s hub leader, Sven, to hear about what’s been happening over the last couple of months.
‘From outreach and evangelism at Christival Festival to running youth prayer nights, we’ve had a busy season here, where we’ve been able to meet with hundreds of young people, boldly sharing the gospel with them and seeing many respond.
‘In the summer, Message Germany were invited to perform and run sessions at Christival – a big outreach festival, a bit like Festival Manchester. We’ve got a rich history with Christival as back in 1996 Andy Hawthorne and The World Wide Message Tribe got to play at a festival. Fast forward to this year, students from the Message School of Evangelism (formally Message Academy), band OTC and our own team at Message Germany performed and shared the gospel. It was so special to see our own young people step up and share their love of Jesus with those in the audience – it felt like a coming full circle moment. I’ve been so inspired by the young people and their heart to tell others about Jesus and see their lives transformed too.
‘As part of the festival, we had the opportunity to head into the inner city and perform. There we met many people who’d never heard the gospel before.
‘Going from that into schools mission was amazing. A team headed into school and ran sessions on healthy relationships and friendships. During the lessons they invited young people to an end of week gig where they heard the gospel. On the Friday night, 400 young people came along, 200 from the schools mission and the rest from local churches. It was so special to see everyone gathered, and we even got chatting to two girls we’d met in school that week.
‘In school, our team member Lisa shared about how she’d struggled with difficult family relationships, an eating disorder, low self-esteem and anxiety. Two girls who seemed unengaged in the lesson came along on the Friday night, where they heard the gospel, responded and gave their lives to Jesus! Just after, they came running up to me and my wife saying they wanted to have prayer that Jesus would bring breakthrough in their lives with some of the issues like he had done for Lisa. They’re already desperate to find out more about God and have joined their local church, as well as started going along to the Alpha course the church are running.
‘And these girls were two of 150 young people who responded to the gospel that night. Young people were racing to get the free Bibles and to find out more about God and how to get plugged into local churches. Off the back of this schools mission, we’ve had churches message us to tell us how record numbers of young people are coming along to their youth services to find out more about Jesus!
‘As well as running schools mission, our team hosted a Revival Night event youth leaders and their youth groups gathered for an evening of prayer and worship run by the young people themselves. It was such a powerful time seeing 200 young people on fire for God and encouraging one another to share the love of Jesus with their mates. During the event, 100 of the young people responded to the call to step up and out in mission to share the gospel in every opportunity which was amazing to see!
‘It feels like there is a new openness amongst young people to explore faith and I just can’t wait to see what else God does in and through Message Germany in coming weeks so do be praying for us as we step up and out mission.’
Find out more about what Message Germany are getting up to and how you can support them at messagedeutschland.de
