More than 600 young people from 10 churches in the Sutherland Shire have launched a movement which aims to tackle the problems facing youth ministry in Sydney.
The Soul Revival Jesus Movement was launched on May 21, with the crowd witnessing more than 70 of their peers giving their lives to Christ.
Four southern Sydney Anglican churches are involved: Caringbah, Gymea, Helensburgh and Miranda.
"It's easy to see the problems most of us face," said Jai McMordie from Helensburgh Anglican Church. "There's a growing biblical illiteracy among young people" and churches often compete for Christian teenagers rather than working together to reach un-churched young people. Soul Revival leaders have covenanted together to work towards finding solutions to these problems."
The four goals of the movement are: calling young people to be committed to Jesus and to each other, and to their local church community long term, as well as being committed to learning how to read the Bible for themselves so that they can live it out and teach others. It also wants local churches to work together, sharing ideas and resources instead of competing.
The passion for the Lord shown by the young people was a great encouragement to the local youth leaders.
"It's really exciting to be part of a movement which is bringing youth ministries together under the gospel so that the lost might be won for Christ and filled with zeal for his name," said Mike Begbie, youth minister at St Philip's, Caringbah.
Stuart Crawshaw, youth minister at Gymea Anglican Church, says what he has found most exciting is that "the movement is not just about big events" but that "real action is happening at the grassroots level in the local church and it's happening with the leaders and the young people themselves"
The success of the launch has encouraged the organisers to plan more gatherings in the future which are open to any church youth program committed to the gospel and the movements goals.
For more information visit [url=http://www.soulrevival.org.au]http://www.soulrevival.org.au[/url] or email jesusmovement@soulrevival.org.au
