Mobilising Young People into Mission

"The fields are white for harvest." "The harvest is indeed plentiful, but the labourers are few. Pray therefore to the Lord of the harvest, that he may send out labourers into his harvest."

This may be a fact but, in recent research the two main issues that militate against this imperative are the attitudes and values of young people and Church decline in the West.

By contrast, 100 years ago a group of young people lead one of the world's greatest revivals. The focus of their zeal was mission.

But today the church and its mission are in jeopardy. The reason is a failure to effectively engage young people in mission. Therefore the urgent need is to re-engage young people in mission and reverse their exit from the church - possibly to even to initiate the same zeal and effectiveness of those young early 20th century Welsh revivalists.

This is the objective of Motiv8 for the beginning of the 21st century - to present young people with mission as a radical, realistic and rewarding life and career alternative.

The Motiv8 Vision

Motiv8 is to be a rolling three year project that aims to envision, engage and release 10,000 young people (16-25) in to mission every three years and to retain their ongoing active involvement in the church.

It is proposed that this objective will be achieved through a range of events and activities.

The proposed events over the coming three years are:

* Autumn 2004 run two motiv8 expo/conference days - one each in the North and South of England. Venues have already been booked in the North at Emanuel College, Gateshead and the South at Moorlands College, Christchurch.

* 2005 a big event over 3 days (similar to TEMA or Urbana) + 3 or 4 expo events (all UK).

* 2006 - run 6 expo/conference one day events as in 2004 (all UK).

2004 - 2006 ongoing promotional 'road shows' alongside other existing events.
Evaluate and review with aim of starting another 3 year cycle.


The motiv8 consortium - a forum of mission organisations and churches working together to share resources and experience in order support one another with the aim of being more effective at engaging with young people.

The outcome for mission and the church will be to effectively engage young people to:

* Pray - for their friends, neighbours, towns, country, the world

* Give - time, support, money

* Go - local, short term and long term mission

* Do - above all - DO something


The Motiv8 vision has been born from two significant sources, What4 and Monkton Combe School, both sharing similar concerns and aspirations for mission.

What4 has been active in envisioning and equipping young people for mission for nearly ten years, six of which were as the youth department of MAF UK. The aim of What4 is to mobilise the new and emerging generation for mission locally and globally through praying, giving, going, doing. Their work has included modelling mission with young people locally, in Kent, and globally, in Europe, Asia and Africa, through training, short-term mission and gap year programmes. In this activity, What4 has become actively involved with many mission organisations in activities such as working as advisors to Global Connections on youth in mission, UK co-ordinators for TEMA and by promoting mission with youth through speaking and training at selected international, national and local events. In this What4 has helped to mobilise over 25,000 young people to actively engage with local and global mission.

Monkton Combe School has a long history of pupils going on to enter the mission field. In connection with this, in March 2003 they ran event to promote opportunities for young people to engage with world mission called Motiv8. 34 mission organisations participated and over 600 young people attended this one day event at the school near Bath. The event included an exhibition and an evening worship celebration.

Subsequently a 'post Motiv8' conference was held to consider the next steps and it was decided by the 42 mission organisations present that there was a need to develop the Motiv8 idea and hold more events in the future. This proposal is the enactment of this aspiration.