London DTS Gathering

The latest gathering of Discipleship Training Schools (DTSs) organised by Forever reached the heart of the Olympics – London, when 216 people hit the streets with the good news of Jesus.

London 2012 is coming! That was the real sense of the DTS Gathering held in the Bethnal Green area of London, 5–12 November 2011. To be doing outreach with the Gherkin and Canary Wharf as a backdrop, and within a metric mile race of the Olympic Park, gave everybody a real sense that the big one is coming. As one DTS trainee said: “I loved going to the Olympic Park – I really felt God there and it was awesome to see it and pray over it.”

To see God move in this area of London, to meet people in the vicinity, to prepare them for what He wants to do during 2012, and to reach out with the love of Jesus on the streets was so exciting. During the outreaches we could get a feel for the people, the culture, and what was going on, and get more of God’s heart for the place.

The usual suspects – and more!

The gathering featured all the usual suspects – worship, intercession, teaching, food, networking, sleeping on church hall floors, and lots and lots of outreach. As this is the evangelism week for the DTSs, the teaching on evangelism by different leaders within YWAM England covered topics such as What is evangelism?, How do we share Jesus? and Fear of the Lord.

One of the slight changes to the usual gathering format was that we had a time of worship and prayer-walking the streets on the Monday, before the majority of the outreaches started. It felt very right to fix our eyes on Jesus first and foremost and to be bathing the borough in prayer before taking the good news of Jesus out.

This gathering saw our largest number of schools at a gathering to date – ten. We had DTSs from Carlisle, Derby, Harpenden, Holmsted Manor, London, The King’s Lodge, the s/y Next Wave (YWAM England and Marine Reach’s ship), and Wrexham, as well as Schools Of Evangelism from Carlisle and Norway. We were also honoured to have a number of visitors from the area during the week, including the Taboo Arts Ministry team from YWAM Notting Hill and a number of local pastors and church leaders.

It was so helpful to meet the church leaders and to see them in action in their ministry, hear what is on their heart and see how we can serve them. They also had a chance to experience how a mission team could be plugged in to serve their ministry.

Church member Yasmine commented: ”Thank you for coming to St Peter’s this week! It’s great to see the partnership and unity with churches to bring God’s kingdom back into the East End of London. So many great saints started in the East End – William Booth, Dr Barnardo’s etc – and so the flame continues to burn.”

Test run

The London gathering week was not only key for the trainees to be equipped and trained in evangelism, but also for us as a Forever team in preparation for 2012. We could see the week as a mini-Olympic outreach week, with opportunities actually to be in London doing the outreaches we planned. The week provided a great opportunity to see what things might look like at the outreach during the Games next summer. With over 200 people living in several churches and halls, then coming together for most of the day before heading out in groups for outreach across the borough of Tower Hamlets, it was a good way to discover what did and didn’t work, and what we need to change or develop so that we reach out to London in a relevant way.

It was also a great way to build relationships with the local council. When the council workers saw and heard about our project and how we had served the community, they immediately opened up and offered their help so we can do more community outreaches in the future. They will also help us in the process of getting event permission in Tower Hamlets. This will open doors and give us amazing opportunities for next year’s outreaches.

Outreach opportunities

This gathering was a step up from previous ones in terms of the number and quality of outreach opportunities we were able to offer. As the main outreach period (July–August 2012) has been getting closer, so each of Forever’s focus areas has been developing more and more outreach ideas. So this gathering was a good place to find out which types of outreach worked and which didn’t, and also what could be improved for the big one next year.

It was also the first time that we have had a range of outreaches available in each of our focus areas, allowing us to check out how multiple focus area outreaches can work alongside each other.

So, for example, on the Friday afternoon we held a number of Arts outreaches on Brick Lane, including fire-throwing, stilt-walking, wall-painting and graffiti, ‘I’m sorry for ...’ and ‘Before I die’, all within a hundred yards of each other. It was great to see how these different outreaches could work together, drawing a crowd and engaging people in conversations. Also, the range and saturation meant that passers-by were more likely to stop, look and start a conversation.

So what were the other outreach opportunities on offer? As well as these Arts outreaches, other opportunities included litter-picking in the local park (especially after bonfire night!), treasure-hunting, prayer-walking, a football tournament, church decoration and renovation, after-school clubs, visiting the homeless, skateboarding, basketball, detached youth work, dance, drama, helping in local youth groups, hot chocolate and sofas in a park, “say one for me” prayer, picture hunting, light a candle, and ministry to the homeless.

As ever, it was wonderful to see God moving through the outreaches – to see Londoners hearing the good news, having their eyes opened to who Jesus really is, and in some cases reaching the point of deciding to follow Him. But it was also great to see how many of the DTS trainees had their preconceptions about evangelism blown away, and then how they were emboldened to go out and do evangelism on the streets of our capital city.

As a prelude to the summer of 2012, we have had a glimpse into the future.

You can get a fuller, downloadable pdf version of this report from the Press Releases page.