Newcastle DTS Gathering

Newcastle was the venue for the second Discipleship Training School (DTS) Gathering at the city locations of the 2012 Olympic Games.

The Gathering, held from 30 October-5 November, saw 144 students and staff in attendance from DTSs in England, Wales, Sweden (Restenas) and Italy (Milano) and a School Of Evangelism (SOE) from Norway. In total, around 20 nations were represented.

The idea was several-fold:

• First, to give the DTS students a focused week of teaching on evangelism and then send them out to do it. The hope is that during the week each student will have their eyes opened about what evangelism can be, and have their fears blown away as they get out and do it.
• Second, to bless and serve local churches.
• Third, to prepare the way for a YWAM team to be planted in the future.
• Fourth, to bring local non-believers closer to Jesus.

Outreaches
The outreach consisted of a number of options, including:

• Decorating a local church hall in preparation for it to become a cafe in the local community.
• Treasure-hunting (asking God for a name or an impression about a person and then to lead us to the right person on the streets so that we can talk/pray with them).
• Litter-picking, to bless the local communities.
• Door-to-door visiting.
• Working with the university's Christian Union towards an evening outreach event.
• An outreach to late-night clubbers.

Highlights included:

• A powerful time of ministry with leaders of many churches in Newcastle. The Holy Spirit turned up in power, and many people were touched and spoken to.
• Hearing about some of the amazing things God is doing in Newcastle, among both churches and Christian organisations.
• Seeing people's views of evangelism being turned upside down, and then seeing them go out and put it into practice.
• Some amazing stories from the outreaches.

You can download a pdf version of the Newcastle DTS Gathering report - CLICK HERE.