Forever: YWAM 2012 outreach

2012 will be an exciting year for London, England and the UK: we are hosting the 2012 Olympic Games! Forever, the YWAM team overseeing the 2012 Olympic outreach, invites the world to come.

 

“The Olympics is a great place to do outreach,” says Yan Nicholls, Forever’s team leader. “The whole world descends on one place – virtually every nation will be present. We will have the athletes of course, but also around a million visitors. What an opportunity to reach the world!

But it’s not just about reaching the world as it comes to the UK! The Olympics provides a unique opportunity to reach the people of the UK with the love of Jesus. And in keeping with this being a Games that leaves a legacy, Forever is not just looking at a short-term impact: we want to leave a long-term legacy.

Yan continues: “We are inviting the whole YWAM world to get involved, to come, bring teams of YWAMers and/or local church folk to join us in this season of outreach around the Olympic Games. There will be all the classic outreach things – dramas, performing arts, soup kitchens, litter-picking. Plus many of the things that we’ve done at past Olympic outreaches – visitor hospitality, stewarding, translating. These are exciting, and God will use them. But there are different things in this Olympic outreach too – a result of what God has spoken to us.”

 

Season of outreach

First of all, this is a season of Olympic outreach, not just an outreach focused on the period of the Olympic Games. This means that teams can come to do outreach via Forever any time in 2011 and 2012, and be part of the Olympic outreach.

Also, Forever is particularly focused on doing outreach in the Olympic host cities. This may be the London Olympic Games, but there are six other locations hosting events – Cardiff, Coventry, Glasgow, Manchester, Newcastle, and Weymouth & Portland. Forever has been building networks and relationships in each, which means that teams can be plugged into any Olympic host city to do outreach that plays to their team’s strengths and callings and to the hosting churches’ needs.

 

To the nations and the nation

Olympic Games outreaches are about reaching out to the nations as they descend on one place for this amazing sporting and cultural event. “By reaching out to all the Olympic visitors to these shores we will be reaching the world,” says Yan. “But we will also do this by reaching out to the Olympic host cities: there are over 300 spoken languages in London alone. We will touch the nations through the 2012 Olympic outreach!

“But we also want to impact the host nation, the UK. We will be involved in outreach the length and breadth of the nation, doing outreach with both a short-term and a long-term impact.”

The key is in the Forever name. “In Forever, we are not just about seeing people’s lives changed for eternity through short-term outreaches,” comments Yan, “but also about establishing long-term YWAM teams in each Olympic hosting city, so that there is ongoing, long-lasting impact for Jesus in the communities we work among.”

 

Focal points

One further aspect of Forever is helping this radical team-planting strategy. For the 2012 Olympic outreach, Forever has created six focus areas – Arts, General Missions and Service, Prayer, Social Justice, Sports, and Youth and Children. These are areas that outreach teams can get involved in, but they also form the basis of the teams being planted.

Already, one team has been planted in Newcastle, while two teams are being planted in London and one in Manchester in the next couple of months. These teams combine the short- and the long-term. They will coordinate outreach teams during the Olympic outreach, especially as they have built up strong links with local churches. But their team members are also looking to continue to impact their communities long after the Games have finished.

“It’s great that people can come from across the world to do outreach during the Games in a place like Stratford,” says Lucie Barnsdale, Forever’s Social Justice coordinator and a member of one of the London team plants. “But I believe it’s even more exciting that they go home knowing that their work is part of a bigger, longer-term outreach effort that will continue to bring Christ’s love to communities.”

 

Getting involved

So the 2012 Olympic outreach is up and running. The Forever team is already taking bookings and hosting teams in this season of outreach. As of September 2011, Forever has already had over 700 people take part in this season of outreach. What’s needed now is for YWAMers and the Church worldwide to catch the vision and bring outreach teams (YWAM teams or local-church teams) to the London Games, particularly during the Games themselves.

“It’s going to be quite a few weeks!” jokes Yan. “We’ve deliberately kept the costs low – a ten-day outreach for just £125 – to facilitate as many people as possible from all over the world to come. We have four venues for orientation conferences that can host up to several thousand each. From there the teams will be sent out to their outreach destinations. All that is needed now is for people to come!”

This Olympic outreach could be used by God to start a fresh and powerful move of the Spirit across this land, and across the nations. What an opportunity not to miss!

Visit www.forever2012.com for more information and online application forms. Together let’s transform this nation and the nations!