THE SEND is a collaborative, global coalition of Jesus followers, dedicated to the fulfilment of the Great Commission. Centred on the Gospel, THE SEND is equipping and sending a global force of messengers to relationally deliver the Gospel message to every person in the world – This is the sound of “GO”.
The vision is to create mass gathering events where success is not the number gathered but the number activated to reach one of five key mission fields:
From the first gathering at Camping World Stadium in Orlando, Florida it was clear this was not an event but a movement: a generation was ready to move from inspiration to action. Over the last years THE SEND has filled stadiums and arenas in numerous US cities, Brazil and Norway and consequently tens of thousands of people have committed to take missional action.
The story of THE SEND and its catalytic stadium events releases faith and engages a younger generation. It says that God has a purpose for them and that he has not finished with their generation or their nation. This then enables the church to believe again for God to move and to come together around this vision.
It is estimated that less than 2% of 18-25 year olds and 0.5% of university students in the UK & Ireland actively follow Jesus and so there is a desperate need for a fresh investment in reaching this generation. Alongside this, there is a growing understanding that the way we seek to reach this generation must change.
Rather than asking them to help the church do what the church has been doing, the church must empower them to live radical, all-in lives for Jesus with a passion to take the Gospel to their peers and the nations in the way God leads them to do it. We believe the younger generation has an assignment to build the church of the future and lead the mission of God and God has birthed THE SEND to ensure that this call is released to them.
Because THE SEND is not an organisation that exists in a nation, and is instead a collaboration, it can only happen by bringing together the Church and local mission agencies. THE SEND’s long term plan is not to establish a new organisation but instead to invest in churches and organisations already in a nation, encouraging them rather than threatening them.
Our vision is that catalytic arena events will create a network of relationships across churches, their leaders and the younger generation that in turn multiplies into missional action long beyond THE SEND’s work. THE SEND is not a youth event, it is a church event in which the church commissions a generation. It is seen as an answer to the thousands of prayers prayed by the church for God to move in this younger generation.
THE SEND leads into and out of a large arena events but will be supported by multiple smaller regional and local events. At each of THE SEND’s gatherings people are invited to say yes to Jesus and say yes to a mission field to which they feel he is sending them.
This response is done online and followed up by churches and mission agencies that specialise in the area of mission they have indicated a sense of call. Practical steps and opportunities for training are offered and relationships with experienced leaders established. This is an intergenerational work in which spiritual fathers and mothers will be needed to support and empower younger Christians to step into God’s call on their lives.
THE SEND was born out of The Call, a mass prayer movement in the US, which gathered people in stadiums to pray for the nations. For over 20 years The Call planted a seed of hope until God spoke radically to its leaders that The Call was to become THE SEND, to move from praying for missions, to commissioning a missionary movement. Around this a team of highly experienced international leaders have come together to lead THE SEND: Andy Byrd (Youth With A Mission), Daniel Kolenda (Christ For All Nations), Francis Chan (Crazy Love), Teo Hayashi (Dunamis Movement), and Andreas Nordli (YWAM Norway).
After 5 mass events in the US, 3 in Brazil and 1 in Norway THE SEND is continuing to spread to new nations who can taste and see what God is doing and are hungry. In October 2023 teams from 5 nations and The UK & Ireland were trained and commissioned to carry THE SEND into their nations.
The Send is a collaborative, global coalition of Jesus followers, dedicated to the fulfilment of the great commission. We are centred on the Gospel, equipping then sending a global force of messengers to relationally deliver the Gospel message to every person in the world – this is the sound of “GO.”
These statements signify our belief and what we stand for. We work through the power of unity with those who share these beliefs and with the global Church to remain solely focused on ensuring the world knows Jesus.
“But how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him? And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them?”
Romans 10:14 (NLT)
THE SENDs goal is not just to gather 100,000 youth and young adults into a stadium but to train and send 100,000 out ready for the Great Commission.
TRAIN 100,000, GATHER 100,000, SEND 100,000.
Our strategy is built in layers small to large with each layer building on the previous one and pointing to the next:
Spotfires are our vision to ‘prepare the ground’ - training young people to pray for revival and preach the gospel ahead of the main events. We are also expecting that they will provide a ‘relational net’ to enable those missional commitments to be walked out with others.
Practically, they will be a group of 5-20 people in a similar location who are already pursuing Jesus, hungry for his presence and seeking to obey the Great Commission. They can either be an existing group that we will ‘stoke’, or a gathering of hungry ones who want to ‘spark’ a fire - in both cases meeting monthly to serve and not replace any local church activity. We will provide training in these two key areas, equipping them to PRAY, and GO. This will be done through online videos, monthly Zoom calls, and our Send UK & Ireland travelling teams where invited to visit and encourage.
As fires catch all over the nation, we believe these groups will be one of the lasting legacies of THE SEND.
A quarterly gathering of regional spotfire groups focused on training in an area of discipleship. These will be delivered by partners. For example, working with 24/7 Prayer to develop and deliver a day of training in Cork on praying for revival to 30-60 young adults from 3 Spotfire groups in the region.
These are bigger, more accessible evening events hosted by partners such as 24/7, Limitless and Neighbours & Nations in local churches bringing together young people to worship, pray and respond to the Great Commission.
These will be slightly larger gatherings (400-1000) that give a taste of what THE SEND is. Each SEND Experience will always have a call to action in 3 areas: prayer for revival, sharing Jesus and starting a Spotfire.
These events will have specific action points that point towards THE SEND’s five missional outcomes whilst continuing to have the leading beat of prayer for revival, sharing Jesus/making disciples locally and in the nations, and starting a Spotfire.
The Arena Tour will typically be gatherings of 1,000 to 10,000 people for 6-8 hours of worship, prayer, inspiration and commission.
THE SEND seeks to minimise the gap between inspiration and activation.
It aims to both inspire and call people to engage with God’s mission whilst equally providing clear and accessible opportunities to do so by partnering with local churches and organisations.
This happens in two interrelated ways:
At THE SEND arena and stadium events (and to a lesser degree in smaller pre-gatherings) those attending are invited to make commitments to take action. Some of these commitments are to a missional lifestyle (salvation, prayer and Bible engagement). Others are to missional engagement in the five different mission fields (described above) which participants commit to by scanning a QR code and completing a form.
We want to collaborate with potential partner organisations who can offer opportunities for mission and / or training in these different fields. THE SEND’s Outcomes team will convene a working group for each of the outcome areas, which will bring potential partners together to discern the best action steps, process and specific partners for follow up. The action steps partners decide to offer participants will need to be:
- Simple and easily understandable
- Immediately accessible (at least in terms of training)
- Relevant to Gen Z
- Locally relevant
- Integrated with the local church as far as possible
There will typically be three possible actions for each mission field and these will either represent different degrees of commitment, be appropriate to different types of people, or cover different areas within a mission field. For instance, at the recent THE SEND Boston, the options for the vulnerable children outcome included offering wrap-around care, praying for children in the foster care system, and fostering a child.
According to their commitments, participants’ details are shared with partner organisations. Partners call participants in the days after major THE SEND events and invite them to take action in line with their commitments. Partners are strongly encouraged to be persistent in following up with participants.
Partners then provide training as appropriate and support participants in their chosen missional action.
In parallel, THE SEND will encourage participants to connect in ongoing fashion with their church and our hope is to be able to provide engaged churches with respondents’ details to help them support their young people.
Equally, regional leads will also get respondents details to help them support individuals via their Spotfire community and training hub, providing multiple contact points to help individuals take action.
Together these different groups provide encouragement and discipleship by both peers and mentors allowing commitments made at THE SEND to be reflected on and their pursuit encouraged in these existing regular, ongoing settings.
There are several partnership roles we are seeking for THE SEND. These vary in depth and commitment but each position requires people who are committed to our vision to see Jesus move radically in our young people.
Key factors we will be looking at:
Individuals with a burning passion for missional living and young people. Reps will help support Spotfires, working with local churches and individuals to cultivate obedience to the great commission and form relationships. These people will need to be administrationally minded with good inter-personal skills.
Is your church hungry to see its young people step into a lifestyle marked by mission? This is the heart of THE SEND too and so we are inviting churches to partner with us. Partner churches will be connected with regional reps and given access to the responses that their young people make to a mission field at SEND gatherings. In return we are asking partner churches to commit to:
Outcomes is a huge part of what makes THE SEND different. We aren't here to gather thousands for entertainment but for empowerment, working with partner organisations to help lead young people into real action off the back of commitments they feel God has led them to. We are looking for organisations with capacity and vision to help us do this.
If your heart desires to see everything here brought to life then we are looking for young people (18-26) to sign-up to be a SEND rep. Reps will be vital in helping communicating THE SEND with peers whilst also sharing their voice and wisdom to help maintain a contextual and relevant vision. Reps will have the opportunities to attend special events and will be connected with regional reps to help set-up Spotfires with their peers.
THE SEND UK & IRELAND is under the legal and financial responsibility of YWAM Harpenden, with CCX as a key partner. It is dependent on the generosity of individuals, churches, and organisations for funding.
We are asking individuals and organisations to sow into THE SEND through regular giving and one-off donations, sowing into a generation as we see them step into their calling.
We have a 3-year operating budget of £1m, with the significant majority of funds being expended 2023-2025, after which most of the activity will naturally wind down with less than 3% kept for ongoing costs relating to appropriate Media, Marketing and Systems.
For the events we are working on budgets for The Arena Tour and we estimate that we need £50,000 working capital and contingency but ultimately we hope these events will break even. We additionally anticipate the main event’s budget in summer 2025 being approximately £2 million. We are seeking individuals who will underwrite this cost as we will seek to recover the majority through ticket sales.
THE SEND is being run by a collaboration of partners and facilitated by Youth with a Mission Harpenden, being dependent on donations of time and finance from a wide range of sources. We have an Executive Team under the leadership of John McGinley and Josh Cutting, that is accountable to the Youth with a Mission Board of Trustees.
Your gift goes to YWAM Harpenden, who will place it into a restricted fund for use by THE SEND UK & IRELAND.
Yes - your gift goes to YWAM Harpenden who are a registered charity and will claim Gift Aid if you can provide a completed Gift Aid declaration.
Funds are divided across key areas: mobilisation, outcomes, outreach, media & communications, operations and events.