Annual Report

“The Turning is becoming a phenomena. What looked, from a distance, like a technique, on closer inspection is revealed to be a gift from heaven. A gift that miraculously empowers ordinary Christians, enabling them to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ. The fact that we are looking at the possibility of reaching over 3 million people across 6 nations in 5 years bears witness to the enduring power of the gospel.”
Yinka Oyekan, Turning Team Leader

On the 29th May 2016 we began what we thought would be a one-week mission at our Baptist Church ‘The Gate’ which could, possibly, stretch to two weeks. Nearly a year on, this “one-week mission” has become #TheTurning.  We have been to many towns and cities across the UK and even into Europe and seen many respond to the gospel!  We have been able to commit to support Fusion with the mission to the Universities across the UK and we are excited with what can develop from these partnerships.  We have seen the power of unity and have been honoured to serve areas around the UK as we bring this grace to others. We know that this is only the beginning and as this next year progresses we will see more and more Christians declare the love of God on the streets and see more and more people respond to that call.

Evangelists Trained…

We have had the honour of going to different cities and towns across Europe to train ordinary Christians in the extraordinary power of the Gospel. We have seen churches from across cities and regions standing together in unity to declare the gospel on the streets.
Numbers trained in each city:

Responses to The Gospel…

Every person we speak to we offer to pray for and we give them the opportunity to respond to an invitation to accept Christ.
Responses in each city:

Bristol, April 2017

Swansea (Welsh Pilot mission), May 2017

Newcastle, May 2017

And beyond the UK…

God even opened the way for us to hop across The Channel to beautiful Lille, France, where we saw many open their hearts and respond to the love of God.

After the encounter…

The Turning has been able to develop the tools that help with follow up; tools which we did not have in the first six months of taking this grace to other cities. The keys we have learned, which will be highlighted in a separate update from the team to be released in August, have enabled us to create tools that facilitate local churches to do follow up effectively.

Developing The Turning

The Turning can only continue with the ongoing volunteer, prayer and financial support from organisations and individuals. This has allowed us to develop the web based app, enlarge our reach and develop our team. As we grow our partnership base we will be able to help more and more churches and Christians, in the UK and beyond, reach out effectively into their communities with the gospel. This will enable us to go to more cities and see more people respond on the streets of your town and beyond the UK!

Moving Forwards…

The Turning is something that, we believe, will continue to grow, stretching not only across the UK but into Europe and beyond. Momentum is gathering and, based on the first year’s figures, we believe that by the end of the third year (2019) we will have seen:

• 375,500 respond on the streets of the UK

• 345,000 respond on the streets of Europe

• 107,000 trained within the UK

• 99,000 trained within Europe

Across the UK

God has opened the door to many towns and cities, He has drawn unity movements within regions together to allow The Turning to run missions in whole regions across the UK.  We have found that where there is unity between churches and a hunger to see people come to know the love of God that God moves and draws people to Himself.  In the next year we have missions planned across the UK to:

Walsall,

Cornwall,

West Sussex,

Tyne & Wear,

Worcester,

East Sussex,

Gloucestershire,

The Black Country

Birmingham,

London

Wiltshire,

& West Yorkshire.

Into Europe

Over the next 3 years we are planning for national missions in countries across Europe. Yinka has been meeting with leaders across these countries in the first step of envisioning and praying before we launch missions in:

Scotland,

France,

Wales,

Germany,

Switzerland,

& Belgium

Challenges and Solutions

A number of interesting challenges have emerged around the nature of the Church discipleship and churches ability to respond adequately to the those open to the gospel.

Yinka Oyekan and the team have been working on how to address these and best practice which will be released within a review. Informing this upcoming review is:

1. The fruit of salvations at The Gate over the last year.
2. The lessons learned from taking it to other cities (one key lesson that has been learnt is that The Turning is the most fruitful through a local church unity movement not within a parchurch context).
3. The impact of the new tools available to help churches succeed with this grace.
4. Conversations with national and international evangelistic organisations.
5. Conversations with over 1000 pastors and Church leaders (between January and May 2017).

We anticipate that this review will come out in August, 2017, but, it should be noted that The Turning team and, now, many others are of no doubt that God has given a great gift to the church.