June Project
The June Project is our annual week of outreach. Each year we gather over 100 delegates for worship and teaching, then go out in teams to bless our community in all kinds of ways - ranging from garden projects to talking to people on the streets to prayer to community events.
June Project 2010 – Report
2010 was the fourth year of June Project. As always we gathered a team of delegates for four intense days of teaching, mission and outreach in Durham. So how did it go?
It was the year of “Breaking Through”. That was the theme for the Project. Our prayer was that it would be a year of seeing the Kingdom breaking through in our lives and in our city. God answered that prayer in so many ways. Hopefully you’ll catch a glimpse of that in what follows.
It was the year of sunshine! After three Projects in cloud and drizzle it was fantastic to finally need our sun lotion!
The Stats
It was a year of... 120 delegates, 80 participants, 12 teams, 360 hand-made packed lunches, 360 cooked meals, 32 garden projects, 21 events, 1200 pieces of BBQ meat, 15000 flyers, over 3000 man-hours, 320 people at the Sunday guest service, hundreds of lives impacted.
Team Activities
It was a year of all the usual activities... meeting people, transforming gardens, drama and singing in the city centre, flyering thousands of houses, praying for the city, painting garages, engaging with youth, litter-picking, praying for healing and much more.
It was a year of third or fourth contact. “First contact” often turned out to be a misnomer. From day 1 people greeted us in our JP10 t-shirts with “June Project! You’re the ones who do the gardens/sing on the street/give out the coffees/run all the events [delete as appropriate]”. The momentum from previous years of June Project and from our week-in week-out engagement with the community was very obvious.
It was a year of high commitment. Whether it was the number residents signing up for the Project, the excellent team leaders, the delegates giving their all, the dozens of people who helped practically, the few key people giving above and beyond, or the general sense of prayer and support we had from the whole church, this really was a year when everyone pulled together to make give us the strongest sense of team and joint ownership of the Project ever.
Events
It was supposed to be a year of fewer events. But it didn’t work but that way! We had originally planned to slim the events programme this year. We wanted to make sure that every event we were running had genuine life. But there was life everywhere! As the programme shaped up the list expanded to the most events we’ve ever put on.
It was the year the resident cell groups got involved. One of the main reasons for more events this year was that we encouraged the resident cell groups to connect with people in their area as part of the Project. As a result five cells put on events, including litter picks in Bear Park and Claypath, an Afternoon Tea Party in North End, a nature walk in Neville’s Cross and the BBQ and Fun Day in Newton Hall.
Other highlights from the events included Big-Screen showings of the England-Algeria World Cup match (although the quality of football rather let us down), three youth events, the return of last year’s very successful Orchard in the Park and the now-traditional Oswald’s Park BBQ and Fun Day. All our events this year were well attended and full of life.
Partnership
It was a year of friends old and new. We welcomed back James Treasure, who gave input at the first June Project in 2007. This year this year he shared with us on the Wednesday and at the Guest Service on the Sunday. We also welcomed Liz Dixon, a student worker from Edinburgh who came to spend the day with us on Thursday, James Hewitt from Fusion who spent the day with us on Friday, plus Jess and Ed from Christians in Sport who helped us run an event on Saturday. We also worked on events with Durham YFC, LOL and Healing on the Streets.
Results
It was the year we learned that mission hurts. Every year God does something we weren’t expecting, and this year it was that in the midst of all the great excitement of the Project there was another theme: the significant number of our team who had conversations with people about very hard things going on in their lives. We were reminded that God’s heart for outreach is a broken heart – so profoundly expressed in the Cross – and of the need to treat people’s vulnerability with the utmost respect.
It was a year of salvation. Four or five people made commitments to Christ over the five days! And that was the tip of the iceberg. We had conversations with and prayed with dozens more. Each day every team came back with stories of significant connections they had made that day and a sense of excitement about playing our part in God’s great purposes.
It really was a year of “breaking through”. The gospel of hope broke into our community, and the same gospel broke through more profoundly in our own lives. It was a significant year for many people – people we met and people on the team – and our prayer is that the things that happened through the Project will have lasting impact as this glorious business of God’s Kingdom continues!
More information
Here's the June Project 2009 video report (on YouTube).
Contact the church office for more information about the June Project.