Mission Report Year ended 31 march 2021
“Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed” Isaiah 54:10 (NIV)
Over the next few pages, you’ll find just some of the highlights of God at work over the past year, made possible thanks to your support Last year was a challenge, to say the least. But as we reflect, the words of Isaiah 54:10 seem appropriate: ‘Though the mountains may be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken’! Our Revealing Jesus mission framework launched in October, offering churches a way to engage with the 95% of children and young people who aren’t in church. Over 1,000 of you joined us for the online launch (and over 4,000 more have caught up since!), and we’ve been so encouraged as the first Faith Guides have registered, completed their training and got to work. While lockdown meant we had to cancel our holiday programme for the first time in 100 years, it also created opportunities for creativity, in a whole host of ways. It might have stopped us going out, but it didn’t stop us from sharing God’s love with children and young people in brand new ways – through video resources, activities to try at home, online holidays and missions, and much more that you’ll read about over the next few pages. Thank you for your part in that. I am forever grateful for your partnership in prayer, giving and volunteering.
Myles MacBean, National Director
In October, we launched the Revealing Jesus mission framework, inspiring and equipping Faith Guides to walk alongside the 95 as they journey into Faith. We’re committed to providing Faith Guides with 1-2-1 coaching and exclusive resources – helping them to make initial connections with the 95 and foster long-term relationships that will see them find and grow in faith. By the end of the financial year, 109 people had signed up as Faith Guides from 73 churches. Through your support and with God’s blessing, we’re looking to see those numbers multiply throughout this year and beyond, providing many more of the 95 with the opportunity to explore the Bible, respond to Jesus and grow in Faith.
Find out more at su.org.uk/RevealingJesus
Working together The 95 Campaign We’ve been so encouraged to see so many people join the 95 Campaign this year, adding to a thriving community of thousands passionate about introducing Jesus to the youngest generation. During the year, 2,404 people joined the community, bringing the total of members to 12,828 .
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Mission partners Working alongside our Local Mission Partners really helps to multiply mission opportunities! We have 67 Local Mission Partners, with 1 new trust coming on board this year. Between them they employ 120 workers.
Volunteering Even with lockdown making all of our in-person holidays and missions impossible, there were still 753 known opportunities for volunteer involvement across the movement – the equivalent of 661 working weeks, or 14 full-time staff. An amazing 559 volunteers stepped in to make our online holidays and missions possible. All of them #SUperheros!
Mission in lockdown When lockdown first struck, we didn’t let that get in the way of mission - we just had to do things differently! From online events to daily video content, your support made it possible for us to develop and roll out new ways to help churches reach out when they couldn’t go out!
Innovative video series Our staff team quickly set about transferring their mission skills to video. Within a matter of weeks, 3 new video series were born, featuring regular engaging Biblefocused content on social media for children and families during this difficult time:
Make & pray
Inspire
Supporting you
This series of Bible-themed make-at-home craft activity videos had over 30,000 views, amounting to nearly 830 hours of watch time!
This video series to help teenagers explore what faith in Jesus really means today, had over 33,000 views and a total watch time of 942 hours.
These videos to support adults during lockdown had 837 views – a total watch time of just over 22 hours.
Summer online Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic meant that none of our holidays or other in-person events could run this year. But thanks to your support and amazing, passionate volunteers, we were able to adapt quickly and take many of our events online! We ran 35 online events in total – 10 missions, 2 reunion events, and 23 holidays. 1,398 children registered in total!
My daughter felt immediately ‘at home’ with the team and other young people, and was able to chat about and explore her faith further.
Free online training Another great new initiative born out of lockdown was a programme of online training sessions, providing expert mission advice via Zoom to help churches connect with the 95 during lockdown and beyond. We ran 13 free sessions, with over
4,000 people attending.
Shine online Shine in Schools is about equipping Christian young people to live for God at school. Even though schools were shut for a large part of the year, we were still able to provide tips, ideas and encouragement for Christian young people through Shine Online. Around 120 young people and 50 team from right across the UK and Ireland were part of Shine Online. YouTube videos with the theme of Fearless were also added to YouTube as Lockdown began, and the two aimed at mainly non-Christian young people have been viewed about 150 times.
Race, ethnicity and millennials During the year, we turned even more of our attention to matters of race and ethnicity, and the wants and needs of millennials, in a concerted effort to ensure all our activities continue to be as inclusive as possible. We’ve begun working through how we can become a more trusting community, how individuals’ stories can best be told and their voices heard more often and more clearly, how they might bring into their SU work more of the experiences and gifts God has given them, and how we can strengthen even further our culture of encouragement and upbuilding. All to enhance our mission reach and impact.
Leaving Lockdown Our Leaving Lockdown resources were designed to help churches take their first steps into socially distanced Mission. The series saw the creation of a new range of QR code-scanning treasure-trail resources, that have helped churches connect with families in COVID-compliant ways.
1,849 people downloaded one of the resource packs, which resulted in over 15,000 QR code scans. I am using In Search of Hope to create a trail around our village recreation ground, and it’s attracted an encouraging number of non-church families already!
Find out more about the In Search of… series at su.org.uk/leavinglockdown Read about how one church added a twist to their Christmas trail at su.org.uk/twistinthetrail
Resources for Mission It’s your move Even with school closures, It’s Your Move helped many year six pupils make the move to secondary school this year, and a brand new workshop video enabled teachers or volunteers to run a virtual It’s Your Move workshop.
122,937 copies of the book were sold, and the new workshop video was downloaded 640 times. The Teacher’s guide was downloaded 393 times, alongside 404 lesson plan downloads. Wonder Zone & Book of Wonders Restrictions meant that most churches were unable to run a holiday club this year, so we produced a series of videos to enable churches to run a virtual Wonder Zone holiday club (with a science and faith theme) instead. 426 people downloaded the videos. The Book of Wonders also landed this year, helping children to explore the wonderful world God created. 3,222 copies were sold.
Jesus died for me? 29,390 copies of our new beautifully illustrated rhyming
Easter storybook, Jesus died for me? were sold, helping churches to share the good news of the Easter story with the 95. An animated video was also produced to further bring the Easter story to life!
Guardians of Ancora Our Bible game app celebrated its fifth birthday during the year! Since its launch in 2015, the app has continued to grow in both popularity and reach, with 29,156 downloads this year, and an estimated total player count (since launch) of 1,648,431. The app is now available in 5 different languages (English, Welsh, Albanian, Serbian and Portuguese) with Spanish and isiZulu versions in development. There are 27 partnerships with English-speaking SU movements, 5 with Spanish-speaking movements and 2 Portuguese-speaking SU movements. A new Guardians of Ancora collection of resources was made available exclusively to Faith Guides in the Faith Guide Hub, helping them to use Guardians of Ancora in mission.
Mission through sport Although many of our activities and events had to take place online this year, mission through sport made it possible for us to share the good news of Jesus with over 1,500 children and young people face-to-face, working with over 40 churches.
2 significant sports partnerships and collaborations were established (with Gloucester Diocese and KICK). We began to establish cohorts of Faith Guides specifically interested in sport and physical activity. In North East England, we completed a successful Revealing Jesusfocused mission through sports trial, aimed particularly at reaching out and make connections in areas of significant poverty. This will now be rolled out in other areas of England and Wales.
Global connections There are over 130 Scripture Union movements active in 120 countries around the world, providing children all over the globe with the opportunity to discover the love of Jesus. More than 30 of the national movements partner with Scripture Union England and Wales to use Guardians of Ancora in their ministries.
Finances We are so thankful to you for your gifts, time and prayers that make a huge difference to the work of Scripture Union, providing many more children and young people with opportunities to explore the Bible, respond to Jesus and grow in faith. Thank you so much for your continued support.
Here’s an overview of the money we received during the 2020/21 financial year, and the ways in which it was spent.
Total income
£4,526,000
£3,623,000
£93,000
Donations and legacies
Other, including investments
£801,000
£9,000
Publishing sales
Holidays and missions
Total Expenditure
£4,167,000
£2,067,000
Face-to-face mission (including holidays and missions)
£729,000
Commercial publishing
£426,000
£360,000
Content creation
£349,000
International activities
£236,000 Advocacy
Cost of raising funds
None of this success would have been possible without people generously giving what they could. If you supported us in that way, THANK YOU – this success is yours too. Could you give a gift and ensure even more is possible next year? This is a summary of Scripture Union’s financial activities for the year ended 31 March 2021, extracted from the full Trustee’s Report and Financial Statements which have been audited. A full statement of our financial activities can be found in our Trustees’ Annual Report and Financial Statements, a copy of which can be obtained by contacting us on 01908 856135.
To Donate online, visit su.org.uk/donate
Thank you! Your ongoing prayers, financial support and volunteer hours are hugely appreciated and vital in making the mission of Scripture Union possible. Your support helps us take ideas and make them a reality. It helps us roll out those ideas to hundreds of churches and, ultimately, provides many more children and young people with the opportunity to explore the Bible, respond to Jesus and grow in faith. Thank you so much for all that you do to help make this possible.
With 95% of all under-18s not in church, the task of reaching them is huge. But so too is the opportunity!
Scripture Union is a registered charity (no. 213422) and a limited company (registered no. 00039828). Registered office: Trinity House Opal Court, Opal Drive, Fox Milne, Milton Keynes, MK15 0DF. Registered in England and Wales.