Andy Hawthorne,

OBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

is a British evangelist, author and founder of

The Message Trust The Message Trust is a Christian charity working to improve the lives of people in the UK and beyond through work in schools, prisons and communities. Working in partnership with churches and other organisations, The Message is in contact with a ...

, a Christian mission organisation based in

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of City of Salford, Salford to ...

, UK. Working for over 30 years with young people and communities across the UK. His initiatives and the work of The Message Trust have been particularly directed at those who are traditionally hard to reach, in prison or from disadvantaged communities. Originally focused in

Greater Manchester Greater Manchester is a metropolitan county and combined authority area in North West England, with a population of 2.8 million; comprising ten metropolitan boroughs: Manchester, Salford, Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Stockport, Tamesid ...

, The Message now works across the UK with hubs in Scotland, Wales, London, the Midlands and the North East, as well as Manchester. They also work internationally in

Cape Town Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second larges ...

, South Africa,

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the city, up from 631,486 in 2016. Th ...

, Canada and

Annaberg-Buchholz Annaberg-Buchholz () is a town in Saxony, Germany. Lying in the Ore Mountains, it is the capital of the district of Erzgebirgskreis. Geography The town is located in the Ore Mountains, at the side of the ''Pöhlberg'' ( above sea level). Hi ...

, Germany. The story of The Message is told in his books, ''The Message 20: Celebrating Two Decades of Changed Lives'' and ''Being The Message: Lessons learned on the frontline of mission''. In recognition for his services to young people, he was awarded the

in 2011. Hawthorne was named ‘Best Leader’ in

The Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, wh ...

Best Not-For-Profit Organisations To Work For surveys in 2017 and 2018. In the early days of The Message, Andy was a member of the Christian band

World Wide Message Tribe The Tribe, formerly the World Wide Message Tribe (WWMT), were a British Christian dance band. Their aim was "to communicate the gospel to young people in Greater Manchester". They were part of the Christian charity, The Message Trust in Manche ...

who had success in the UK and American pop charts. He is a popular speaker at

New Wine New Wine is a not-for-profit Christian evangelical organization based in the United Kingdom, that assists Christian churches with organizational leadership training and fundraising. The organization also holds its own annual summer conferences, ...

Spring Harvest Spring Harvest is an inter-denominational evangelical conference and gathering in the United Kingdom that started in 1979. The festival arose in the late 1970s at a time when evangelicalism was growing in the UK and there was uncertainty as to ...

, Soul Survivor,

Keswick Convention The Keswick Convention is an annual gathering of Conservative evangelicalism in the United Kingdom, conservative evangelical Christians in Keswick, Cumbria, Keswick, in the English county of Cumbria. The Christian theological tradition of Highe ...

, and other Christian conferences in the UK. With

Mike Pilavachi Michael Pilavachi, (; born 7 March 1958) is a British charismatic Christian evangelist and author of Greek Cypriot descent. He is the co-founder and former leader of the Soul Survivor charity based in Watford, England. In May 2023, he was suspen ...

from Soul Survivor and Roy Crowne of YFC, he was one of the founders of the Hope 08 and subsequent Hope Together initiatives. In 2018, Hawthorne was a key figure in launching Advance 2020, a coordinated campaign by Christian ministries to deliver a major evangelistic push in the UK in 2020. Speaking about the campaign, he said, ‘I felt like we need to see a multiplication of the evangelist gift, but also in Isaiah 60 it says, "assemble my people," and I felt like we need to start going big again.’ In 2022, Andy Hawthorne and The Message Trust partnered with the Luis Palau Association for a second time to put on Festival Manchester. Having originally held a mission in 2003, they decided to go again coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic. In the summer of 2022, Festival Manchester 2022 headed into schools, communities, ran thousands of hours of social action projects, before hosting a weekend festival in Wythenshawe Park in July. The weekend saw over 65,000 people attend. Andy is unashamed of his Christian faith and describes it as the 'engine' of all that has been achieved through The Message Trust. On 21 June 2011 he addressed cross-bench parliamentarians at the National Prayer Breakfast at the Houses of Parliament. Invited to speak on the theme of 'Raising the aspirations of young people', he said: ‘The Bible works – and Jesus is the answer... The message of the Bible raises the aspirations of young people – we ditch it at our peril. The best of our society is built on this precious book... The more we invest in today’s young people the values that God gave us in this book the better our society will become.’ Passionate about equipping people to share their faith, Andy started meeting monthly with 12 other evangelists in his office in Sharston. Each of them benefitted so much from meeting that they wanted to go on and set up their own Advance Group. Today, Advance Groups have grown internationally and 10,000 groups now meet in more than 90 countries across the globe.

Personal life

Andy is married and the couple have two children.

Books and publications

* Hawthorne, Andy (2022), A Burning Heart: Wake up, grow up, build up, The Message Trust. * ——— (2019), ''Here I Am: Joining God's adventurous call to love the world'', David C Cook. * ——— et al (2017), ''Being The Message: Lessons learned on the frontline of mission'', The Message Trust. * ——— (2016), ''Here I Am, Seek Me: More teaching from the book of Isaiah and powerful stories from The Message Trust'', The Message Trust. * ——— (2014), ''Here I Am, Send Me: Teaching from the book of Isaiah and powerful stories from The Message Trust'', The Message Trust. * ———, Nicky Gumbel, Pete Greig, Luis Palau, Mike Pilavachi and John Sentamu (2011), ''The Message 20: Celebrating Two Decades of Changed Lives'', The Message Trust. * ——— (2009), ''Hope Unleashed'', Survivor Books. * ——— (2008), ''Diary of a Dangerous Vision (Revised)'', Survivor Books. * ——— (2005), ''The Smile of God'', Survivor Books. * ——— (2004), ''Diary of a Dangerous Vision'', Survivor Books. * ——— and Craig Borlase (2000), ''Mad for Jesus: The Vision of the World Wide Message Tribe'', Hodder and Stoughton. * ——— and Jim Overton (1999), ''Get God'', Zondervan.

References

External links

Interview in the Manchester Evening News, July 6, 2012
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hawthorne, Andy English evangelists British performers of Christian music Living people Year of birth missing (living people)