Report on the Awake Suffolk Coastal Mission, September 6th-14th 2025
Pre-Mission Events and during the week
Prayer. Thank you to everyone who prayed for the Mission, here and around the world. It made a huge difference to the success of the 9 days. Special thanks to Julia, Marion, and Sheila who led on this. We started the week expectantly and God showed up.
Media: We advertised in the Sax and Leiston news, on the radio, and around the town. We put 900 fliers through the doors in Sax., and 250 in Leiston. Special thanks to Adrian for all the posters and adverts, to those who delivered fliers and Fran Parish, for local radio plugs. Also everyone who posted on social media. This was critical for many events, especially the Silent Discos.
3. Events: Thank you to individuals who regularly run events, Lou at Busy Bees, and Marion at The Fridge, who welcomed the TFM team. Special thanks as well to those who created events just for the week: The evening with JB Gill and Dave Bemment was attended by 109 people, mostly visitors. Drawing together in Christ, New Creations, Love Actually, Silent Discos, The Walk of Witness, the Sax market stall and the Hog Roast, the films in the Fromus Centre. In addition 4 wonderful services at St John’s and a remarkable Healing Service at Kelsale. There are too many people to mention or thank, but each session involved teamwork in so many ways
4. Accommodation and Hospitality: Massive thank you to the 6x hosts of the TFM (Through Faith Mission) team, and the teams who provided food for the TFM team for the whole week: at ATC, at the church hall, in homes and on the hoof! And all the refreshments at the services and many events
5. Mission Team: thanks to the whole TFM team for being so willing to partner with us, to share their experiences as evangelists. They never failed to show up, to do the DTDs (Door to Door conversations), gave their testimony, spoke at Services, sang in the streets and at the Bandstand, prayed for so many people, and were just as happy putting out chairs and joining in. We were very blessed by them and to Paul Preston who led them.
Outcomes from the week
Gratitude: God showed up and blessed us with safety, the weather and so many answered prayers. He brought the right people to events and literally opened doors for us.
The mission strengthened us as a church family, made us bolder as evangelists and by inviting friends to events meant the number of people who had never been into church before was well over 100. Over 60 members of SKC took an active role in the Mission. Many others importantly contributed behind the scenes with prayer and financial support.
Outreach: We went out: to the URC in Sax., the beach in Aldeburgh and to their Friendship Friday in the Library. We went to Leiston for D2D walkabouts and joined the prayer, worship and outreach at the Leiston Bandstand. We visited Sax and Kelsale primary schools with Open the Book. We visited pubs, the Social Bar and the Kelsale Social Club. We opened up At The Crossroads for food and meetings including Grill the Vicar. We invited young and old to Games in the Park, Tennis at the Sax courts, Films in the Fromus Centre and to the Flower arranging in the Town Hall. We lifted the name of Jesus in Fromus Square on two mornings. The wash up highlighted the range of events attractive to young and old.
The Door to Door sessions, 5x2 hours sessions. Knocked on over 600 doors. 258 questionnaires were answered, and many God inspired conversations were had. Over 300 Knowing God Personally booklets were handed out, and 19 people prayed the prayer in the booklet and asked for follow up from a church leader.
In addition thank you to the 7 people who went out with the TFM team doing D2Ds in Saxmundham and Leiston. It was not easy, especially with so many houses empty. 90+ questionnaires were also done in the Saxmundham market on the Sat morning, with many responding v positively to the booklet KGP, and the questions. They all got a LOVE Sax bag from C Cotton. The KGP books were also given out in pubs, cafes and at all the events.
Follow up: We have to keep visiting and encouraging people who made a commitment. Inviting to Alpha starting on the 9th October and other outreach events as well as Sunday services. Coming up, we have the Light service on 31st October, Filling Station meetings each month, and much more.
Feedback
At the wash up meeting, held at The Crossroads, 24/9, we looked at what could we improve or do better. Also feedback from those not able to attend.
Advertise in Carlton Park, and do D2Ds in Kelsale.
Make the buying and ordering of tickets as simple as possible.
The timings so close to the start of the new school year meant advertising was difficult, esp in schools.
Instead of a very intense week of mission, mission could be part of our whole year church calendar with specific events happening all year and have posters advertising ‘What is happening in the next 3 months’.
The following events were ones to do again: Drawing together, Love actually (flowers), Film night, Silent Discos, Big name speaker using Dave Bemment agency, Games in the Park, Outreach on Saturday Market Day, New Creations. (Thank you to everyone offering to do these events again.)
Others to try: A men’s breakfast.
Finances
It was costly in time, and financially many events were expensive to run, as was the advertising and all the materials. Total costs so far: £5280.06 including £500 donation to TFM and £300 gifts to TFM team. Income from events and donations: £593. Also many did not claim back their costs, and/or made generous contributions to the running costs. However this was all in budget and we have a mission budget to do outreach.
We need to have personal highlights, a vox pop, on the website about the mission.
Geoffrey Boult
SKC Mission coordinator