The Church Army has announced its plans for a summer appeal and have firmly set their targets on youth and young people.

The Church Army is a society of evangelists with the Anglican Communion, which works to enable people to come to a living faith in Jesus Christ. At the time of their establishment in 1882, 55% of English children attended Christian Sunday Schools. However, the decline in church attendances over the past century has seen this figure fall to less than 4%.

This has been a central reason for the Church Army's continued commitment to working with the younger generations. Their aim is to help the youth of today understand the relevance of the Christian faith and to accept faith into their lives.

Recently at the Christian Resources Exhibition, Church Army's Chief Secretary Philip Johanson OBE gave a keynote address on the theme of ‘Future Church’ and stressed the importance of ensuring that the mission context of church must be shaped by what is needed and not by what we might prefer it to be.

The Bishop of Dorchester, Colin Fletcher recently hosted a Church Army seminar which focussed on the mission and community challenge of new housing estates. Fletcher testified the great works of a Church Army evangelist, Ian Biscoe who have managed to build up a whole new Christian community on Oxfordshire.

The community has grown from nothing and now there are weekly gatherings, and special children's sessions on Sundays. They have even grown enough that the chapel has moved out from Biscoe's own house to the much larger chapel of a former airbase.

Ian Biscoe's story is an example of what the Church Army is aiming to spread, and it is looking to set up similar projects across the country.

Donations to support the Church Army's mission can be made on their hotline: 020 8309 3562