Thousands Celebrate Crusaders 100th Birthday

|PIC1|Thousands gathered at the Royal Albert Hall 20th May as Crusaders celebrated their 100th birthday.

The sold-out centenary celebration was titled ‘No Turning Back: The Main Event’ and featured music from some of the UK’s top Christian bands and performers including Delirious?, yFriday, thebandwithnoname, Blush, The Psalm Drummers, Rob Lacey (Street Bible Theatre Company), Steve Legg, Tommy Baker, Tim Vine and John Archer.

Teenagers, children, and youth leaders hooted and celebrated the occasion with loud screams, cheers, and singing, as thebandwithnoname opened the stage with a dynamic performance, which included dancing and rapping. The rest of the night was filled with more God-glorifying entertainment, including the highly anticipated Delirious? performance.

As a highlight, Crusaders announced their new name, ‘Urban Saints’, which will be used from 1 January 2007.

Commenting on the new name, Matt Summerfield, Crusaders’ Executive Director, said, “The ‘Urban Saints’ movement is about an inclusive call to a generation of children and young people to live lives of faith, hope, and love through Jesus Christ wherever they are in the world.”

|TOP|“Young people are fantastic - rich in potential and wanting to live lives of purpose and impact. We want to encourage them to reject negative stereotypes and prove to society that they are agents for good through Jesus - in their local communities and beyond. This is what ‘Urban Saints’ is all about. Urban Saints are people who have discovered the joy of following Jesus, with His mission becoming their passion - to see the good news of the Kingdom come, through words and action.”

At the celebration stage, a letter of congratulations by the Queen was delivered to Crusaders through a letter which was read out to the crowd, as well as video messages from youth leaders Andy Hawthorne and Steve Chalke.

Delirious? front man Martin Smith told Christian Today: “I think it’s incredible for any organisation to run this long.”

“My memory as a kid is being in ‘Covenant', which was a rival group of Crusaders, playing table tennis against them, and always losing.”

|AD|Tickets sold out to over 4,000 Crusaders from across the United Kingdom. According to Crusaders, the aim of ‘No Turning Back: The Main Event’ is to challenge young people to go for God’s very best, rather than having them settle for second rate Christianity, with one foot in the world and the other in God’s Kingdom.

Matt Summerfield concluded the event by saying: “I just pray that through everything that happened today, every person here can discover for themselves- not because I said it, not because the other bands said it- but discover themselves, that Jesus Christ is real. And that He gives us hope for the future.”

Crusaders is a dynamic interdenominational youth and children’s missionary movement, established in 1906. Over the past 100 years, Crusaders has been reaching out to children and young people, sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ with them and challenging them to live out God’s great adventure for their lives. Every week many thousands have an opportunity to hear the awesome Christian message through our Crusader and Energize groups. Thousands more attend our wide range of residential camps, holidays and events.