As part of thinking about Hope 08 I met up with Steve Lee from New Community and Miracle Street and we have some thoughts I wanted to share with you all. Between the two of us we felt we had a good blend of looking at both grass roots and abilities to organise and motivate large programmes. This has led us to think we can coordinate a year long programme of training and outreach that will be about not only doing local evangelism but will invigorate and inspire people to get stuck in with telling people about Jesus in many other situations they find themselves in. This can provide a framework for Hope 08 in Southampton. Some highlights of the kind of things that might be included:

• Each month there will be a day event with faith sharing training and opportunities to practice what we have learnt will be offered. These events will be held in different parts of the city where there is existing work going on so that we are building not just hitting and running. Each event will have a different flavour depending on where it is.
• A prayer network of local prayer groups praying for their street, workplace social club, group of friends etc
• Courses to help us think about what we can do in our local contexts to be effective at showing people Jesus.
• A conference in the Autumn to think about how we can do on-going church in a more intentionally missional way.
• Encouraging congregations to consider promoting an idea like "Big Event Friday" where Christians intentionally set aside time to be with people outside our normal church circles.

The idea would be for this to build through the year so that the year is really a spring board to more things to come in years to come. It would be about us feeling part of an active team of thousands of followers of Jesus helping each other in many different ways to share our relationship with him with others. So what do you think? I'd love to get thoughts on this. If there is is an opportunity to base one of the monthly outreach/training days in your area then let me know so we can talk about that. If you know of other activities being planned in your area as part of Hope 08 then let me know about them too so we can plug them in. Lastly, the Hope 08 resource guide is now available for about £2 and is 160 pages packed with ideas to get you going. Get one, and get going!