Ballymena is a town with an often chequered reputation and yet each summer for the last three years around 200 young from the area have sought to counteract the negative images…

Spark is a shared outreach vision between the churches of Ballymena which aims to show love to the people who live there. The summer initiative, which began in 2007, sees teams of young people spill onto the town’s streets and spend a week carrying out acts of kindness.

Matthew Boyd is one of the project-co-ordinators.  He says: “We hope that the church of Jesus Christ in Ballymena would together represent the characteristics of Jesus in their town: loving, compassionate, full of grace and mercy, kind, humble, forgiving and passionate.”

He said this year’s plan will follow the format of format of previous summers: “We aim to gather scores of local Christians together for a week in August to practically serve God and love others in Ballymena. We aim to do this in a huge variety of practical ways right throughout the town offering things such as free gardening, car washes, litter picks, youth drop ins, cafes, football coaching, sports, music and late night events.”

Target areas in the town will include Harryville, Dunclug, Ballee, Fisherwick, Doury Road, Ballykeel and the town centre itself.  Each of these areas will be assigned two to three teams of volunteers who will seek to carry out these practical tasks to meet some of the community’s needs. Specialist event teams will also provide a specific service tailored to each individual area.

Each month this year Christians from across the town have been meeting to pray for transformations in Ballymena.  Kate Moore has been involved in the prayer drive behind Spark: “Unity is part of our vision for Spark, because we know it is the desire of God and that He blesses it.  On the run up to Spark, we want to unite, as brothers and sisters of Christ, in prayer for Ballymena and for the summer’s outreach.

“We are seeing already how God is uniting the church. Once a month we’ve been gathering together to pray through different aspects of life such as children and young people, business, crime, policing, health etc.  We believe that God is going to build on this unity and use this to impact Ballymena in an exciting way this summer.”

This August the Spark 09 dream will come to pass.  Anyone aged 13 and up can apply to get involved in this mass display of practical love.

Get involved.   Get imagining.  For more information why not check out www.sparkballymena.com.