Urban Leadership Foundation

March for Jesus is making a great impact in churches across the globe, inspiring people to praise Jesus publicly and bringing churches together in glorious unity.

The vision of the organization is, 'To see the churches united in public worship of the Lord Jesus Christ and Christians working together to impact their city with praise, prayer and proclamation." Their mission statement is, "We provide a national network of Christians who build a local relational network that mobilizes the Body of Christ."

The history of March for Jesus began in England in the 1980's when some small church groups decided to take what they were experiencing in the churches out into the streets. Involved in these early marches was Graham Kendrick, a musician and songwriter. Aware that the music of the church was not effective for outdoor expression, he began developing more appropriate music. He remained involved in the movement as it snowballed in size with an initial march in London in '87 attracting a surprising 15,000 despite pouring rain, to a march in 45 different cities of the British Isles involving 200,000 people.

In 1989, Tom and Theresa Pelton of USA attended a conference where Graham Kendrick presented the vision of March for Jesus. Tom organized marches in Austin and later, Houston. The vision began to spread across the nation.

In 1992, 600,000 people in the US and Europe marched for Jesus. In 1993, the first International March was organized. 1.2 million Christians took to the streets. At each participating city in the US, Christians prayed for a nation their city had adopted. In '94 came 'A Day to Change the World' when a total of 10 million people marched down the streets of 1000 cities in 178 nations. In this global march, believers crossed ethnic boundaries to worship Jesus together. In Burundi and Rwanda, 7,000 from both Huti and Tutsi tribes marched together. Croats and Serbs marched together in Croatia. Marches were held in poverty-stricken neighborhoods in the USA

Future global marches are planned for '96, '98 and the year 2000.

March for Jesus has evolved some clear guidelines for participating cities. Many mistakes and difficulties have been encountered and subsequently weeded out, past experiences have been built on and developed. Now the church in each city is gaining from the combined wisdom of the whole movement.

The guidelines contain lists of, and helpful information for, the task groups that need to be formed to deal with different aspects of the March, such as prayer, site management, youth, children and evangelism. Many helpful suggestions regarding funding are given, suggestions also about the mobilizing of churches and volunteers, and how to involve pastors.

Because March for Jesus has ignored the denominational barriers and has concentrated on working amongst all interested churches in each city, and because the experience gathered has been freely shared, the movement has grown at a staggering rate to a size unprecedented had not churches been willing to work in unity under the banner of Jesus.