|PIC1|Hundreds of leaders were present at the official launch of Heal Our Land on Saturday, including Rev Dr Clifford Hill of the Centre for Contemporary Ministries, the Evangelical Alliance’s head of theology Justin Thacker, Operation Mobilisation founder George Verwer, and philanthropist Lady Susie Sainsbury.

The idea, project co-ordinator Liz Doyle explained, is not so much to reach non-believers with the musical, but to revive and re-envision the church to go out and evangelise the nation.

“I would really like to see each believer get a new passion for Jesus, a fresh desire for prayer, and a new understanding of how powerful prayer is,” she said.

“We want to see the church become re-engaged with what the Gospel is in reality and what the Word is, how powerful the message of the Gospel is and that the Bible is for today.

“That’s all been washed away a bit by media and society but if we can get back to who we really are then the individual will change, the church will change, our families will change, and our communities will change.

“It will spread out but it has to start with us as individuals.”

Heal Our Land follows in the footsteps of the musicals by Jimmy and Carol Owens, Come Together and If My People, which are credited with reviving churches in the UK in the Seventies and Eighties.

Organisers are hoping this latest production will have the same effect today and with the challenges of encroaching secularism, the demise of the church, and the worst economic recession to hit the UK since World War II, Heal Our Land's director of evangelism Steve Mullins believes there is no better time than now.

“The church in the UK has lost its confidence in the Gospel and we have to regain that,” he said.

“The God who knocked Saul off his donkey and renamed him Paul is the same God who saves today and we have got to regain that confidence that people can be saved and know a changed life through Jesus.

“We have got to regain our confidence in proclaiming the Gospel and not being afraid to say that Jesus Christ is the way, the truth and the life.”

He stressed, however, that Heal Our Land was not about telling churches how to get the job done, but rather working alongside them in their outreach.

The first Heal Our Land is expected to take place in April next year at Liverpool’s Philharmonic Hall.

www.healourlanduk.com