Living life to the max to reach community

This summer, eight churches joined forces to invite locals in Caerphilly to live “Life to the Max”. Connect Life Elim’s pastor Steve Harris tells the story of their action-packed week

We take seriously what the Bible says about churches working together in unity, and are pleased to say that for a number of churches in Caerphilly this is now an integral part of who we are.

We have a partnership which began in 2020 during Covid with a few churches working with the Message Trust (Message Wales) on an outdoor event, then a joint mission in 2021.

Since then, we have worked together on an annual summer event involving schools work, a youth event, a fun day and other activities. For the past two years, seven churches – along with Parkhill Baptist from Arkansas, Missional Links (which links American churches with Welsh churches) and Show Jesus – have united to make mission happen in Caerphilly.

We’re not in competition and we don’t care which church the people we contact end up going to. We just want them to meet Jesus!

Summer 2025: Life to the Max

With the theme of “Life to the Max”, this summer’s event in June began with a joint prayer meeting on the Sunday evening to focus our hearts on the packed week of mission ahead. This is what we got up to during it…

Club 707: We held a week of schools work organised by a joint churches schools mission called Club 707.

They worked with the American team to bring a themed programme to more than 600 primary-aged kids in 13 primary schools. The American connection adds something different and helps as we reach out to people outside our churches.

A Taste of Arkansas: On the midweek evenings local churches hosted two “A Taste of Arkansas” events in different areas, headed up by the American team and with line dancing, food and a short gospel presentation.

Connect Life hosted one of these in a community centre where we’ve been holding regular activities for over a year, including tots, craft, kids and youth groups and a foodbank.

It’s also where we held our first joint church event in 2020, and we’ve now built long-term relationships with the community. Around half of those attending came from this area and have no other church connection.

Flower festival: At the same time, we held a churches flower festival. We welcomed around 100 guests to visit the church and see great displays on the theme of Noah’s ark. The Lord Mayor described the Connect Life display as “the talk of the town!”

Youth event: On Friday we prepared for the weekend’s activities on Owain Glyndwr Fields – very close to Caerphilly Castle and only a few hundred metres from where the original Elim tent crusade led by PS Brewster took place in 1948.

We set up a 350-seater marquee and a smaller one, all made possible by Show Jesus and the church volunteers who erect and take it down.

The evening youth event was a great way to start the weekend – with more than 100 high school kids and a 40-strong support team enjoying games, music and a powerful message from one of the American team.

Saturday family fun: On Saturday afternoon the site was transformed for a Family Fun event with activities for all ages, soft play and refreshments. Various tables also shared information about joint church activities such as our foodbank, Street Pastors and Alpha courses, and invited people to share prayer requests.

It’s hard to count how many attended but this was the biggest event of the weekend and somewhere between 800 to 1,000 were on site.

One of the key things for us is to provide a great-quality free event which includes all the activities, refreshments and even the burgers!

People are often amazed when they realise everything is free and this provides lots of opportunities for conversations about church and faith.

A quick turnaround afterwards got us ready for another evening of line dancing, refreshments and testimonies. The stories came from local church people and our American team, with around 150 attending.

Sunday praise: Last year the main Sunday service attracted 250 people. This year, 360 packed the large marquee and enjoyed worship led by a band from four churches, vox pop videos, communion and contributions from many of the churches who help make the event happen. One of the highlights was a number of young people sharing testimonies and doing a short drama.

Meanwhile, one church hosted a kids’ programme in the smaller marquee, with around 50 kids and helpers.

The whole event was wrapped up by Pastor Craig from Parkhill Baptist, a time of praise for all Jesus had done over the weekend. We finished with a picnic.

Reflection: As we reflect on this week of mission we are so grateful to God for all the opportunities we had to share Jesus.

As churches, we realise that much of what we are doing in times like this is planting seeds in the lives of people of all ages.

We have seen some come to our churches as a result, but it’s about much more than this: it’s preparing the ground for people to receive the message as we work in our local churches week by week.

This article first appeared in Direction Magazine. For further details, please click here.