Andy Hawthorne, OBE is a British evangelist, author and founder of The Message Trust, a Christian mission organisation based in Manchester, UK. Working for over 25 years with young people in the area, his initiatives have been particularly directed at those who are traditionally hard to reach, in prison or from disadvantaged communities. Originally focused in Greater Manchester, The Message now has offices in locations across the UK and internationally in Cape Town, South Africa, Vancouver, Canada and Annaberg-Buchholz, Germany. The story of The Message is told in his books, The Message 20: Celebrating Two Decades of Changed Lives and Being The Message: Lessons learned on the frontline of mission. In recognition for his services to young people, he was awarded the OBE in 2011. Hawthorne was named ‘Best Leader’ in The Sunday Times Best Not-For-Profit Organisations To Work For surveys in 2017 and 2018. In the early days of The Message, Andy was a member of the Christian band World Wide Message Tribe who had success in the UK and American pop charts. He is a popular speaker at New Wine, Spring Harvest, Soul Survivor, Keswick Convention, and other Christian conferences in the UK. With Mike Pilavachi from Soul Survivor and Roy Crowne of YFC, he was one of the founders of the Hope 08 and subsequent Hope Together initiatives. In 2018, Hawthorne was a key figure in launching Advance 2020, a coordinated campaign by Christian ministries to deliver a major evangelistic push in the UK in 2020. Speaking about the campaign, he said, ‘I felt like we need to see a multiplication of the evangelist gift, but also in Isaiah 60 it says, “assemble my people,” and I felt like we need to start going big again.’ Andy is unashamed of his Christian faith and describes it as the 'engine' of all that has been achieved through The Message Trust. On 21 June 2011 he addressed cross-bench parliamentarians at the National Prayer Breakfast at the Houses of Parliament. Invited to speak on the theme of 'Raising the aspirations of young people', he said: ‘The Bible works – and Jesus is the answer... The message of the Bible raises the aspirations of young people – we ditch it at our peril. The best of our society is built on this precious book... The more we invest in today’s young people the values that God gave us in this book the better our society will become.’
Personal life
Andy is married to Michele and together they have two children, Sam and Beth.
———, Carl Beech et al, Being The Message: Lessons learned on the frontline of mission, The Message Trust.
———, Here I Am, Seek Me: More teaching from the book of Isaiah and powerful stories from The Message Trust, The Message Trust.
———, Here I Am, Send Me: Teaching from the book of Isaiah and powerful stories from The Message Trust, The Message Trust.
———, Nicky Gumbel, Pete Greig, Luis Palau, Mike Pilavachi and John Sentamu, The Message 20: Celebrating Two Decades of Changed Lives, The Message Trust.
———, Hope Unleashed, Survivor Books.
———, Diary of a Dangerous Vision , Survivor Books.
