Matt Summerfield took a pay cut and had to give up his company car to work for youth ministry Urban Saints. Now he says it’s one of the best decisions he ever made
With a passion to equip and empower young people, Urban Saints’ chief executive Matt Summerfield says that it is crucial the Church remains culturally relevant to connect with the next generation.
Growing up around the local church, Summerfield’s faith stretches as far back as he can remember, but when he got involved in youth work God really tugged at his heartstrings.
“In a sense, I always had moments of drawing close to God and I got involved in youth work at the church my dad planted in our front room 34 years ago,” he tells
iBelieve.
“I was a volunteer youth leader in our church at the age of 17 and that really was a significant moment 
for me. I would say that is when God really birthed and breathed in me a passion for young people to know him. “That was 27 years ago now and I am still as passionate, probably even more so now, to see young people come to know God.”
Talented in the technological field too, Summerfield went on to progress through the ranks in a mobile phone company before a surprise opportunity arose.
“Throughout my 20’s I worked with T-Mobile, so I was an IT guy by day and youth pastor by night, overseeing all of our youth and kids’ work in church,” he recalls. “When I turned 29 I saw this advert
or a job as chief executive of what was then the Crusaders and it kind of leapt off the page at me. I remember thinking it would be amazing to have a full-time job seeing young people discover Christ. “I didn’t really think I’d get it. I was 29, I was Pentecostal, I had no experience with Crusaders, which was at that time 94 years old. I was certainly wet behind the ears and certainly wasn’t sure about the 60 per cent pay cut and no company car.
“But God had other plans. I joined Crusaders in May 2000 as chief executive and have worked with an amazing team over the last 15 years and we celebrated 100 years of Crusaders in 2006 before relaunching with the rebrand of Urban Saints in 2007.” Matt adds, “Really the heartbeat behind Urban Saints is empowering young people to live lives of faith, hope and love through Jesus Christ. That is what gets us up in the morning. “We do this through resourcing local churches. We have about 1,300 churches we primarily resource with our Energise website which offers drama clips, activities and all sorts for working with children from three to 20 years old. “Secondly, we run a variety of experiences, events and holidays as well as overseas missions programmes to help young people develop their faith in Christ.”
Three years ago Matt assumed the role of senior pastor at Hitchin Christian Centre, which had been led by his father for 31 years previously, and he now splits his time between his local and national roles.
One constant for Urban Saints is change and Matt is continually looking at how the movement and churches can keep in step with society. “We are 110 years old as a movement next year and you don’t get to be that old but for, firstly, the grace of God and, secondly, the commitment to change throughout the history of the movement,” he explains.
“The gospel doesn’t change, the essence of our mission has never changed – we are about children and young people discovering and living for Christ – but the culture around us changes, both within the Church and outside the Church, so we have to continually be like the men of Issachar in the Bible. “The men of Issachar understood the times and knew what to do. We have to think about how we do what we do. Historically, Crusader classes existed outside of churches and they didn’t have much relationship with churches and in the last 20 years we have seen the Church take mission much more seriously and we have responded to that by saying, ‘We exist to serve the local church.’
“Whether people call what they are doing Urban Saints or not is immaterial, if there are any Christians out there who want to reach children and young people then we will partner with them, resource them, provide for them and encourage them.”
There has been a change in philosophy for Urban Saints in recent decades and Matt understands the importance of helping young people get planted in the Church.
“I think God’s plan is the local church,” he says. “There is no ‘Plan B’. The local church is the family of God and we need people plugged into the family of God. “It is essential to be able to partner with local churches, being in relationship inter-generationally with the people of God is where discipleship happens, where compassion happens, where challenge happens and where accountability happens.
“We are not supposed to do this thing alone; we are supposed to be in relationship with people and it is absolutely critical to connect people with the local church. “The local church is in my DNA, I am passionate about the local church growing, learning and becoming everything God wants it to be.” One resource used by many is Urban Saints’ Westbrook residential retreat on the Isle of Wight, which was purchased off the back of the Second World War as a memorial to the Crusaders.
“We have school groups, churches, youth groups all using the Westbrook facilities… it is just a fantastic facility on both a physical and spiritual level,” Matt adds.
“We have a heated pool there, football pitches, a forest, a nine-hole pitch and putt – it really is a fantastic and safe facility. When you go to a place that for over 60 years has had people come to faith and has been prayed over there is something very sacred about it – the Celts talked about this thin place where heaven and earth meets and Westbrook feels very much like a thin place to me. “There has been so much gospel proclamation, salvation and kingdom events that have happened there.”
Matt’s vibrant desire to leave a legacy in the next generation is clear, and Urban Saints’ new programme, LiveLife123, aims to guide people on an easy discipleship journey.
“Back in November 2000 when I had been here for six months God really challenged me from the second chapter of Judges which talks about how the next generation to Joshua grew up not knowing the Lord or what he had done and that verse spoke prophetically to me over the generation of young people that we are trying to reach today,” he says.
“They don’t know Jesus, not through rebellion, but they just don’t know. I felt God asking me, ‘If you think it’s bad now, what will it be like in the future if we don’t have a generation of baton-carriers rise up.’
“Psalm 78 talks about this baton-carrying faith, and Energise, our resource website, was birthed out of that. How do we reach and disciple a generation?
“We are the watchmen and women over this generation and we were thinking as an organisation, what sticky idea could we find that could change the course of discipleship in the Church?
“Generally the Church hasn’t done disciple-making too well and LiveLife123 is a simple idea and value that you can own. It is about saying I want to make sure I am learning from at least one person, call them a spiritual dad; I want to make sure I am doing life with at least two people, call them brothers or sisters in Christ; and I want to lead at least three people to Jesus and we would call them our spiritual sons and daughters.”
While keen to celebrate the history of the Urban Saints movement, Matt is always searching for the best way to up the ante and spread the gospel further.
“We are grateful for all God has done, but we must never become settled,” he insists. “We are very much in a place of seeking God again and seeing how we can change to move forward.
“We always need to be looking outwards and inwards, what is good and not so good and then there is the knowing what to do, which I think very much comes through the wisdom God has given us and we also need revelation from him.
“There is this dance we’re having with God where he ultimately is saying this is the way, but he has given us a brain to think about the process and how we respond.”
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