“We don’t like it, sir”, came their reply as he enquired as to why they were not at church. Concerned that these young people were missing out on the opportunity to discover the good news of Jesus Christ, Albert’s missionary passion resulted in him offering to run a special meeting for them every week. He named the local meeting ‘Crusaders’ and sought to present the Christian message in a challenging and engaging way.
Others took note of what he was doing and by 1906 a number of such weekly meetings, called ‘classes’, had sprung up across the country with over 600 regularly in attendance. It was agreed that these ‘classes’ needed to be better supported and so ‘The Crusaders Union’ was formed on 29th March 1906. Its aim was simply to teach the whole Bible in a creative and relevant way to young people who did not attend church. Albert Kestin suggested a motto for this new organisation, taken from Hebrews 12:2: ‘Looking to Jesus’. One hundred years later this motto continues to lie at the heart of the movement.
In the years that followed, the number of ‘classes’ continued to grow, supported by an active programme of events and camps. Two World Wars were unable to shift the unquenchable passion of this missionary movement to reach out to the nations’ lost children and young people.
By the time of its centenary in 2006, Crusaders was reaching out to around 20,000 children and young people every week in local groups, with thousands more engaged through the varied activities programmes. During the centenary year it was decided that a new century required a new name – a name that would better serve sharing the good news of Jesus with young people in the 21st century. To this end, Crusaders became ‘Urban Saints’ on 1st January 2007. Whilst the name has changed, the dream and passion of the movement is as true and firm today as it was when Albert Kestin founded it over a century ago. |
