British Youth For Christ Musicianaires TVB conducted a two-week mission in Cornwall in January. Joanna Thomas saw them in action, wrote the words and took the pictures.

Crowd at Shire House Suite

At the close of the bleak January day, despite the relentless Cornish drizzle, a crowd of eager young girls start to gather outside the Shire House Suite, Bodmin. Their stick-thin legs protrude from glitzy party dresses, their voices shriek above the roar of the traffic.

"Where's Rachel from TVB?" asks one of the girls to no one in particular. Two weeks ago Rachel Deeley, indeed the whole TVB band with whom Rachel plays sax, were unknown to these Bodmin teenagers. But after days of intense schools mission these giggling youngsters have been transformed into TVB fans, noisily clamouring for front row privileges, trying to out guess each other in what songs they'll hear tonight and demonstrating enough expectation to see them through the next half hour of waiting in the miserable cold. The rest of the audience come in dribs and drabs.

Local lads on pushbikes on their way from the chip shop wait around in case they can sneak in without a ticket, while with every passing minute more kids arrive. There is one party who've come in a whole convoy of cars who, having eaten picnic teas in a lay-by, are now boisterously causing headaches for their youth leaders.

At last Shire House Suite's doors are opened. The throng file through the glass doors into the hall (festooned with no smoking signs and arrows indicating where to chuck rubbish). The pranks and noise suddenly become muted. Perhaps it's the affects of subdued lighting or maybe a response to TVB's prayer meeting held earlier.

For many in the crowd this is the first time at a Christian event and for others the first time they've been allowed out for a rock gig night on the town. The lipstick is passed around and shared by a gaggle of tiny-waisted, brace-toothed girls while the lads, hands in pockets, act cool in the shadows watched closely by regular, church going, tweed-wearing bouncers. Then TVB storm onto stage.

With the crash of a power chord, a stab of synths and a whir of high-octane dance routines, TVB crack into their opening number. The crowd instantly breaks into dancing and each song is met with raucous cheers. Such instant audience response is no doubt in part due to a stompingly tight band sound and in part due to two weeks of schools mission with the band gaining trust by demonstrating their obvious deep care for the young people. Some in the audience have already shared secret heartaches with the young musicianaries.

The main aim of the band (an expression of British Youth For Christ) according to the band co-leader Kate Silber is "to make the good news of Christ relevant for today's youth."

Their two-week mission in Bodmin produced a following of three hundred young teenagers, a harvest from local school assemblies, who have turned out tonight to clap and sway to the artful blend of Top 20 covers and evangelistic originals. Behind the glitz of bright satin costumes and well-polished dance routines is a tale of a heart for the lost. With just a glimmer of hope and a secret prayer, 17-year-old Stephanie Trebilock's vision has tonight been realised. After seeing TVB at Spring Harvest, Stephanie realised the huge gap in adequately communicating the gospel to teenagers in most Cornish churches. Brought up in a traditional Church Of England home Stephanie found it hard to relate her faith to the friends around her and longed for a more contemporary way of explaining who Jesus was. But rather than wait for something to happen she approached TVB and got the ball rolling herself. "I longed to see more good, youth events, that you can take friends along to, where you don't have to hide," she explained.

Despite major hassles and more than a few administrative mix ups along the way, including the need to cancel one concert just days before 'curtain up', the TVB mission is now a reality. Stephanie has remained a bubbly and vibrant contributor to the team of local church organisers and helpers assembled to work with TVB. This girl has extensive energy resources. Not only is she studying for A Levels, but she has taken on the role of Christian Union president and is active in a Christian dance company.

Organising the venues and housing for the band over two weeks is not simply a case of getting on the phone, as I discovered on the last night of the tour. The mundane emptying of the band's van and arranging of costume changes all come under her job description. Stephanie even managed to produce some of her grandmother's traditional Cornish pasties, to bloat us all, before the crowds poured in.

TVB, formed by Youth For Christ in 1991 by American Fred Heuman, are now a pop culture evangelism institution in Britain. Every year BYFC get a set of volunteers prepared to slog it out for a year of mission. Each year they record an album. And at the end of each year the existing personnel steps down and another set of young musicianaries line up to pound out pop rock and the message of Jesus to audiences here and abroad who will listen. They're listening tonight. This year's line up is Dave Silber (director and drummer), Kate Silber (director, keyboards, trumpet, vocals), Mark Cocks (guitarist), Rachel Deeley (saxaphone), Carmen Hayward (vocals), Pete Sims (vocals), Nicki Murphy (vocals), Claire Stevenson (keyboards), Steve Walker (bass) and Ollie Wade (sound engineer).

TVB's music is definitely cringe free. One of the preacher vocalists, Nicki Murphy, clad in leather biker shorts and cropped top, renders the timeless message in a highly charged soulful vocal style. She told me earlier in the day, over a shared 'on the road brunch' hosted by a local teacher, "Most of the kids who we spend time with in schools don't even know who Jesus was. We just want them to have enough facts to think issues through for themselves." Ollie Wade, the band's sound engineer, quipped, "Young people think church is about draughty pews and wearing a woolly hat."

Nicki continued, "Christians are always portrayed on television as being old fashioned busy bodies or psycho cult leaders, there's no normal sorted Christians." Maybe these guys have something valid here, but isn't it just a serious case of 'hit them and run'? What happens once the party is over, the extravaganza of light and sound is packed away and some of the regular church members, possibly wearing woolly hats, take up where these pop culture evangelists leave off?

Nicki remained positive, "We are a catalyst carrying the vision, we have to pass it back into their hands." Kate is enthusiastic with the support they have received, "It's good to see every church in an area involved with a mission, often they have prayed and organised for a year, establishing counselling and seminars for new Christians."

The name of the year-long tour is 'What About Us', centred on the cry in Michael Jackson's lyrics. TVB put themselves in the heart of a suffering planet by spending time in Brazil where they saw first hand some of the appalling conditions of the Brazilian poor at a project work organised by Tearfund. "There was so much to take in," remembered Nicki.

"Yes, it was like walking into a different dimension, it is hard to reconcile it to reality," commented keyboards player Claire. "It was so different we all felt really moved. There was a sense of detachment, especially when you climb back on the plane. Some of the projects in the depths of shanty towns involved work with children born with the HIV virus from mothers who were prostitutes and homeless."

"Us just being there meant so much," continued Claire. "Yes, but we were just on-lookers similar to watching gold fish in a bowl, but there is some part of it we took away," added Nicki.

The proceeds of the band's latest CD, 'What About Us?', will be going to the mission work they saw implemented. They also hope by spending two months touring churches in England and Ireland that some of the suffering will hit home and generate a giving heart. It will be a multi-media production for young people to consider that "Christianity is not just for ourselves but for others," a theme that TVB vigorously promote.