About Us

We provide programmes for local churches, to help faith and fatherhood thrive.

Legacy is part of Exodus. More about Exodus, including safeguarding, ethos and statement of faith at www.exodusonline.org.uk

Legacy is led by Director, Andy Lamberton with a ministry support team including:
Jim Brown – CEO, Exodus.
Johnny Bell – Youth and Family Worker, Saintfield Rd Presbyterian.
Ian Lamberton – Dairy Farmer, Fahan Donegal.
Bishop Ken Clarke – Former Mission Director of SAMS UK & Ireland and Bishop of Kilmore, Elphin and Ardagh.
Andrew Lynas – Group Managing Director, Lynas Foodservice.
Graeme Thompson -Youth Development Officer, Presbyterian Church in Ireland.

Our Story

Andy Lamberton writes about the start of Legacy.

An observation led to an idea, leading to the start of Legacy.

I’ve been involved in youth ministry since 2007, as a volunteer leader, vocational mission worker and resource developer, but throughout that time, I’ve had two overriding observations.

One: the gospel is true. There is nothing on offer today that even comes close to the sense-making, life-transforming, sin-forgiving, future-securing, truth-revealing invitation from God: to come to Jesus. It’s only in following Jesus that we come alive, children and young people need to hear this message from trusted voices. This leads me to my second observation.

Two: parents have the most influential voice in young lives. It sounds so obvious, so plain, so fundamental that surely it hardly needs to be said. But as a mission worker, I was heartbroken by so many young people walking away from faith that I began searching for a more influential voice than mine to speak gospel truth to this rising generation. It became clear to me that parents, including fathers and father figures, have the defining voice in a young person’s life. All the things we worry about, like AI, social media or a secularising culture, carry little weight compared to the voice of a parent. This is true, and the stats back the observation up.

Then came a stark discovery: we live in an under-fathered society, and we worship in an under-fathered church. Now, just to come clean, if we didn’t have mothers, we’d all be dead in about 30 seconds! So this isn’t a competition.

But what if we didn’t have fathers?

I believe we are seeing the answer to that question in our culture today.

I decided to tell a few fathers just how significant their voice was in regard to their daughter’s or son’s faith… And they didn’t believe me. They replied with: ‘I don’t really have much influence, but I’ll always love them whatever decision they make.”

And, of course they will. But somewhere along the way, these fathers stopped believing that they were influential contributors to their children’s faith. Who made them believe this lie? Because as someone in youth ministry, I was seeing the opposite, that whatever happens in the home is the foundation of a life of faith.

I’ve come to believe that fathers are more important than you think.

And yet, as a father myself, I know we don’t need to be patronised into manning up or being better. We need encouraged, enabled and invited. We need to realise the importance of our voice and speak gospel truth in our homes as we raise a faith-filled generation ready to follow Jesus in today’s world.

So in May 2021, I presented a programme idea to Jim Brown and the Lynas Family, the same pairing that founded Exodus in 1997. As we discussed, we realised this was more than a once-off pilot programme idea but the beginning of a new venture for Exodus. One where we enable fathers to become disciple-makers.

So Legacy is not a media campaign or parenting course provider – great organisations are doing those things. We want to provide programmes for local churches that help fatherhood thrive. We want to see a renewal of God’s kingdom strategy: the church as a missional family of families.

We started in November 2022, and as we begin, we want to start humbly, generously, and we want to move at a healthy pace. Humbly: we don’t know all the answers but we want to begin to seize the opportunity. Generously: we want to offer ourselves ‘on the ground’ to your church. A healthy pace: we believe this is a cultural shift for the Body of Christ, so as with anything important, we’re not rushing ahead but want to develop, grow and move together.

Church leaders – get in touch with Andy and see how Legacy can serve your church.

Fathers – receive worthwhile, inspirational emails for Christian fathers.