A plane spotted flying over major music festivals last summer with a banner reading “JESUS LOVES EVERY 1 OF U” is set to return to the skies with a new message.

The flights are organised by the FlyJesus project, brainchild of church activist Christine Bonfield. She was “feeling distraught over the spiritual state of our country” when God told her: “Get a plane, tie a banner with my message on it and fly the length and breadth of the country.”

TheFestivals can reveal this year’s banner will read “JESUS CALLS WILL U FOLLOW” and will be flown over roughly the same routes as last year. These included Boomtown, Download Festival, Leeds & Reading, Parklife, Isle of Wight Festival and Kendal Calling.

Christine told TheFestivals the group thought the flights were finished after last summer “but then God revealed he wanted people to be able to respond to His love and follow Him.”

She said the original message was “was chosen as a response to Jesus wanting everyone to know He loves them, no matter what they have done or are doing.”

The group hopes festivalgoers who saw the message flying above them last summer “felt assured of this and realised His love is important to them.”

A crowdfunding page for the FlyJesus project has raised almost £68,000 to date. The project is operated by Escalls Methodist Church, near Lands’ End in Cornwall.

Escalls Methodist Church – Image credit: Google Maps

Banners were flown every week for eight weeks in 2018, with organisers claiming they reached “millions of people” on beaches and at major events across the UK. Routes included along the coast from Blackpool to Llandudno, the London Marathon and the Royal Welsh Show.

Christine told us their pilot had expected to lose about a third of the planned flights due to weather, but they assured him “this was God’s mission and He would take care of that.” Only three flights were lost to weather throughout the summer, which the pilot said had been a miracle.

This summer’s flights are still in the planning stages and will depend on plane availability, airspace, landing strips, weather and finance. Christian Today previously reported secular festivals were “particularly targeted”. Christine said: “We are just hitting secular events. There’s no point in targeting Christians. It’s a case of taking it out to the secular world.”

Still can't get over the fact that there was a plane with a banner over parklife saying 'Jesus loves everyone of you' — Naomi Loren (@melanay_) June 11, 2018

At Download Festival 2018, the plane and banner circled the arena just as Hatebreed’s main stage set finished on Sunday afternoon.

Low-altitude flights over Glastonbury, the country’s largest festival, are heavily restricted by specially-imposed Air Navigation Regulations.

The full list of festivals flown over last year was:

Download Festival

Reading

Isle of Wight

Boomtown

Latitude

Leeds Festival

Creamfields

Kendal Calling

Parklife

TRNSMT Festival

Godiva Festival

FlyJesus have shared a selection of festival aerial photos with us, taken from their plane last summer.

Boomtown

Photo by Simon Moores for FlyJesus

Bestival

Creamfields

Godiva

Images by AirAds for FlyJesus

More reactions from 2018

Haha a plane just flew past Download trailing a sign saying "Jesus loves you". Obviously working on the assumption that every last person in this field is a devil worshipper lmao — bumlol (@Kingdomkuriboh) June 10, 2018

A plane is circling Boomtown with a message …"Jesus loves every 1 of U" so that's nice. #boomtownfair #boomtown https://t.co/2lK8U3mqD0 pic.twitter.com/KU6BAp5bF0 — Tents and Festivals (@TentSniffer) August 11, 2018

There’s a plane circling download festival with a sign on the back saying “Jesus still loves you” 😂



Nahhh not this crowd 🤟😈🤟 — George 〓〓 (@GKernow) June 10, 2018

Someone’s paid for a plane banner to go around Creamfields reading “Jesus loves every 1 of u”

Yerrrrs fella 😂 — Paul (@OsborneP94) August 25, 2018