Church Partnerships

Young Life Australia is an inter-denominational Christian ministry committed to reaching out to young people with a message of salvation and making a positive, lasting impact on their lives.

For over 35 years in Australia and over 65 years internationally, Young Life has been providing guidance, values and resilience in the lives of teenagers who do not yet know Jesus. We achieve this by assisting adults from local churches to build significant relationships with unchurched young people and model the love of Jesus Christ.

Our vision is to strive for excellence in positively impacting unchurched young people of secondary school age for Christ, with the resultant transformation of the wider community.

According to the National Church Life Survey results released in 2007, only 6% of young Australians aged 15-19 yrs attend church. This leaves around 1.86 million people in the age group who are not connected with a Christian community or enjoying the benefits of participating as part of a local congregation. These are the young people we seek to reach.

Our aim is to bring more unchurched teenagers into a relationship with Christ and link them with local churches where they can be nurtured. We do this by placing Christian adult leaders in schools and wherever young people gather in the community.

Young people are introduced to Jesus Christ through the relationships they develop with these adult leaders they come to know and trust. These teenagers can then be connected into their leader’s local church, where they can continue their faith journey in good hands.

 

Our mission together

Through partnership, Young Life Australia can provide your church with:

• The ability to build connections with local high schools.
• Opportunities for church members to be engaged in community-based mission providing a tangible expression of their faith
• Training of volunteer leaders using our Leadership Foundations program of relational evangelism.
• An established regular outreach program for young people to attend, who are not typically involved in church programs.
• Appealing camping programs designed to reach unchurched young people.
• Opportunities to pool resources and partner with other local churches in outreach.
• Ongoing support, advice, promotional material, news and prayer information, as well as favourable community exposure.

 

In return, our church partners can:

• Involve new believers in vibrant churches who will be committed to their ongoing discipleship.
• Supply enthusiastic, motivated leaders to reach out to unchurched youth.
• Provide prayer support in response to needs and challenges.
• Invest financial resources to coordinate our combined outreach efforts.
• Arrange volunteers to help in the governance of the local outreach ministry.

 

The Young Life Australia Ministry Model

Volunteers in Schools program – We place trained local Christians to serve the many and varied needs of a local secondary school and make contact with the student body in the school context. We also supply Chaplains to schools when and where we can.

Club – As our volunteers in schools connect and build friendships with young people we invite them to participate in our ‘Club’ program. ‘Club’ is a historical name given to a regular outreach event that uses music, humour, games and a brief Gospel message.

Camp – Each year hundreds of young people from around Australia flock to our summer, winter and local outreach camps for the most important week of their lives. It’s a time of extreme fun and also a rare opportunity for many to consider just who exactly Jesus is and how much God loves them.

Small Groups – Young people meet in small groups with their volunteer leader to discuss issues of faith, hope and life. This is when church partnership strategies are so important, so that we can integrate these young people into Church faith communities for the long haul.

Area Committees – A team of committed adults who bring organisational flair and financial accountability to area-specific involvement on a volunteer basis. This structure allows local churches to be more fully engaged in partnership to ensure the vision, direction and sustainability for localised mission work.

 

If your church would like to partner with Young Life Australia, please email Glyn Henman or call the national office on 1300 557 647.