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Young Life

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YoungLife is a worldwide, non-profit, christian, organization. YoungLife consists of many branches of ministry (see below), but most commonly the name "YoungLife" refers to the outreach arm of the organization directed toward high school students. YoungLife staff and volunteer leaders build relationships with teenagers through a variety of social interactions, formal and informal events, and group trips in order to evangelize and teach Christian thought.[citation needed]

YoungLife is headquartered in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

History

In 1938, Jim Rayburn, a young Presbyterian youth leader and seminary student in Gainesville, Texas, was asked by a local minister to consider the neighborhood high school as his parish and develop ways of contacting kids who had no interest in church.

Rayburn started a weekly club for kids. There was singing, a skit or two and a simple message about Jesus Christ. Club attendance increased dramatically when they started meeting in the homes of the young people.

After graduating from seminary, Rayburn and four other seminarians collaborated, and Young Life was officially born October 16, 1941, with its own Board of Trustees. They developed the club idea throughout Texas, with an emphasis on showing kids that faith in God can be not only fun, but exhilarating and life changing.

By 1946, YoungLife had moved to a new headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colo., and the staff had grown to 20 men and women across several states. Volunteer leadership began at Wheaton College in Illinois in the late 1940s, and today Young Life clubs depend heavily on the mission’s 19,000 volunteer leaders.

Prior to the 1960s, YoungLife had directed its ministry almost completely to suburban high school students. By 1972 it had begun ministries in approximately 25 multi-ethnic and urban areas. Today, YoungLife has more than 700 multicultural ministries reaching more than 18,000 inner-city, racially underrepresented and poor young people. In the 1980s the mission developed two new cutting-edge ministries — WyldLife for middle school students and the Capernaum Project for kids with disabilities. Young Life has also developed the Small Town Initiative, which aims to bring Young Life to rural areas around the country. The most recent new outreach ministries to be formed are YoungLives, which focuses on pregnant teens and young mothers, and Young Life College, which targets students on college campuses.

YoungLife’s outreach to kids outside of the United States began in 1953 with the work of Rod and Fran Johnston in France. That ministry, under the name of Jeunesse Ardente, continues to this day. Within 10 years of that first overseas outreach, Young Life had extended its reach to British Columbia, home to a camp called Malibu; to Germany, where MCYM (Military Community Youth Ministries) began reaching out to kids on military bases; and to Brazil. In the decades since, Young Life’s international outreach expanded both in scope and types of ministries. A mix of American and national staff and volunteers are reaching kids with the Gospel through more than 700 ministries in more than 70 countries.

YoungLife's mission remains the same — to introduce adolescents to Jesus Christ and to help them grow in their faith. This happens when caring adults build genuine friendships and earn the right to be heard with their young friends. Over the more than six decades since its founding, Young Life has increased its numbers from five to more than 3,300 — from one club in Texas to clubs in nearly every corner of the world. [1]

Purpose

YoungLife's leaders state that their ministry philosophy is "incarnational" or "relational" ministry, which YoungLife defines as a ministry in which Christian adult volunteer leaders build mentoring relationships and share their lives with teenagers in order to teach them about Jesus Christ and how to have a personal relationship with Jesus and live for him. Young Life's goal is to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ into areas that have limited or no Christian influence.

YoungLife activities are coordinated by the YoungLife Area Director, other staff members and/or volunteer Young Life leaders, who are assigned to a particular high school. These volunteer leaders are usually trained, interviewed, and screened by the area director (who sends their background information to YoungLife National), who is ultimately accountable for their actions and whatever activities are planned. The training process is left to the judgment of the area director, however YoungLife has a hierarchy where a supervising staff member is accountable for every staff member under them all the way up to the president of the organization.

YoungLife is active in all 50 states in the United States of America and currently has a YoungLife club present in roughly 2,500 high schools across the nation. It has expanded internationally, to more than 45 countries[2] throughout Europe, Asia, Australia/Oceania, Africa, North and South America.[3] More than 70,000 teenagers spend a weekend during the school year or a week during the summer at one of YoungLife's camping properties in the United States and Canada.[3]

Besides their main focus on high schoolers, YoungLife has also extended its efforts into other areas and created separate YoungLife ministries.[2]

Capernaum: A ministry to disabled children. Named after the town where Jesus performed miracles.
Small Town/Rural: A ministry to children in one-high school towns of fewer than 25,000 people.
Multicultural: A ministry to racial and ethnic minorities, focused on children who are historically, socially and/or economically disadvantaged.
WyldLife: A ministry to middle school students.
YoungLives: A ministry to teenage mothers.
Young Life College: [1] A ministry to college students which also recruits and develops Young Life leaders to serve in clubs.[4]
Club Beyond: A ministry of YoungLife clubs on military bases for students of parents serving in the armed forces.

Skate Life: a ministry where contact work is done through skate parks

Organizational operation

The YoungLife organization has official, intentional ways of attempting to reach out to youth through their "Five C's"[5]:

Contact work – Any instance where YoungLife leaders spend time with teenagers in an informal setting is known as "contact work". Examples of contact work encouraged by Young Life staff include attending school sporting events, talking to students after school, and hanging out with teenagers during or after their school hours. Contact work is the foundation for the ministry of Young Life.
Club – Club is an evangelistic proclamation event held weekly throughout the school year; it is the organization's main outreach arm. Its purpose to introduce and present the message of Jesus Christ to teenagers. Club typically includes one or more of the following activities: singing classic or popular songs, skits performed by students and/or leaders, games/"ice breaking" activities, and a short talk about Jesus and the Bible, often related to an incident in the speaker's life. Club is the most frequent, represented, and visible activity of Young Life. Membership is open to all students and has no requirements at all.
Campaigners – An optional Bible study forum, Campaigners is a biblical discipleship meeting for students led by an adult volunteer leader or staff member. Campaigners typically includes one or more of the following activities: Bible study, prayer, Christian musical worship, and discussion among the participants.
Camp – Every summer Young Life leaders and staff organize and arrange a trip to take teenagers to one of the camps owned by the organization. Most camps host weekend and summer trips and are busy year-round. Camp trips range from 5 to 7 days in the summer months and 2–4 days during the school year and include numerous outdoor activities such as sports, ropes courses, and rock climbing, varying based on the environment of the camp. Camps generally include a daily Club and designated discussion time known as "cabin time" at the end of the day, a time to reflect on what they have heard about Jesus Christ and life in general. Young Life camps are staffed by volunteer high school students (known as "Work Crew") and college students ("Summer Staff") in the summer, along with full-time camp property staff members and interns throughout the year. Work Crew and Summer Staff volunteer services usually for 3–5 weeks. The Work Crew typically does the "grunt work" jobs, such as washing dishes, serving food, mowing the lawn, or cleaning toilets. The Summer Staff volunteers are given more responsibilities in their jobs where they operate the ropes courses, go-karts, and pools/lakes or prepare the camps' meals, run errands, or work at one of the offices or retail stores.
Committee – Committee is a group of adults who are committed to supporting YoungLife in their local area. Support from committee members typically includes any combination of prayer, planning, and financial donations. Most YoungLife committees have a volunteer chairperson who is responsible for all committee coordination efforts. Committee chairpersons often co-sponsor local fundraising efforts, as YoungLife area directors are responsible for raising the vast majority of their own area's operating budget. Banquets and golf tournaments are examples of common fundraising events.

Camping

Campers in the pool at Wildhorse Canyon (now Washington Family Ranch).

There are currently 26 Young Life camps in operation across the continental United States, two camps in Canada, and three camps in Latin America. YoungLife also owns two currently inoperative camps. Every year, almost 90,000 children around the world spend a week at a YoungLife camp.[6]

YoungLife camps in the United States

YoungLife camps in Canada

YoungLife camps in Latin America

Camps not currently used

  • Clearwater Cove in Lampe, Missouri, USA
  • Carolina Point in Pickens, South Carolina, USA

Camps under development

  • Creekside being built on Washington Family Ranch property. Expected to be done 2011.

References

  1. ^ http://www.younglife.org/AboutYoungLife/History.htm
  2. ^ a b Ministry Watch Profile
  3. ^ a b Facts at Your Fingertips
  4. ^ http://www.younglife.org/YoungLifeCollege/
  5. ^ Five C's of Young Life
  6. ^ http://www.younglife.org/Camping/ Young Life Camping
  7. ^ http://lakechampion.younglife.org/
  8. ^ http://wfr.younglife.org/
  • From YoungLife Bylaws, Article IX

Further reading

  • Cailliet, Emile; Young Life (1963)
  • Meridith, Char; It's a Sin to Bore a Kid: The Story of Young Life (1977) ISBN 0-8499-0043-3
  • Miller, John; Back to the Basics about the early years of Young Life including a lot of Rayburn's life.
  • Rayburn, Jim III; From Bondage To Liberty – Dance, Children, Dance a biography by his son (2000) ISBN 0-9673897-4-7
  • Rayburn, Jim: The Diaries of Jim Rayburn (2008) Rayburn's personal journals, edited and annotated by Kit Sublett Morningstar Press and Whitecaps Media ISBN 978-0-9758577-7-9
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