So you want to be a Young Life leader? “We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the Gospel of God but our very lives as well because you had become so dear to us.” I Thessalonians 2:8
“On hearing this, Jesus said, ‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick, for I have come not to call the righteous, but sinners.”
“Even though I am free of the demands and expectations of everyone, I have voluntarily become a servant to any and all in order to reach a wide range of people; religious, nonreligious, meticulous moralists, loose living immoralists, the defeated, the demoralized…however, I didn’t take on their way of life, I kept my bearings in Christ… but I entered their world and tried to experience things from their point of view. I’ve become just about every sort of servant there is in my attempts to lead those I meet into a God-saved life. I did all of this because of the Message. I didn’t just want to talk about it; I wanted to be in on it!” Corinthians 9:19-27 (The Message)
Matthew 9:12, 13b
What does that mean? “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind…” Being a Young Life Leader means having a growing personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
“Love your neighbor as yourself.” Luke 10:27 Being a Young Life Leader means loving high school folks through personal relationships in order to share the message of Jesus Christ.
Q: How does this happen? A: We enter their world. We build relationships with them on their turf. Q: What is the commitment? A: How long does it take to build a relationship? Showing up at the school – on an average twice a week Being a part of running weekly Young Life Club Leading interested kids in a Campaigner Bible Study
What it is…
What it isn’t…
Relational – an adult friend Relational – ongoing Outreach Walking with kids through the questions A calling to invest in kids’ lives A place to love and be loved Life-changing… eternity changing
Being a chaperone A weekly event Youth group Simply giving the answers One more place to volunteer
Becoming a Young Life Leader is a commitment. It will demand a commitment of your time and your heart. On average, it will involve ten to fifteen hours each week to invest, value, and care for high school folks.
Young Life is… Adults reaching kids for Christ through personal relationships with them, using the model of Jesus Christ to love them unconditionally and to meet them on their own turf! Our vision was born with a young church youth leader in Gainesville, Texas, in 1938, who was given the challenge by a farsighted senior minister, to take the local high school as his parish and pioneer a path to connect with non-churched kids. That young man, Jim Rayburn, started a weekly club for about ten kids, seemingly disinterested in God and the church. He believed that every kid had the right to hear the message of Jesus Christ and decide how to respond to the Gospel. Singing, a skit or two, and a talk about Jesus Christ in terms that kids could understand– that’s how the dream began! Through the years, Rayburn and the staff of Young Life developed a relational style of outreach. Convinced they had to earn the right to be heard, they sought to befriend teens. Today, the mission is still committed to incarnational witness – embodying and expressing the love of Christ in relationships with people. Volunteer leadership emerged in the late 1940’s. Thousands of leaders, like yourself, work directly with adolescents as they spend quality time with kids where they live, study, work and play. Leaders hold weekly meetings that are full of singing, games, humor, skits and short talks about Jesus. In the past seventy years, Young Life has broadened its reach to inner city youth, developmentally disabled adolescents, junior high kids, teenage mothers, and young people in over seventy countries. Jim Rayburn believed in reflecting the worth of young people by treating them with respect. Part of that was to give kids the best week of their lives through Young Life’s camping program full of adventure and fun. Today there are twenty-four Young Life properties filled with high school folks all year round. Last summer alone, 51,000 kids experienced a week at a Young Life camp. Young people who want to grow in their walk of faith are encouraged to be involved in a Young Life Campaigner discipleship group where they participate in sharing their lives, Bible study, and prayer. Young Life’s purpose today is STILL to touch youth across the globe with the message of Jesus Christ.
Young Life Montgomery 7956 Vaughn Rd | Box 344 | Montgomery, AL 36117 | (334) 218-3224 http://www.ylmontgomery.com | ylmontgomery@gmail.com
Want more information? Email us! ylmontgomery@gmail.com or visit www.youweremadeforthis.org