Young Life YoungLives
Young Life, a non-denominational faith-based non-profit organization founded in 1941, reaches out to teenagers in need from diverse communities throughout the country as well as through international programs. Through caring relationships with mentors and group activities, young people find a safe haven to have fun and blow off steam as well as consider issues of faith and values. All teenagers are accepted and welcome regardless of religious beliefs.
YoungLives, a special mentoring program of Young Life for teenage mothers and pregnant girls was launched in the New York Metro Region in 2003. Currently, there are chapters in Norwalk, Bridgeport, Danbury, Port Chester, NYC and Plainfield, NJ. YoungLives is funded solely through private donations from individuals, churches and foundations. No government funding is solicited.
With YoungLives Club events, camp trips and discipleship from their mentors, girls are encouraged, listened to, offered positive parenting and life skills, and given real help for their complex needs. Often it is the mentors?? consistent, loving presence in their lives that makes the greatest impact on girls who are all too familiar with abandonment, poverty and brokenness.
Introducing adolescents to Jesus Christ and helping them grow in their faith. We accomplish our mission by ...
Praying for young people.
Going where kids are.
Building personal relationships with them.
Winning the right to be heard.
Providing experiences that are fun, adventurous and life-changing.
Sharing our lives and the Good News of Jesus Christ with adolescents.
Inviting them to personally respond to this Good News.
Loving them regardless of their response.
Nurturing kids so they might grow in their love for Christ and the knowledge of God's Word and become people who can share their faith with others.
Helping young people develop the skills, assets and attitudes to reach their full God-given potential.
Encouraging kids to live connected to the Body of Christ by being an active member of a local congregation.
Working with a team of like-minded individuals -- volunteer leaders, committee members, donors and staff.
Young Life's Statement of Faith
Preamble
We the members of the Young Life mission ƒ‚ ‚– trustees, staff, instructors at Young Life schools and volunteers ƒ‚ ‚– join together in our affirmation of the following articles and our central purpose of proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ and introducing adolescents everywhere to Jesus Christ and helping them grow in their faith.
Article I
The Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, being given by divine inspiration, are the Word of God, the final and supreme authority in all matters of faith and conduct.
Article II
In the Scriptures, God reveals Himself as the living and true God, Creator of all things. Perfect in love and righteous in all His ways, this one God exists eternally as a Trinity of persons: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Article III
God made man and woman in His image that He might have fellowship with us. Being estranged from God by our disobedience, we are, as sinful people, incapable of a right relationship to God apart from divine grace.
Article IV
The only Mediator between God and all human beings is Jesus Christ our Lord, God ƒ‚ ‚’s eternal Son, who as man fully shared and fulfilled our humanity in a life of perfect obedience.
Article V
By His death in our place, Jesus revealed the divine love and upheld divine justice, removing our guilt and reconciling us to God. Having risen bodily from the dead and ascended into heaven, He rules as Lord over all and intercedes for us as our Great High Priest.
Article VI
The Holy Spirit, through the proclamation of the Gospel, renews our hearts, persuading us to repent of our sins and confess Jesus as Lord. By the same Spirit we are led to trust in divine mercy, whereby we are forgiven all our sins, justified by faith through the merit of Christ our Savior, adopted into God ƒ‚ ‚’s family as His children and enabled so to live in the world that all people may see our good works and the Gospel of grace at work in our lives and glorify our Father who is in heaven.
Article VII
God, by His Word and Spirit, calls us as sinful people into the fellowship of Christ ƒ‚ ‚’s body. Thus He creates the one holy, catholic and apostolic church, united in the bonds of love, endowed with the gifts of the Spirit and summoned by Christ to preach the Gospel and to administer the sacraments, to carry on the ministry of reconciliation, to relieve human need and to strive for social justice.
Article VIII
God ƒ‚ ‚’s redemptive purpose will be consummated by the return of Christ to raise the dead, judge all people and establish His glorious kingdom. Those who are apart from Christ shall be eternally separated from God ƒ‚ ‚’s presence, but the redeemed shall live and reign with Him forever.
