Young Life

Young Life’s Statement of Faith

Preamble

We the members of the Young Life mission – trustees, staff, instructors at Young Life schools and volunteers – 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’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’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’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’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’s presence, but the redeemed shall live and reign with Him forever.