Dear friends,

How does a local church restart their youth ministry?

Agora Christi is an innovative church plant in the university city of Iasi, in northern Romania. They don’t own a building, but a rented room in the mall serves as a meeting space on Sunday and a vibrant network of small groups helps to make disciples during the week. In spite of this purposeful outreach, their youth group has declined to just a few teenagers in the last several years, as former youth became adults.

This is a perfect challenge for our Josiah Venture (JV) Romania Exit team, which specializes in opening doors for churches into schools. They arranged with four local high schools to do a series of lectures in classes, offering practical help in areas like managing stress, digital addiction, and preventing bullying among students. Additional seminars were offered for teachers on relevant topics like preventing burnout or understanding the teenage brain.

Our team has been able to acquire official accreditation for this program, and their experience and credibility take them places the church could never go alone. During just three days in November, they were able to be face-to-face with 1600 young people, as well as a number of teachers. This provided a context for building a bridge of relationships since 12 volunteers from the church joined them in each of the settings.

During the lectures, the teens were invited to a pizza party sponsored by the church, occurring immediately after school that same day.. Almost 10% of the students, over 150 young people, attended these creative events. A series of games and competitions helped create a fun environment and build relationships, and the gospel was presented through several testimonies. At the end, students filled out contact cards with a list of their interests, which gave the church an open door to connect with them in the future.

At the end of the party, the teenagers were invited to learn more about God through a youth club and individual meetings with members of the youth team. That same week, 42 new young people showed up for the first youth meeting. Our Exit team provided a packet of 6 weeks of follow-up meetings for the church, and many young people are already meeting for individual discovery Bible study using an innovative phone app JV has developed called “Seek.”

Throughout the week our team had many long conversations with hurting young people, often dealing with great pain in their homes. One girl grew up fatherless after her biological father abused her mother and then abandoned her. Another shared how her father, a terrible alcoholic, created such conflict in the family that she was placed in a foster home. Adina, one of the members of our team, was able to share the good news of a heavenly Father who loves them, and who is also able to redeem what is irrevocably broken through the power of his resurrected Son.

In just one week so many lives have been transformed, and a vibrant local youth ministry reborn. Every month our Romania Exit team takes local churches and the Gospel to the front lines of students in schools.

As we enter the Christmas season, I am especially thankful for your gifts and prayers that make this possible.