Ukraine
Imagine a group of homeless teenagers living in the basement of their church. Now picture those same teenagers growing up to become part of the church's leadership team and discipling other homeless teenagers. That is what has happened in Sergey Bogamazuk's church. The first graduate of the Ukrainian Youth Ministry School and thoroughly trained in Jesus-Focused Youth Ministry, he became the pastor of Evangelical Methodist Church in Uzhgorod, Ukraine. While implementing Jesus-Focused Youth Ministry the outreach to the homeless kids began. Vadim Khlobus, the pastor of The Church of the Living Word, sent a team on a mission trip. It was the first time in eight years that he was not the only person in his church leading a ministry. That's because, as a graduate of the Youth Ministry School, he had trained his adult leaders in Jesus-Focused Youth Ministry.
They led the entire missions’ project and needed no supervision from their pastor. What followed has astounded Vadim, Sergey and their adult youth workers. Through the ministry of their leadership teams, over 200 teenagers came to know the Lord. They held an outreach together. Four hundred young people came and half of them gave their lives to Christ. A few days later they invited the 200 new believers to talk about following Jesus. Almost all attended and have plugged into discipleship groups. Since 1997 Reach Out has trained over 5000 youth leaders like Sergey and Vadim.
The Need
Ukraine has the fastest growing community of Christians in all of Europe, and one of the fastest in the world. A century of militant atheism, during which young people were forbidden to attend church, has left a spiritually hungry generation of young people, but with the church having little idea about what to do with them.The Leaders:
The Ministry:
In addition to the Youth Ministry School, our team offers a national youth ministry conference, regional training conferences and a national youth festival in cooperation with other youth ministries. RD Press, a highly successful publishing company led by our team, produces Reach Out resources in Russian plus a monthly magazine for ongoing training of youth leaders.The Plan:
In 2007 we will...Complete the coaching of seven churches in the Jesus-Focused Youth Ministry strategy and continue the coaching of an eighth Begin coaching eight new churches in the Jesus-Focused Youth Ministry strategy Certify our third Eagle Leader Conduct our first Eagle Leader retreat to sharpen skills and discuss a national strategy Direct our National Youth Leaders Conference Continue teaching Jesus-Focused Youth Ministry as a Bachelor and Master level course in the JFYM strategy Publish Magnet Effect in Russian Create the Power Point presentation for JFYM training in Russian.
The Resources:
Reach Out has these resources translated into Russian:- Moving Towards Maturity Discipleship Series:
- Getting Started
- Following Jesus
- Spending Time With God
- Jesus My Lord
- Sharing Your Faith
- Influencing Your World
- Leader's Guide
- Building Leaders Set:
- A Personal Walk with Jesus Christ
- A Vision for Life and Ministry
- Essential Tools for Leading Students
- Jesus-Focused Youth Ministry Training Kit:
- Jesus Focused Youth Ministry
- Jesus Focused Youth Ministry Video Training (Coming 2007)
- Jesus Focused Youth Ministry Power Point Presentation
- Jesus - No Equal
- Contemporary Music Debate
- Magnet Effect (Coming 2007)
