Young Life

Young Life is an evangelical Christian organization that aims to teach middle and high school students about God and help them grow in their faith. It was founded by Jim Rayburn with the goal of connecting God to young people who may not have an interest in starting a relationship with Him. Jim created a weekly club where kids could play games, have fun, and gradually learn more about God and His love. Young life summer camps are where they are most active. At these summer camps, a third of the campers re-commit or commit to Jesus after their experience at Young Life.

I personally had the opportunity to attend Wildlife, which is similar to Young Life but targeted toward middle school students. Some friends from my neighborhood invited me, and I fell in love with the combination of fun activities and faith-based teachings. This experience was life-changing and helped me to grow in my relationship with Jesus and also have a tighter-knit relationship with my friends who participated in wildlife with me.

Young Life can be considered an entrepreneurial venture as it blends two distinct elements, fun, and faith, to appeal to high schoolers and encourage them to build a relationship with Jesus. By combining these two elements, Young Life creates a unique and engaging experience for young people that helps them grow in their faith. Many high schoolers don’t join a church because they feel that they are being forced to pray and attend church. Young life changes this perspective and adds a very relaxed process and doesn’t force anything on the kids. This is the reason why Young life has to grow so big throughout the world. Young life has grown significantly and in 2019 Young Life had chapters in 8,513 schools and had an attendance of 369,000 across the organization.