As part of the Body of Jesus Christ, we see that every young person in Ukraine, in every group of people, has the opportunity to make a decision to be a follower of Jesus Christ and become part of the local church.
To help the church reach the youth with the Gospel and promote the development and strengthening of the youth/adolescent ministry in the local church through the creation of programs and projects, provision of resources, training and advisory support.
For 25 years, we have been the official representative of the international charitable organization “Youth for Christ” in Ukraine, helping churches in the organization of youth work, holding seminars and training conferences, organizing various events aimed at the development and strengthening of youth ministry in local churches. We develop new programs for young people, conduct evangelism projects, issue resources, training manuals for various areas of youth ministry.
The “Youth for Christ” movement was born in the USA in 1944. The reason for its emergence was the almost complete inactivity of churches in working with young people, especially in the post-war depression.
Therefore, God put in the hearts of several young leaders to care for the needs of the youth. With new ideas, they began to hold events called “Youth for Christ” in different cities. It was then that an organization was created to coordinate the growing youth ministry.
A pastor from Chicago, Tory Johnson, who was elected head of the movement, invited Billy Graham to become the first employee of Youth for Christ. Graham began to preach throughout the country, and later the MDH movement spread to Europe.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, while God opened the door for the free gospel in Ukraine, in the Zhytomyr region. a large youth conference is held jointly with the YFC, under the leadership of Pavel Hrapak (at that time the All-Ukrainian head of the youth of the ECB churches).
Jean-Jacques Weiler (at that time the European director of the YFC) and Bob Tanner (from the USA) are coming to this conference. A year later, together with John Duncan (at that time, the director of the YFC North Ireland), they again conduct training for young people in Ukraine. They carefully looked at the leaders and looked for the one whom God chose to start the “Youth for Christ” movement in Ukraine. He turned out to be a young hot-tempered resident of Khmelnytskyi, Andriy Kostyshyn
Jean Jacques feels the call of God: “go to Belfast, there I will show you a person who will be a service partner in Ukraine.” He goes to Belfast, where he talks about new opportunities for service at a meeting of the directors of the YFC. A businessman from Belfast, John Campbell, happens to be at this meeting. But it was God’s will.
Jean Jacques gets to know him and says that he is the person who should go to Ukraine to support the ministry. Three months later, John goes to Ukraine, helps to found the YFC and becomes the honorary president of the YFC of Ukraine. John has been a very close partner ever since.
Thanks to close partnership with YFC North Ireland, youth missionary teams come to Ukraine and together with Ukrainian youth organize YFC camps in various cities and villages.
Regional offices and teams are being formed in Khmelnytskyi, Zhytomyr, Kyiv and Odesa. YFC expands the range of services, using various models of work with young people: youth clubs, inspiring Mannafests, theater (“Open Mask”), sports (HFL), prayer (prayer threes) service, as well as service to street children (ASK).
The staff is intensively expanding with new employees. Trainings are held throughout Ukraine, at which YFC employees teach churches how to work with young people. YFC starts the process of publishing resources in books. The first collection of resources “Ideas for Youth Ministry” is published.
YFC Ukraine gets acquainted with the excellent program for teenage clubs “Rock Solid” from Britain and actively uses it among clubs. Two years later, he released the first annual program “The Rock”, translated into Russian. The other two programs were released in 2009 and 2014.
The YFC team undergoes leadership training from the “Equip” organization and, using the “Million Leaders” program, organizes training conferences on leadership (now — Leadership Schools).
God gives the YFC Ukraine a wonderful office space in Irpin. Since then, many trainings and conferences have been held in this conference center. Also, the office of the YFC serves as a base for meetings of the YFC of Eastern Europe. Service to street children is actively developing in the Khmelnytskyi and Zhytomyr regions and is taking on a new form – Day Centers. Now at-risk children regularly visit such centers, where volunteers work with them, helping them to develop spiritually, intellectually and physically.
The great global economic crisis did not bypass the YFC. Many partners were unable to support the ministry at that time. Unfortunately, this was the most difficult year for the YFC Ukraine, because the number of staff had to be drastically reduced from 45 people. A little more than ten workers remained, who took on additional responsibilities so that the service would not stop. Thanks to God, YFC was able to go through this difficult period, focusing on the development of important evangelistic models of work with young people.
YFC Ukraine is actively helping to start the ministry of YFC in Belarus and Armenia.
YFC builds close relations with Ukrainian theological seminaries, teaching courses on adolescent and youth ministry there.
National director Andriy Kostyshyn hands over his responsibility to Oleksandr Dubinin, who at that time coordinated the “Rock Solid” teenage clubs. Oleksandr becomes the national director, and Andriy becomes the chairman of the Board of Trustees.
In November, YFC Ukraine celebrates its 20th anniversary, inviting everyone who was and is involved in the service of YFC.
YFC Ukraine is progressively developing current areas of work with young people: day centers, leadership schools, clubs and media services, and is building new partnerships with Canada, the USA, etc. countries.