In 1967, a leadership community club dedicated to mentoring students in their faith began in Bloomington. In the beginning, the club did not have a lot of consistent adult support to keep it going and, as a result, shut down in the mid-’70s. During the late ’90s, a few IU students restarted the club in Bloomington, and it still exists today.
This leadership community is called Young Life.
“The mission of Young Life is to introduce adolescents to grow in their faith through relationships and social gatherings,” Young Life Area Director Jeff Mahrt said.
Young Life is a Christian Leadership community that consists mainly of a group of college students volunteering to go through a series of training to visit high schools and middle schools in the area and mentor students in ?their faith.
“The training process is definitely a lot more formal than I thought it’d be,” said freshman Young Life leadership member Jordan Miller. “We had to go through an interview process, area process, tests, memorizing verses and filling out forms.”
The purpose of this training is to help college students learn what it means to be a Christian leader and to help them grow in their faith so they can pass their leadership knowledge on to others.
What’s really important for these new leaders is discussing how to live with wisdom and integrity as well as putting the Bible into context, Mahrt said. Young Life has a curriculum for these leaders they have created and adapted to help accomplish their training goals. After about six months of training, they are placed into different teams for ?different schools.
“All the training in the end was worth it because you get to be such a strong and positive influence in these high school kid’s lives,” Miller said.
Young Life leaders are mainly volunteers ranging from college freshmen to seniors. They are not only focused on ministry in these communities but also on making strong relationships with high school students in the community.
Most of these leaders spend the majority of their college career involved in Young Life. These students said they spend their free time volunteering because they appreciate the relationships they make in the community and want to continue making a difference in kids’ lives with their leadership.
“It’s important because it’s the ability to be friends with high school students, be impactful in their lives and be friends when they need somebody,” junior leadership member Nick Boyd said. “It’s not about whether you come to Young Life or not, we just want to be friends with ?students, and it’s something I would’ve loved in high school, and it’s something that I think students and a community needs.”
The leadership group plans to continue to grow and build up Young Life throughout the coming years as well as have more kids come with the desire to build relationships and strengthen ?their faith.
“The fact that I get to spend time with high school kids and share our lives together while growing in our faith is amazing,” Boyd said.
