Youth ministry needs more than good intentions.
Australian youth ministry is not short of goodwill. It is short of people who will pray for it, speak for it, and provide for it. That is what the Fellowship is.
Join the FellowshipTakes about a minute
Australian youth ministry is not short of goodwill. It is short of people who will pray for it, speak for it, and provide for it. That is what the Fellowship is.
Good material is not the scarce thing. Curriculum, training and term plans all assume somebody is there to lead youth through them. In most Australian churches, nobody is.
of Australian churches had no youth minister at all
Encouragement asks a volunteer to carry out youth ministry in whatever hours are left after everything else. A church that values youth ministry does not leave it to the 5th of 6th hire to employ one.
had a full-time youth minister
The few who are trained, paid and properly supported cannot cover the country between them. And in a quarter of churches there is no one for them to reach.
had no young people aged 12–18 involved in anything
Source · Stanton & Pepper, Journal of Empirical Theology (2025), from the 2016 National Church Life Survey. Church-level samples, n = 1,763–2,041.
None of this is permenant. Part-time roles, thin support and experienced leaders leaving early are the result of decisions, and decisions can be remade. God is the one who grows faith in a young person, and that has never depended on our arrangements. It does mean the arrangements are worth getting right.
Join the Fellowship
Praying for youth ministry.
Promoting youth ministry as a vocation.
Providing for the work that lies ahead.
Choose any of the three. None of them commits you to the others, and you can change what you have chosen whenever you like.
What you are saying yes to
A few minutes a month
Month of Prayer runs each November, and a short prayer note goes out through the year. Real people, actual churches, specific needs. Nothing so general that you could pray it for anyone.
One conversation at a time
Say it to your minister. Say it at your church council. And say it to the person in your congregation who is good with young people and has never been told this is a ministry worth giving to.
Tax-deductible Donations
Gifts to YMF train youth ministers and those studying to become one, sustain the ones already in the field, and fund the partnerships that place a paid youth minister in a church that could not carry the cost alone. Gifts are tax-deductible. Nothing is asked for on this page. Ticking Provide starts the conversation.
Who is asking
We are based in Parkville, on Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Country, and we work across denominations rather than inside one. We are early on. Four programs are running now, each of them small, and the numbers below are the honest size of the work.
Month of Prayer
A national month of prayer each November, open to anyone who wants to take part.
Pipeline
Two years of formation for theological students heading into youth ministry, and for early-career youth ministers. 12 in the current intake, with a second intake now running online.
Leaders’ Cohorts
Peer supervision for experienced youth ministers, meeting every four to six weeks. 14 members.
Residential
An annual formation intensive, with optional accredited study through Ridley College. 51 took part in 2026.
Figures as at August 2026.
The partnership
Most churches that want a youth minister cannot fund one on their own. The Project is a multi-year partnership that places a full-time youth minister in a church, with YMF and the church sharing the cost and the church taking on more of it over time.
The first partnership began July 2026
Prayer and praise
Each year the Residential opens out into a public evening of prayer and praise for young people and those who serve them. In June 2026 more than 100 people gathered at St Paul’s Cathedral, Melbourne.
It is the people who pray for this work, speak for it, and provide for it. There is no version of this work that happens without those three elements.