Equipping young people

The best person to tell a young person about the Gospel is another young person.  One of the main reasons people don't share their faith with their friends is lack of confidence.  We have a wonderful story to tell, we just need to become great storytellers.  We want to give young people the skills and confidence to be able to share their faith with their friends.  We are working with churches to help them develop their young people in evangelism.  We are also working with young people through gap year programmes and mentoring to build them up to share their faith effectively with their friends.  Gloucestershire has approximately 150,000 young people under the age of 25; we cannot reach them on our own, but with young people actively sharing their faith it becomes possible.

One of our three strategic priorities is equipping young people for evangelism.  If we are to see 15,000 young people in Gloucestershire respond to Christ we need as many young people as possible confident in sharing their faith.
The number one reason that people do not share their faith is because they do not feel they have the skills to do so.  Many of us are fearful of sharing our faith, whether we are young or old.  Despite our reluctance, research indicates that young people are open to hearing about Jesus.  56% of young people feel comfortable when talked to about Jesus.  1 in 6 young people want to know more about Jesus.