History
In 1938, Jim Rayburn, a young Presbyterian youth leader in Gainesville, Texas, was given a challenge. A local minister invited him to consider the neighborhood high school as his parish and develop ways of contacting kids who had no interest in church.
Rayburn started a weekly club for kids. There was singing, a skit or two and a message about Jesus Christ. Club attendance increased dramatically when they started meeting in the homes of the young people.
After graduating from Dallas Seminary, Rayburn and four other seminarians collaborated, and Young Life was officially born on October 16, 1941, with its own Board of Trustees. They developed the club idea throughout Texas, with an emphasis on showing kids that faith in God can be fun.
By 1946, Young Life had moved to a new headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and the staff had grown to 20 men and women across several states. Volunteer leadership began at Wheaton College, Illinois, in the late 1940s. This was a significant move because today we depend heavily on our 26,000 volunteers.
Prior to the 1960s, Young Life had directed its ministry almost completely to suburban high school students. By 1972 it had begun ministries in approximately 25 multiethnic and urban areas. Today, Young Life is in more than 175 urban communities meeting the unique needs of inner-city young people.
Young Life's main goal remains the same -- to reach young people across the globe with the message of Jesus Christ through establishing close friendships and winning the right to be heard. For more than six decades, God has blessed the Young Life staff, increasing its numbers from five to 3,000 -- from one club in Texas to clubs in every corner of the world. Young Life has grown from a ministry with suburban senior high school kids to a ministry to middle school kids, as well as kids in rural, multiethnic/urban and international areas, kids with disabilities and teenage mothers.