Leaders Claim 20 Youth Can Ignite 500,000 Followers
At this week’s Asia Evangelical Leadership Forum (AELF), younger leaders unveiled a bold plan focused on empowering and equipping a new generation of disciple-makers. This effort is part of one of the forum’s main priorities: youth empowerment. Two co-leaders, Vania Christian from Indonesia and Jerome Yashodhan Rasiah from Sri Lanka, presented their vision and findings, highlighting that young people across Asia are not only open to the Gospel but have the potential to spark spiritual revival in their communities.
Christian and Rasiah emphasized the importance of viewing youth not as a problem but as a solution already in motion. They proposed a simple yet powerful strategy: encourage each young believer to disciple one other youth annually over the next decade. This approach, while modest in scale per individual, could lead to a large cumulative impact. Their research identified that roughly 20% of young people involved in churches and ministries today show the spiritual maturity and commitment needed to become effective disciple-makers.
The leaders also addressed significant obstacles to this movement, including external factors like poverty and family responsibilities that limit participation, as well as internal issues such as inconsistency in personal faith and a lack of strong mentorship in many churches. They pointed out that while some churches have youth groups, the mentoring quality often falls short, with many mentors themselves lacking proper discipleship training.
To implement their vision, Rasiah outlined a threefold strategy involving the “head,” “heart,” and “hand.” This means building a theological and intellectual case to church leaders, inspiring emotional commitment through stories of successful youth discipleship, and developing practical tools to help churches identify leaders, train mentors, and create supportive environments. He projected that if just 20 youths in each of 20 Asian countries discipled one new believer per year, it could result in over 100,000 new disciples within eight years — with even greater numbers possible by expanding the effort.
As one of four major initiatives at the AELF, the youth empowerment strategy aims to mobilize Asia’s young Christians to take on a vital role in spreading faith. Christian and Rasiah concluded by stressing that this generation is ready to step up, provided they receive proper recognition, training, and encouragement. “The best time to start is now,” Christian said. “God can still use this generation for His glory.”