Portugal
About Youth for Christ Portugal
Youth for Christ started in Portugal in the late 1950s through missionary groups that came to sing in churches. These groups came from the USA, then in the 1960’s God raised a person in Portugal to lead the ministry. In the following years, Youth for Christ Portugal grew, using creative ministries and sports for this purpose. In the 1980s it even had a training center for young people.
Open air ministry activity.
The ministry of Youth for Christ had periods of great influence in the 80s and 90s, where many young people were awakened and won for the Kingdom of God. In 2018, after a long lapse in leadership, an evaluation was done of Youth for Christ Portugal. It was decided to do leadership training in Brazil in 2019 and establish a partnership. In the meantime, God had raised a couple of missionaries to come to Portugal.
In 2020 two young women went to Brazil to take the Youth Leader course, and National Director Rui Pereira was left to run the ministry. Ministry started to grow during the time of COVID-19 because God moved among the young people, adults, and pastors. During the year 2020 we built the Board of Directors, the fiscal council, held general meetings, and wrote some projects for the 2021 action plan. The God of the improbable acted and everything happened, and the best is yet to come.
The vision for the future for Youth for Christ Portugal is very positive. God showed us three cities where we will survey workers/volunteers in order to identify needs for a second phase. We want to train young leaders from churches to work with Youth for Christ. We also desire to launch a book containing our vision and mission and even partner with Portuguese-speaking African countries.
Youth for Christ seeks to reach young people in Portugal using the following ministries:
- Bible clubs/studies
- camps
- children’s ministry
- clubs
- conferences & seminars
- correspondence courses
- counseling
- drama
- evangelism
- HIV/AIDS education
- internet/online ministry
- prayer ministry
- prayer triplets
- Rock Solid program
- sports ministry
- street kids ministry
- programs for troubled/at-risk youth
- social work