Global youth ministry built, grown, and supported by long line of Liberty alumni

Youth Ministry International, the world’s largest youth mission agency, is what alumnus Dave Adams (’75, ’93) calls Liberty University’s “best kept secret.”

Adams, now the executive director of the Center for Pastoral Ministry in Liberty’s John W. Rawlings School of Divinity, is on the board of directors for YMI. He helped make the organization a reality in 1991 in partnership with fellow alumnus and current YMI President and founder Randy Smith (’86, ’98). But the pair is far from the only individuals with Liberty ties who have guided this worldwide movement in reaching young people for Christ by training youth leaders globally.

YMI has seen more than 45,000 young people come to a saving faith in Jesus Christ every year as the Louisville, Ky.-based organization serves in 37 countries. Its mission is to “evangelize and disciple the world’s youth through the local church by ‘Training the Trainers’ of indigenous youth leaders.”

The total number of churches around the globe who are currently served by YMI-trained leaders now exceeds 11,000.

YMI’s national trainees receive formal academic youth ministry training from partner educational institutions, earning certificates of completion or associate’s, bachelor’s, and master’s degrees.

Largely due to the organization’s founders having Lynchburg roots, 15 Liberty graduates have gone on to serve on YMI’s board of directors, including School of Divinity Dean Dr. Troy Temple (’94, ’97).

Alumnus Mark Roberts (’79), currently serves on the board.

“I am honored to serve on the Board of this amazing global ministry, serving along such LU greats like Gordon Luff, Randy Smith, Dave Adams, Bob Miller and others,” Roberts said. “YMI has truly exploded in its reach to the youth of the world, and young people by the scores of thousands are being reached, saved, and discipled through the pastors we are training in countries around the globe through certified courses taught in country by local seminaries. God is at work around the world, and we are blessed to be a part of His plan.”

But when Adams is asked about the organization’s founding, he gives credit to the late Dr. Jerry Falwell, Liberty’s founder. He said that without Falwell’s obedience in casting the vision given to him by the Lord to start a Christian university, the YMI leaders would have never converged at Liberty.

“I’ve always said that he could attract average people to join him with reckless abandon and they would then become more than their natural selves,” Adams said of Falwell. “The way many came to Liberty in the early days was hard to explain. It wasn’t money, it was an attraction from God. It was an environment that I had never experienced before.”

Though Dr. Falwell is remembered for impacting the world for Christ in so many ways, YMI is one of the lesser-talked about organizations that actually stemmed from his inspirational ripple effect, Adams said.

“Youth Ministry International is really the expression of the DNA of Liberty’s founding.”

The idea for the ministry began in 1988 when Smith accompanied Adams, who was serving as the senior youth pastor at Falwell’s Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg at the time, on a trip to Kenya to take part in a  Christian conference.

Adams was scheduled to speak on the topic of youth ministry and asked Smith, who was also a part of Thomas Road’s youth ministry staff, to assist him. During their presentation, pastors across the conference room wept as they began to realize that they were neglecting their youth and not recognizing the future potential that young people could have on the Church’s future.

This conference sparked a desire and awakened a calling within Smith to begin a global youth leadership training ministry in the future, which he did three years later.

YMI believes that a constant investment in young people is what will spark the greatest change for Christ globally. Adams said that churchgoers in the United States do not realize that a large population of the world’s youth reside outside the country.

According to Smith, “Only 2 percent of the world’s young people reside in America, the vast majority of the worlds 3.2 billion youth are in Asia and Africa, and 2.3 billion are unreached.”

“Due to the drastic number of unreached youth” Adams assures, “YMI will always remain committed to commissioning Gospel-sharing youth leaders throughout the world.”

For more information on YMI or how to get involved, go to the organization’s website link.

The following Liberty alumni have served with YMI or currently serve with YMI:

Board Members

Active:

• Dave Adams
• Mark Roberts
• Jason Schonfelder
• Bob Miller
• Daniel Broyles
• Paul Crouthamel
• Greg Patterson
• Gordon Luff

Former:

• Troy Temple
• Doug Randlett
• Gary Angstadt
• Jimmy Carrol
• Rob Wetzel
• Tim Parsons
• Gene Dodson

Full/Part-time Ministry Staff

Active:

• Randy Smith (Founder & President/CEO) – Home Office
• Jon Barr – Executive Director of Training Development (Home Office)
• Roberto Reyes – Missionary Trainer to Mexico (Latin America Director)
• Howard Eriksen – Home Office – Part-time Development (Also works with World Help)

Former:

• John Palm – International Trainer in Kenya
• Keith Keller – International Trainer in Ukraine
• Larry Martin – International Trainer in Kenya
• Scott Dishong – International Trainer in Kenya
• Dennis Poulette – International Trainer in Mexico, VP of Training Development-Home Office.
• Sara Collins – International Trainer in Asia
• Paul Dudley – Missions Trip Intern -Home Office