The Revealing Jesus mission framework supports effective mission to 'the 95' and is based on the four stages that most children and young people go through on their faith journey…
We’ve identified four stages in the journey that most people follow as they engage with Christianity: Connect, Explore, Respond and Grow.
The Revealing Jesus mission framework provides shaping principles for each stage but also offers flexibility in expression as we recognise that contexts – and children and young people themselves – vary hugely.
We provide Faith Guides with support and resources for all four stages and for all age-groups.
Connect
A relational opportunity with a Christian identity and increasingly deeper explicit Christian content.
Our research has shown that for children and young people to engage with faith and allow it to shape them and the world around them, they need to see how Jesus connects with their world. This stage is relatively light-touch – an opportunity to build relationship with the 95 and to start to introduce the Christian faith. It’s a chance to meet the 95 with activities of common interest, to engage with their world in a relevant and reliable way.
Explore
Time to uncover greater understanding from the Bible about Jesus, the Bible itself and the Christian faith.
As the relationship forms between the Faith Guide and the 95, and they begin to show more interest in the Christian faith, this stage is about offering opportunities to learn more together through engaging with the Bible in a place where it’s safe to question, reflect and discover. We’ll be providing resources that help children and young people engage from wherever their start-point is, whether they know the Bible well or have never seen it before.
Respond
Further exploration of the Christian faith and a clear invitation to respond to Jesus.
As a result of the exploration, it’s our hope and prayer that the 95 will choose to respond positively to the Jesus they are discovering, whether through a single moment of clarity or, as is more likely for these generations, a gradual realisation over time. This stage offers clear, tangible opportunities for children and young people to respond personally to what they are learning.
Grow
A culturally appropriate worshipping community that enables the faith of the 95 to flourish.
Once the 95 have responded in this way, or while they are seriously considering it, they need a time and space, within a supportive Christian community, to grow in their faith and to express it in worship: an environment where the children and young people themselves can be part of determining what worship might look like and what other aspects of community life will help them grow strong as Christians, within a local church context and accountable to its leadership.
Supporting children and young people through these stages forms the very heart of the Revealing Jesus framework.
Grow Communities
communities that enable the faith of
the 95 to flourish in their commitment
to Jesus.
The Revealing Jesus mission framework
Pray with us
It is so important that we lift this all up in prayer. Please join us in praying for the 95, and for churches and Faith Guides who are already walking alongside them, as well as those Faith Guides yet to come! Pray that through many churches coming together in mission, many children and young people may come to know Jesus and develop a personal, vibrant faith in him.
If you would like daily prayer pointers to guide your prayers, subscribe for free to Connecting You, our supporter and prayer magazine, or use our online prayer diary.