Fuller Youth Institute Receives $810,000 in Grants for Innovative Ministry Research

The Fuller Youth Institute (FYI) and Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena are getting additional funding of up to $810,000 for a new wave of research designed to strengthen churches’ youth ministry throughout the U.S.

Fuller announced the new grants at its recent Engaging Young People Summit, which gathered key national leaders from 15 denominations and scholars and heads of church training organizations to focus on the challenges and opportunities of ministry to young people. The denominations in attendance represented over 63 percent of the adult Christian population in the United States.

The funds are coming from Lilly Endowment Inc., an Indianapolis-based private philanthropic foundation, and the Sacred Harvest Foundation based in Costa Mesa.

According to an FYI release, the new research will build on Fuller’s three-year Churches Engaging Young People Project, which studied the best practices of churches that excelled in ministering with young people ages 15 to 29. More than 250 churches were part of the study that included surveys and interviews with 474 young people and 799 adults.

With the additional funding, FYI will continue the study on outstanding churches nationwide, and aid the development of a vast toolkit of ministry resources for public release in the fall of 2016.

The new funding will also enable Fuller to pursue its Youth Ministry Innovations project that will leverage resources from the Churches Engaging Young People Project to blaze new paths in youth ministry.

“While past research and ministry efforts have helped young people journey toward adulthood, there is widespread agreement that new, more mature, and more systemic strategies are needed to help them navigate an increasingly challenging world,” Kara Powell, executive director of the FYI, said. “These projects are poised to help guide today’s young people by weaving together two of our highest values and missional priorities – innovation and collaboration.”